A brand guide (or brand manual) takes the soul of your brand (its mission, vision and values) and translates it into design. It contains instructions and rules on how to communicate a brand, covering aspects of its identity such as use of the logo, colors, typography, visual elements, communication tone, personality, among others.
Unfortunately, it is very common for companies, especially smaller ones, not to have a brand manual, failing to maintain consistency in their communication. The manual is extremely important to keep it in all materials created, helping to reinforce brand recognition.
Earlier we talked about what an Art Bible is and its importance to the development team, but what makes it different from a brand guide?
The brand guide will mostly guide the designers, the marketing and social team when creating pieces and developing campaigns for social media and promotional materials (such as banners and videos). In other words, while the Art Bible helps in the development of the game, the brand guide is all the effort aimed at marketing it.
How to make a brand guide?
Each brand manual will have its own items, as not all will need to be used. But it is always important to explain as much as you can about each item, in order to avoid misunderstandings and holes in possible applications.
For our explanation, I’m going to focus on a company manual and I’m going to use images from several different manuals to exemplify the structure. The final format of the manual varies a lot: you can create a PDF either for print or for online distribution, or, as many brands that are 100% online have done, the manual can be allocated to pages on your website and can be distributed as needed. the existing topics (eg: one page talks about colors and typography, another talks about icons and images that can be used, etc. One example is the brand of Atlassian, owner of Trello, which categorically made all their material available online without need for a printed version).A estrutura básica de um manual contém:
Company mini bio
Here you can tell a little about the company’s history, where it is located, what its work focuses, vision, mission and values and other details that are worth telling;
Logo and its uses
In this section we focus on the logo. We can give a brief history about it and its creation, and we include its usage variations, whether it is used image and typography separately (and, if so, where each is used), its vertical and horizontal versions, and positive and negative versions.
Security Area
The security area of the logo and the minimum size can also be placed in this section, both for print and for digital. It also applies if the logo has an icon: specify for this variation as well.
Incorrect uses of logo / prohibitions
In this part we define what cannot be done with the logo and its elements: for example, we cannot deform it, rotate it, change its colors, put shadows, apply it to colored backgrounds that hinder legibility, etc.
Institutional colors
Here we need to indicate the official colors of the brand. We usually use one to three primary colors, and some secondary colors that are used on certain occasions or in specific situations. The colors need to be harmonic in their combination so as not to generate communication noise.
- The forms of identification should be: RBG, CMYK, Hexadecimal and Pantone.
For printing, the Pantone system is used, which is the most used catalog in the world and is a world reference for colors. CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) is also used, which is the color combination for printing and should have a visual equivalence to your Pantone.
For digital versions we have RBG (Red, Green and Blue), and Hexadecimal (ex. #001100) which works for the web world.
Typography
Your brand needs to specify how many fonts will be needed to define your communication. A good tip is to use a different font than the logo, so the contrast helps you stand out.
The ideal is to use one font for titles and another for plain text, but other sources of support are welcome. To show them, we put all their characters, lowercase and uppercase letters from A to Z and the numbers from 0 to 9.
Applications
Show who will manage the brand how to use it in different situations, combining all the elements mentioned above.
Foursquare logo application on colored backgrounds and photographic backgrounds
Extras
If it fits the brand’s proposal, create a section with icon styles and patterns relevant to it.
And what is the difference between the company’s and the game’s brand guide?
Generally speaking, there is not much difference when it comes to the construction of these manuals, as the content structure does not vary. What changes is how the company logo and game logos will be approached.
Many companies don’t make brand guides of games, as their visual direction speaks for itself. Companies make extensive use of assets that artists and developers have made, creating trailers, putting up concepts for the public to see, etc. And it is often done in a fluid way, without being bound by any rules. They are based on the colors and typography used within the game to sell it in the media.
What is the best way to approach a brand guide?
Your brand must be more than selling a product or service: you need to show the world why your company is chosen, and its manual will help in this recognition, consolidating its importance in the market. While there are manuals that are as big as books, others can fit on one page. It all depends on your business needs. The important thing is that the brand guide acts as a reference for all future design and communication projects of the company.
Read all our Art Direction Posts
Image by William Iven on Pixabay
