WHY BRAND GUIDELINES MATTER Brand guidelines are the set of rules that define the overall look and feel of your brand. They help you build a brand identity that your audience can recognize across all platforms.

These rules are really crucial when it comes to brand consistency. Whether your business is large or small, brand guidelines are used to help your brand work effectively.

A style guide puts rules in place not to limit creativity, but to keep your brand identity consistent and recognizable. It provides all of the instructions you need to communicate the right messages in the right manner every time you create new marketing materials for your company.

Here's the reasons why you should consider creating a brand guideline for your business:

1. Your team will work faster

When the brainstorming begins, these brand standards can quickly help you weed out the “wrong” ideas and narrow down your best options.

2. Consumers respond to consistency

The power of consistency comes from the fact that repetition drives brand recognition. Just using the same brand color scheme can greatly increase the amount of consumers who can identify you, so when all of your brand elements come together, you can expect results.

3. You’ll stand out from the crowd

Unsuccessful brands do not give priority to the brand consistency and they usually have a very chaotic unmemorable visual identity.

The ones who invest in branding stand out from the rest. That catches the eye of the consumers.

4. Your brand becomes more tangible

Brand guidelines help you pull together all the elements that make up who you are, so you can build an identity beyond what you sell. Your customers will be able to visualize what you stand for when they hear your name.

5. Solid branding boosts loyalty

Consumers develop emotional connections with companies that share the same core values, and your brand guidelines help you translate those values to your audience in a unique way. ________________________________

1. Research the field/industry and create a moodboard. It helps to get e sense of the environment where the business is operating, to know the trends and the competition. 2. Get to know the client. Get to know their vision, what they do/offer, likes and dislikes, color and design style preferences, goals and inspirations, target audience, dos and don'ts... 3. Sketch and present the initial ideas. Previous experiences have demonstrated that 2-3 concepts are more than enough when you put creativity and professionalism into your work. 90% of the clients have chosen one of the first 2 concepts. 4. Revise. Finalizing the most preferred concept, obtaining an almost perfect final version of the logo. Sometimes clients choose to mix 2 logo concepts from the ones I have presented and obtain something more suitable to their needs and expectations. 5. Create the set of rules that will lead the brand to reach the ideal consistency. 6. Design the business card and email signature following the guidelines and keeping the consistency with the other elements of the brand. 7. Revise everything to optimize the final versions. 8. Organize the final deliverables. Prepare the files for the final package (logo files + brand guidelines + businesscard + email signature).