Brand Guidelines: What to Include (Structure and Template)

Brand guidelines (also called a brand manual or brand book) are the document that lets anyone work with your brand: a designer, a printer, whoever runs your website, a new hire. They set out the logo versions and how to use them, exact colour codes for screen and print, typefaces, image style, tone of voice and a list of files. A small business can start with one page; full guidelines pay off once several people and suppliers use the brand.

Summary

• A one-page version covers logo, colours, type and files. Full guidelines add imagery, tone, templates and rules for web, social media and print.
• Every colour needs three values: HEX or RGB for screens, CMYK for standard print and Pantone if you print an exact shade.
• Clear space, minimum size and examples of wrong use save the most revision rounds.
• Guidelines are a living document: a version number, a date, one owner and a link to the current files.

What are brand guidelines, and when does a business need them?

The logo is the mark, the brand identity is the system around it, and the guidelines explain how to use that system. We cover the difference between the three, and what a logo project should deliver, in Logo Design and Brand Identity: What Drives the Price.

Short guidelines (one or two pages) are enough when the brand is handled by you, one designer and one printer. Think of a café, a tradesperson or a consultancy.

Full guidelines (dozens of pages) pay off once branches, sales staff, outside agencies and signage makers all use the brand. Without them you soon end up with five shades of "the same" blue and three typefaces on one flyer.

What should brand guidelines include? A chapter-by-chapter structure

Most publicly available guidelines follow roughly this order. In a short version, each chapter shrinks to a few lines.

1. Logo and its versions

Show the primary logo and every approved variant: full colour, black and white, reversed for dark backgrounds and, where needed, the symbol alone for small spaces. State when each one is used. Spotify keeps it simple: the green logo only on black or white, a monochrome logo on any other colour, black on light and white on dark.

2. Clear space and minimum size

Clear space is the empty area around the logo that no text or other element may enter. Define it by a part of the logo itself, not in millimetres, so it holds at any size. Spotify sets its exclusion zone at half the height of its icon and a minimum logo size of 70 px on screen and 20 mm in print, or 21 px and 6 mm for the icon alone.

3. Wrong use

The page of crossed-out examples is the most read part of any guidelines. Spotify forbids rotating, stretching or recolouring its logo, changing its composition, placing it on busy or low-contrast backgrounds and using it as a letter in a sentence. Show the same on your own logo: pictures explain this better than text.

If partners or the press use your logo too, add who may use it and for what. NASA, for example, states that strict rules govern the use of its insignia and logotype and that these marks are not in the public domain.

4. Colours in RGB and HEX, CMYK and Pantone

Give three values for every colour:

• HEX and RGB for screens. Both the #rrggbb notation and rgb() in CSS define a colour in the sRGB space (W3C), so your web developer can use them directly.
• CMYK for standard print. Also state which printing condition the values are for. The European Color Initiative publishes separate profiles for coated paper (PSO Coated v3, FOGRA51) and uncoated paper (PSO Uncoated v3, FOGRA52), both based on ISO 12647-2:2013 for offset printing (ECI). The same CMYK numbers do not look the same on different paper.
• Pantone for an exact shade. Pantone publishes its guide for both coated and uncoated paper and lists the closest CMYK matches for its spot colours, not exact equivalents.

The EU emblem is a good model. Implementing Regulation 821/2014 defines the blue as Pantone Reflex Blue, in four-colour print as 100% cyan and 80% magenta, and on the web as #003399. The yellow is Pantone Yellow, 100% yellow and #FFCC00. It also covers coloured backgrounds: the emblem gets a white border 1/25 of its height wide.

Add the colour balance too (primary, secondary, neutral) and which shades may be used for backgrounds and text.

5. Typography

Name the typefaces for headings and body text, the weights you use, and a fallback for Word, email and presentations, where the brand typeface may not be installed. For paid fonts, note who holds the licence and for how many devices. Add a sample hierarchy: heading, subheading, body, caption.

6. Photography, illustration and icons

Describe the photo style (light, colour, people or products, what not to shoot), the rules for illustrations and one icon set with a consistent line weight. Two or three "yes" and "no" examples say more than a paragraph.

7. Tone of voice

Guidelines are not only visual. In its public style guide, Mailchimp separates voice, which stays the same, from tone, which changes with the situation and how the reader feels. For a Slovak business this is also where you decide between formal and informal address, how you write the company name, words you avoid, and one sample of copy before and after editing.

8. Layouts and templates

Grid, margins and logo placement on business cards, letterhead, invoices, presentations and flyers. Ideally with a link to ready-made templates people can download, rather than instructions on how to build them.

9. Web and social media

Profile picture (usually the symbol alone), button and link colours, favicon and post templates. For text colours, think about legibility: under WCAG, body text needs a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 against its background and large text 3:1, while logos are exempt (W3C). Check profile and cover image sizes in each platform's help centre, as they change.

10. Print

Bleed, recommended paper stocks, and logo versions for single-colour print, embroidery, engraving or vehicle wraps. Spotify, for instance, warns against over-saturated colours in CMYK printing.

11. File list and naming

A table of every file, its format and use, plus a link to one shared folder with the current version. Name files consistently, for example company-logo-colour-rgb.svg, company-logo-reversed-cmyk.pdf, company-symbol-white-512.png. The name should tell you what the file is without opening it.

What does a one-page brand guidelines template look like?

This is a minimum version you can put together from your delivered logo files:

How do you keep brand guidelines up to date?

• A version number and date on the cover, a change log at the end.
• One owner who approves exceptions and new applications.
• One link to the current PDF and files, not attachments buried in old emails.
• A review once a year or whenever a new application appears, such as a new branch or online shop.

The Slovak government does this at scale: the ID-SK design system for public-sector websites and e-services has numbered versions, typography, a colour palette and a component library in Figma, and lets anyone propose a new component or a change to an existing one.

What are the most common mistakes?

• RGB colours only. The printer converts to CMYK themselves, each one slightly differently.
• CMYK without a print profile. Nobody knows which paper the numbers are for.
• Pantone picked on a monitor. Choose the shade from a printed guide.
• No examples of wrong use. People then stretch and recolour the logo.
• Rules without files. A PDF of rules is no help if someone grabs the logo from Google Images.
• Too much for a small business. Nobody reads a hundred pages; a single page actually gets used.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between brand guidelines, a logo manual and a design manual?

In practice the terms are used interchangeably. A logo manual sometimes means a narrower version covering only the logo, clear space and colours. Brand guidelines or a brand manual usually also cover type, imagery, tone and templates.

How many pages should brand guidelines have?

As many as people will actually use. One or two pages suit a small business; a company with branches and suppliers needs more. The places your brand appears set the scope, not the number of chapters in a template.

What format should brand guidelines be in?

Most often a PDF you can send to a printer, with a shared folder of files alongside it. Larger brands such as Spotify and Mailchimp publish theirs as web pages that can be updated without sending out new versions.

Can I put together brand guidelines myself?

A short version, yes, if you have the logo as a vector file and colours in all three systems. If any of that is missing, sort out the source files first, or the guidelines will only document the mess.

Do brand guidelines need updating after every change?

After a change to the logo, colours or type, yes; a new template only needs a new section. Always raise the version number so it is clear which document applies.

Not sure whether your brand needs full guidelines or just tidier files and colours? Ask for a free marketing diagnostic or see how Before It Was Cool approaches graphic design.