Brand Builders Part 7: Do You Use Your Brand Standards to Save Time & Money?

Building Brand Standards With Better Guidelines

A big part of building your brand is to have clearly defined, detailed out brand standards. Now, it starts with the brand identity itself, you know, the logo, you need to have that logo and all the different versions. Full color, three color, two color, one color, black and white, reversed out: every conceivable way. Right there on the page, so that everybody can see it. And you need to know where on the server, those files are in every conceivable version, so that if somebody needs to go screen print a shirt, silkscreen a hat, embroider a jacket, whatever it might be, you’ve got all the files right there.

But look, it goes further than that. In your brand standards, you need to have the Pantone numbers, the RGB conversions, the CMYK, is every conceivable way that you’re going to need to have somebody access your logo files, and touch your colors, they need to be very clear on what the right colors are. And you know, it’s weird. Monitors are calibrated differently, so, it might look different on one computer than it does on the other. Printers are calibrated differently. So, in your office printer, it’s going to look different than if you send a project out to a digital printer, which is going to look different than if you send it out to an offset press. You know, where they roll the big papers through.

So, all those different ones, you need to have every version so that your blue is your blue, your red is your red. Because trust me, there are like 1000 different color combinations. You want to make sure you have the right ones every time. Also, in the brand standards, it should go beyond just the brand identity. You need to have your mission statement, your vision statement, your values, your culture. Everything all detailed out. Your voice, how exactly do you talk to people, your PR philosophies, how your emails need to be laid out, what your email signature needs to look like. Every conceivable thing, anytime anybody’s going to touch your logo, it all needs to be detailed right there so that it doesn’t change over time.

Because that’s what happens. You send your logo off to someone because they’re going to make a shirt, make a sign or make a brochure and they say, “Oh, hey, it’s almost Halloween. I’m going to do this in black and orange.” “Oh, hey, it’s almost Christmas, I’m going to do this in red and green.” Those are not acceptable colors for your logo, right? Or maybe they’re like, “Oh, I only have so much space. So, I’m going to scrunch it up a little bit.” No, no, no, you need enough white space around it so we can breathe.

So, don’t let other people devalue your brand identity because that’s what’s going to happen. That consistency is part of the way that you build value. So, when you’re building a brand, the brand identity is a big part of that. So, make sure that you have brand standards and guidelines. So, everybody knows what to do, how to do it, and they’re all on the same page. That’s how you’re going to build your brand.