Brands are valuable and fragile things that need to be cared for, nurtured , respected and loved. Brand guidelines/books/guides/bibles should be the go-to documents when anybody needs to understand or create anything to do with your brand.
At 10, we often call ourselves the Brand Police. Why? Because we’re obsessed with brand consistency and we believe that the best brands stick in our minds because of the consistent repetition of brandmarks, colour, fonts, images, tone of voice and overall execution. Only through managing brands in this way will you build true customer recognition, loyalty and devotion. We are the brand guardians for several brands and take this responsibility very seriously.
We’ve created some simple (not always) brand guidelines for a variety of businesses, big and small. Some of them are beautiful creations in their own right – we take time to make a document that ultimately works for everybody who needs to use them – otherwise the old joke of the ‘Brand Pack’ that sits getting dusty on the top shelf in a lonely corner of the office becomes all too true.
Every little detail has to be considered when putting together a set of guidelines. We even build them for brands we haven’t created so they have the very best chance to live and grow. All good guidelines should evolve alongside the business, constantly building brand reputation through consistency.
Brand guidelines – the cumulation of everything you need to tell a compelling brand story with a unified vision.
A word paints a thousand pictures, and how we verbalise the essence of a brand comes from its authentic voice. We make a brand’s tone of voice as recognisable as its brandmark, otherwise nobody will listen and it won’t cut through the noise.
Bringing a brand to life – AB Agri