What belongs in a brand manual?

What a brand manual is for

A brand manual, also called a brand guide or style guide, is the reference for everyone who creates something on behalf of your organisation: colleagues, freelancers, the print shop, the web developer. The goal is simple. Anyone who opens the manual should know within a minute which logo to use, in which colour and with which font.

So a good manual is not an art book. It is a toolbox. The faster people find what they need, the more often the manual gets used.

The essential parts

These parts belong in every brand manual, however small your organisation:

• Logo: all variants (horizontal, stacked, symbol), on light and dark backgrounds, with clear space, minimum size and examples of what not to do.
• Colours: primary and secondary colours with codes for screen (HEX and RGB) and print (CMYK and Pantone where relevant).
• Typography: which fonts you use for headings and body text, and the fallback when the font is not available.
• Imagery: what kind of photos and illustrations suit your brand, and what does not.
• Tone of voice: how you write. Formal or informal, businesslike or light, which words you do and do not use.

What is often missing

Most manuals stop after logo, colours and fonts. It is the parts after that which decide whether the manual works in practice.

• Applications: examples on a business card, a social post, a presentation and an email signature. People would rather copy an example than read rules.
• Templates: ready-made files for things that come up often, such as a quote, a PowerPoint or a LinkedIn image.
• Downloadable files: the logo in SVG, PNG and EPS, the fonts, the colour codes ready to copy.
• Owner and contact: who manages the brand, and who can you ask?
• Version and date: so everyone knows they are looking at the latest version.

How detailed should it be?

Less than you think. A sixty-page manual is rarely read in full. Start with the parts that most often go wrong: the logo, the colours and a few templates. Expand when questions come in.

A handy rule of thumb: every rule in the manual should answer a question someone actually asks. If you get a question twice, the answer belongs in the manual.

PDF or online?

Many organisations keep their brand manual as a PDF. That works as long as nothing changes. As soon as there is a new logo, an extra colour or a new template, different versions start circulating and nobody knows which one is right.

An online brand manual does not have that problem. There is one address, always the latest version, and the files sit right next to it. You decide per person what they can see and download.