Remember the days of clunky brand books and 100-page PDFs full of dos and don'ts from the brand or marketing department? You know, the ones that often ended up getting buried deep on a hard drive where nobody could ever find them? Let alone read them.
And while many of them may have included plenty of helpful guidelines for how to correctly use brand assets in different situations, they're generally not readily available in those very situations, making the examples far less helpful.
The biggest problem with static brand
guides is that they're ... static.
These old-fashioned guides put a lot of pressure on the average brand-illiterate employee to either memorize every use case and rule when they first get the guide, or go dig up a copy every time they're about to create something new. Considering the first option is pretty unrealistic (sorry Brand Managers!) they're left with the digging option. This adds yet another layer of context-switching to the content creation process, and they also need to locate the latest assets. You can imagine the drop in productivity, not to mention brand consistency.
Say hello to Brand
Our Brand module is a dynamic new web-based brand guide and hub for all your guidelines, assets, colors, custom fonts, and more.
This addition to Pickit is a perfect companion to DAM, built into our existing Digital Asset Management platform. It's a modern Brand Management solution that connects your end-users to the relevant brand assets and accompanying information about how to use them in an intuitive portal that's both appealing and accessible.
Common problems a Brand Guide can solve
While we're sure you know the importance of creating a Brand Guide in the first place, it's worth reminding ourselves of some of the problems faced when we either don't have one, or don't make it available in the right channels.
These include: lack of clarity around what your brand values are, and your brand identity; poor implementation or misuse of brand assets, logos, typography, and templates; lack of access to guidelines, documents, and assets; external stakeholders not getting access to valuable information about the company; and employees using out-of-date material. And the list goes on.
How to structure your Brand Guide
When we switched on the BETA version of Brand here at Pickit and built our own Brand Guide, we decided to bundle these problems into three categories and structure our guide to meet those main groups of needs. Of course you can create as many categories, sections, and sub-guides as you like, but our structure is a good place to start.
#1: The About section
From the About section of our own Brand Guide at Pickit
One of the challenges facing organizations is communicating the soft stuff you can't download, print, or take a screenshot of. We're talking about a company's personality, identity, mission, vision, and values. The things that create the culture of the brand, and that help people get a feel for who you are, not just what you do or what product you're selling.
Most companies have a mission statement somewhere, and probably some core values. They might even be hanging in frames on the office walls, but beyond that, many organizations neglect to keep them top of mind so employees can continually be prompted to embody them – and to own the culture of the company. In addition, by not making them readily available to agencies, distributors, and resellers, it leads to less clarity and more work whenever you're sending a brief or sharing material with external stakeholders and partners.
Our web-based Brand Guide provides a purpose-built portal that's both modern, dynamic, and accessible where you can store and share this valuable material.
Examples of things you can include in About:
- Mission and vision statements
- Corporate values
- Communication principles
- Personality and tone of voice
- Company story and history
#2: The Guidelines section
From the Guidelines section of our own Brand Guide at Pickit
We already covered this in the introduction, but this is your brand bible. The ultimate guide and rule book for all things brand, from handling colors to cropping images, to logo placement and how to tackle typography.
The biggest challenge isn't choosing whether to call it a brand book, brand guide, or style guide, but getting people to actually read it. And remember it. And follow it. Taking it online is a huge step in the right direction here, making it much easier for people to access and actually implement your guidelines.
Examples of things you can include in Guidelines:
- Logos
- Colors
- Typography
- Icons and illustrations
- Communication guidelines
- Design system
#3: The Assets section
From the Assets section of our own Brand Guide at Pickit
Imagine sending a Brand Guide to your team explaining how to use assets and actually bundling the assets together with the guide so they're at everyone's fingertips when they need them. The built-in asset library means you never need to cross your fingers that people will find the right files after reading the guidelines again – they'll always be just a click away.
Examples of things you can include in Assets:
- Logos
- Virtual backgrounds
- Product shots
- Campaign material
- Videos
Sharing your guide to your preferred channels
Using Brand, you can instantly share your guidelines and assets with your admins, teams, and/or selected users inside Microsoft 365, Google Workspace and other channels.
Schedule a demo or try it today
So, if you're still emailing brand guidelines via PDF, or asking people to dig through guides stored in random folders in the cloud, then you're precisely the person we've created Brand for. For those of you already using BAM and/or DAM, we kept you in mind when we were building this too. As always, one of our aims was to simplify, and Brand is designed to remove the complication from every stage of the brand management lifecycle, so you can fully focus on developing your assets, campaigns, and brand strategy.
Reap the benefits of working with our dynamic, accessible-everywhere brand guidelines tool Brand and ensure your guidelines reach their intended audience and that your assets are effectively leveraged to build your brand.
