Short answer: a brand style guide should include your brand foundation, the full logo suite, clear space and minimum size rules, logo misuse examples, colour codes (HEX, RGB, CMYK, Pantone), a typography system with a defined type scale, layout and grid rules, iconography, photography direction, illustration and motion notes, tone of voice standards, and real applications with governance rules. Twelve sections, no filler.
Most guides that land in a client’s inbox fail for one reason: they document what the brand looks like without telling anyone what to do. A designer can read a mood board. A sales manager building a deck at 6pm cannot. Below is the section-by-section structure we use when we build documentation that internal teams actually follow, along with what each section should contain, what it should look like, and what usually goes wrong.
Quick overview: the 12 sections at a glance
| # | Section | What it answers | Typical page count |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brand foundation | Who we are and what we stand for | 3 to 6 |
| 2 | Logo suite and lockups | Which mark to use where | 4 to 8 |
| 3 | Clear space and minimum size | How much room the logo needs | 2 |
| 4 | Logo misuse and backgrounds | What is forbidden | 2 to 4 |
| 5 | Colour system | Exact values and ratios | 3 to 5 |
| 6 | Typography and type scale | Which font at which size | 4 to 6 |
| 7 | Layout, grid and spacing | How pages are built | 3 to 5 |
| 8 | Iconography and graphic devices | The supporting visual kit | 2 to 4 |
| 9 | Photography direction | What to shoot and what to reject | 4 to 8 |
| 10 | Illustration, motion and sound | How the brand moves | 2 to 6 |
| 11 | Tone of voice and copy rules | How the brand sounds and writes | 4 to 8 |
| 12 | Applications and governance | Templates, files, approvals | 5 to 15 |
1. Brand foundation: the strategy layer
Everything downstream is arbitrary without this. The foundation section is short but it is the part that stops a marketing hire from redesigning the brand in their first month.
- Positioning statement: one paragraph on category, audience, and point of difference.
- Mission and vision: what the company does today and where it is going.
- Brand values: three to five, each with a one line behavioural definition. “Bold” means nothing. “We publish the price” means something.
- Audience snapshots: two or three primary segments with the language they use.
- Brand personality: often expressed as sliders (formal vs casual, technical vs plain, playful vs serious).
What studios actually deliver: a two page summary, not a 40 slide strategy deck. The full strategy lives in a separate document. The guide only carries the conclusions people need in order to make a decision.
2. Logo suite and lockups
The single most consulted section of any guide. It should present every approved version of the mark and, crucially, state when to use each one.
What to document
- Primary logo (the default, used unless a rule says otherwise)
- Secondary and horizontal / stacked variants
- Symbol, monogram or icon only version, with the rule for when the wordmark can be dropped
- Monochrome, white knockout and single colour versions
- Co-branding and endorsement lockups (“a [Parent] company”)
- Sub-brand and product lockups if the architecture requires them
- Favicon, app icon and social avatar crops
The rule that makes it usable
Add a decision table rather than a gallery. For example:
| Context | Version to use | File |
|---|---|---|
| Website header | Primary horizontal | SVG |
| Social avatar | Symbol only, on brand navy | PNG 1024px |
| Print advert, one colour | Monochrome black | EPS / PDF |
| Merchandise embroidery | Simplified symbol, no gradient | Vector, stitch ready |
3. Clear space and minimum size
Clear space (also called exclusion zone or safe area) is the protected margin around the logo where nothing else may sit. Define it with a relative unit taken from the logo itself, never in millimetres, so it scales.
- Clear space: commonly the height of the symbol, the cap height of the wordmark, or the width of a specific letter (the “x” method).
- Minimum digital size: in pixels, based on the width of the full lockup (for example 120px wide for the horizontal, 24px for the symbol).
- Minimum print size: in millimetres, with a note on the reproduction method (offset, screen print, embroidery, etching).
- Maximum size: rare but useful on vehicle liveries and exhibition graphics where a logo can become comically dominant.
Show it as a diagram with measurement overlays. A sentence alone will be ignored.
4. Logo misuse and background rules
The “do not” page is not padding. It is the page you send to a partner agency when they stretch the mark on a banner. Cover at minimum:
- Do not stretch, squash or rotate
- Do not recolour outside the approved palette
- Do not add drop shadows, outlines, bevels or glows
- Do not rebuild the lockup or change the spacing between symbol and wordmark
- Do not place on a busy photograph without a scrim or solid panel
- Do not place on low contrast backgrounds (link this to the contrast ratios in the colour section)
- Do not crop the symbol unless a documented device allows it
- Do not use the logo inside a sentence as a word
Pair each rule with a visual example of the violation, crossed out. Text only misuse lists do not work.
Background matrix
Deliver a grid showing the approved logo version against every brand colour, white, black, and three photographic scenarios (light image, dark image, busy image). This single page prevents most real world errors. There’s a good explainer over at hubspot.com.
5. Colour system: codes, ratios and accessibility
Every colour needs to be specified in every space the brand will ever be produced in. Missing values are how a brand navy quietly becomes three different navies across print, web and packaging.
| Colour | HEX | RGB | CMYK | Pantone | Role |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core Navy | #0F1B3C | 15, 27, 60 | 100, 88, 42, 45 | 2766 C | Primary, 60% of surface |
| Signal Coral | #FF5A45 | 255, 90, 69 | 0, 78, 71, 0 | 178 C | Accent, CTAs only |
| Paper | #F7F5F0 | 247, 245, 240 | 2, 2, 5, 0 | 11-0602 TCX | Background |
Beyond the swatches, a serious colour section includes:
- Proportion guidance: a 60 / 30 / 10 style ratio bar so the accent stays an accent.
- Tints and shades: the approved steps (for example 10% increments) rather than letting anyone invent an opacity.
- Functional colours: success, warning, error and info states for product and UI work.
- Accessibility: a WCAG contrast table showing which text colour is permitted on which background at which size. This was the top request in the Reddit thread on brand guides, and it is the fastest way to make a guide feel professional in 2026.
- Substrate notes: how the palette behaves on uncoated stock, on fabric, and on backlit signage.
6. Typography and the type scale
A font list is not a typography system. The section should let someone set a page correctly without asking a designer.
Include
- Primary typeface with weights licensed and the licence scope (desktop, web, app, broadcast)
- Secondary and system fallback stack, for email and Office documents
- Where each typeface is allowed and where it is not
- A defined type scale with size, line height, letter spacing and weight for every level
- Rules for alignment, hyphenation, widows, orphans and maximum line length (typically 60 to 75 characters)
- Language and special character coverage if the brand operates in multiple markets
| Level | Size (desktop) | Line height | Weight | Tracking |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Display | 64px | 1.05 | Medium | -2% |
| H1 | 40px | 1.15 | Medium | -1% |
| H2 | 28px | 1.25 | Medium | 0 |
| Body | 17px | 1.6 | Regular | 0 |
| Caption | 13px | 1.4 | Regular | +2% |
Add the mobile column too. Guides that only specify desktop sizes get ignored by the first developer who opens them.
7. Layout, grid and spacing
This is the section most templates skip and the one that determines whether output looks like one brand or twelve freelancers.
- Grid: 12 column for web, a documented column and baseline grid for print, with gutters and margins.
- Spacing scale: a base unit (commonly 4px or 8px) and the permitted multiples.
- Corner radii, border widths and elevation if there is a digital product.
- Composition principles: where the logo sits, how much white space is expected, whether the brand is dense or airy.
- Worked examples: the same message laid out as an A4 flyer, a 1080×1350 social post and a landing page hero.
8. Iconography and graphic devices
Icons are a mini design system of their own. Document the grid they are drawn on, the stroke weight, the terminal style (rounded or square), the corner radius, and the keyline box. Then state the rule for commissioning new icons so the set stays coherent as it grows. piktochart.com makes the same point with more data.
Graphic devices are the shapes, patterns, angled cuts, underlines or frames that carry the brand when the logo is not present. Specify their construction, allowed rotations, minimum and maximum scale, and the contexts where they are banned.
9. Photography and imagery direction
Imagery is where brands drift fastest because it is the element most often chosen by non designers. Make this section directive, not poetic.
What good imagery direction contains
- Categories: people, product, environment, detail, each with its own rules.
- Art direction notes: lighting (natural, hard, diffused), depth of field, camera height, colour temperature, level of styling.
- Approved and rejected pairs: two similar images side by side with a one line explanation of why one passes and one fails. This is the most quoted page of any guide we ship.
- Crop and aspect ratios for the formats the brand uses most.
- Treatment rules: permitted grading, duotone or overlay recipes with exact values.
- Casting and diversity guidance, plus consent and usage rights expectations.
- Stock library shortlist and search terms, because someone will use stock whatever the guide says. Better to steer it.
10. Illustration, motion and sound
Not every brand needs all three, but leaving them undefined guarantees inconsistency later. Background reading: https://adobe.com.
- Illustration: style reference, palette subset, line weight, perspective, level of abstraction, and whether faces are shown.
- Motion: logo animation (with a stated duration, typically under 1.5 seconds), easing curves, transition vocabulary, entrance and exit behaviours, and the rules for looping.
- Sound: audio logo, music mood, and whether voiceover is used.
Deliverables here should include the actual files: Lottie, MP4, AEP project and a WAV of the audio mark, not just descriptions.
11. Tone of voice and copy standards
The best answer to “what should a brand style guide include” that separates a good guide from a template is a genuinely usable voice section. Visual rules are easy to follow. Writing rules are where consistency collapses. Keeping this consistent across a brand is where a good web design agency earns its keep.
Structure it in four layers
- Voice attributes: three or four traits, each with “we are this, we are not that”.
- Tone flexing: how the voice shifts across contexts. Error message, sales page, apology email, recruitment ad and legal notice are not written the same way.
- Rewrite examples: a before and after of real company copy. Nothing teaches faster.
- Editorial standards: the mechanical rules.
| Rule | Our standard |
|---|---|
| Headings | Sentence case, no full stop |
| Company name | Singular verb, never all caps in body copy |
| Numbers | Spell out one to nine, numerals from 10 |
| Dates | 31 August 2026 |
| Buttons | Verb first, maximum three words |
| Jargon | Banned word list included |
Include a spelling and terminology list too: product names, capitalisation, preferred UK or US English, and the words the brand refuses to use.
12. Applications, templates and governance
A guide ends where the work begins. This final section turns rules into assets.
- Applications: business card, letterhead, email signature, presentation deck, social templates, packaging, signage, vehicle, uniform, exhibition stand, whatever the brand actually produces.
- Editable templates: Figma library, Canva brand kit, Google Slides and PowerPoint masters, Word letterhead, email signature HTML.
- Asset index: file naming convention, folder structure, and a link to the shared drive or DAM.
- Governance: who approves new assets, how to request an exception, the review cadence, the version number and the date of the last update.
- Contact: a named person or inbox for brand questions.
Version control matters more than people expect. Put v2.1, updated August 2026 on the cover and in the footer of every page. Guides without dates get superseded silently.
What we actually deliver to clients
The twelve sections above are the content. The format is a separate decision, and it should match how the team works.
| Deliverable | Best for | Typical scope |
|---|---|---|
| Mini guide (PDF) | Startups, one or two marketers | Sections 1 to 6, 12 to 20 pages |
| Core guide (PDF + asset pack) | SMEs with agency partners | All 12 sections, 40 to 70 pages |
| Living brand hub (web) | Multi market or multi team organisations | Searchable site, downloadable assets, changelog |
| Design system extension | Product led companies | Tokens, components, code variables |
Increasingly the answer is “both”: a PDF for the boardroom and partners, plus a hosted hub with live downloads so nobody is emailing a logo zip in 2027.
Five mistakes that make a style guide unusable
- Beautiful but abstract. Pages of mood imagery with no instruction. Every spread should contain a rule, a measurement or an example.
- No search, no contents. A 70 page PDF without a hyperlinked table of contents will be opened once.
- Written for designers only. The heaviest users are sales, HR and customer support. Include a two page “quick start” for non designers.
- Assets locked away. If the correct file is hard to find, the wrong file gets used. Put download links next to the rules.
- Never updated. Set a review date. Brands add products, channels and markets, and the guide has to keep up.
A checklist before you sign off
- Can a new hire produce an on brand social post using only this document?
- Are all colour values present for print, digital and, where relevant, textile?
- Does every logo variant have a stated use case?
- Is clear space expressed in a relative unit?
- Do contrast pairings meet WCAG AA at minimum?
- Is there at least one before and after copy example?
- Are template files linked, not just described?
- Is there a named owner and a version number?
FAQ
What are the essential components of a brand style guide?
At minimum: brand foundation, logo usage, clear space and sizing, colour palette with full codes, typography with a type scale, imagery direction, and tone of voice. Anything less and teams will start improvising. The remaining sections (grid, iconography, motion, applications, governance) turn a document into a working system.
What are the 5 C’s of branding?
They are commonly listed as clarity, consistency, credibility, connection and commitment. Clarity is what you stand for, consistency is repeating it identically, credibility is proving it, connection is the emotional relationship with the audience, and commitment is sustaining it over time. A style guide is the tool that mainly delivers consistency, but it protects the other four.
What is the 3-7-27 rule in branding?
It is a rule of thumb about brand recall: it takes roughly 3 impressions to be noticed, 7 to be remembered, and 27 to be preferred over a competitor. The practical takeaway is that repetition only works if every impression looks and sounds the same, which is precisely why documented rules matter.
How long should a brand style guide be?
Between 12 and 20 pages for a small business, 40 to 70 for an established company with multiple channels, and an ongoing web hub for large or multi market organisations. Length is not the measure of quality. Coverage of every touchpoint the brand actually uses is.
What is the difference between brand guidelines and a design system?
Brand guidelines govern identity across all media: print, environment, packaging, voice, campaigns. A design system governs a digital product interface with reusable components and code tokens. They overlap on colour and typography, and the best setups keep them linked so a colour change flows through both.
Can I use a brand style guide template?
A template gives you the skeleton, and for a young business that is often enough to stop the worst inconsistencies. What a template cannot produce is the decision logic: which variant in which context, which image passes, how the tone flexes in an apology. Those judgements come from a brand strategy, and they are what turns documentation into something teams can genuinely follow.
Need a guide your team will actually open?
We build brand documentation designed around how your people work, from a tight PDF for a lean team to a hosted brand hub with live asset downloads and version history. If your current guide is a mood board with a logo on it, get in touch and we will audit what is missing across the twelve sections above.