Brand & creative
Brand guidelines
A guidelines document people actually open: specific enough to settle an argument, short enough to read, and shipped with the real files and code tokens so nobody has to guess.
The short version
Guidelines fail in one of two ways. They run to 90 pages of mood photography that answers nothing practical, or to three slides that answer only the easy questions. A useful set is closer to a manual: it tells someone what to do in the situation they are actually stuck in, shows the wrong version next to the right one, and links to the file they need without an email. We write them to be used by people who never sat in the design meetings.
What is included
- A logo section that covers the awkward cases: minimum sizes, clear space, approved backgrounds, partner and sponsor lockups, and a misuse page showing the mistakes that really happen.
- Colour specified once and completely: hex and RGB for screen, CMYK and Pantone for print, a tint scale for each, and the approved text-on-background combinations listed rather than left to judgement.
- Type rules with a working scale of sizes, weights and line heights, plus a fallback stack for the day the licensed font is missing from someone's machine.
- Design tokens exported as CSS custom properties and JSON, so your developers implement the same colours and spacing the document describes instead of eyeballing a PDF.
- A tone-of-voice section built from before-and-after rewrites of your own sentences, plus the words you use, the words you avoid, and how you spell the awkward ones.
- An organised asset library of logo masters, templates, icons and approved imagery, named to one convention, with a versioned PDF and a link you can send to suppliers.
How we work
Our approach
The stages this work runs through, in order. Every one of them ends in something you can see or sign off.
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Step 01
Audit what exists now
We collect everything currently in circulation: the website, the last three decks, printed material, social posts, the email footer. Seeing them side by side shows where the drift is and which rules are missing rather than broken. That audit sets the contents page, so the document spends its length on your real problems, usually colour use and type, instead of repeating chapters that came free with a template.
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Step 02
Write rules, not adjectives
Every line has to be actionable by someone who has never met us. “Use the logo confidently” is not a rule. “Never place the logo on a photograph unless the area behind it passes 3:1 contrast, and use the reversed version when it does not” is one. Where a rule has an exception, we write the exception down, because an undocumented exception is how a brand quietly starts to loosen.
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Step 03
Ship files with the rules
A rule without the matching file gets ignored. So the document links to the asset it describes: the exact SVG, the template, the token file. Assets are named to one convention so a supplier can find the reversed horizontal logo without asking, and the library sits somewhere you control rather than in an expiring transfer link. Your developers get tokens they can import, not colour values retyped by hand.
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Step 04
Version it and date it
Guidelines rot quietly. Ours carry a version number, a date and a one-line changelog, so when a supplier holds up an old rule you can see which document they are working from. We also mark which sections are fixed and which are open to interpretation, and name the person who signs off on exceptions. That last part matters more than any page in the file.
Before you ask
Questions we get asked first
How long does it take?
Two to four weeks once the identity itself is settled, depending on how many sections you need. A core set of logo, colour, type, voice and templates sits at the short end. Adding photography direction, iconography, co-branding rules or sub-brand architecture pushes it out. If the underlying identity is still being decided, guidelines are premature: we would rather finish the system first than write a document that needs rewriting in a month.
How is it priced?
By the section list, quoted as a fixed figure in pounds. We agree what the document covers and how many templates come with it, then that price holds. Guidelines cost less as part of an identity project than commissioned on their own, because half the work is already done and documented. If you only need a short internal version now and the full manual later, we will scope it that way rather than selling you pages you will not open.
What do you need from us?
Your existing artwork in its original vector form, your font licences or the details of them, and examples of the material that keeps going wrong. Also useful: the questions your team already asks each other about the brand, because those are the pages that will earn their place. If outside suppliers apply your brand, whether a printer, a signage firm or another agency, tell us who, so the document answers in their language instead of a designer's.
How do we know the guidelines are working?
Give the document and the asset library to someone who was not involved and ask them to produce a simple layout, a one-page flyer or a social post. If they finish it without asking you a question, and the result looks like your brand, it works. If they ask three questions, those three answers are missing and we add them. Beyond that, the honest measure is how often someone has to email you for a file six months from now. It should be close to never.
Want this scoped for your situation?
Tell us the goal and the deadline. You get an honest read on whether this is the right service, a fixed price if it is, and a straight no if it isn't.
Or email [email protected] directly. We reply within one working day.