Question

Topic: Branding

Need Help With Corporate Identity Guide

Posted by mokain on 5/13/2008 at 2:17 PM ET 250 Points
Hi - My firm has has a new "look/feel" for months now and no one has bothered to write down the usage guidelines. I would like to combine that with information about things that should be consistent, but are outside the "look/feel." For instance, it would include:

We use the word "healthcare," not "health care"
or
The word "sector" describes broad business segments, such as healthcare and energy. The word "industry" should be used to describe specific business within a sector - ie medical device industry within the healthcare sector.

When I worked at a Big 4, we had a nice brand guide that was available to all employees. I would like to create one, but I have no examples. Could anyone give me advice on where to find some templates/good examples? Anyone willing to share their firm's brand guide with me?

Thank you!
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by KyleH on 5/13/2008 at 6:31 PM Accepted
    I have created many Brand and Logo Usage Guidelines for clients over the years when I worked on the agency side. Some were more lengthy than others.

    Here is a general outline of what most of these documents had in common.

    -- Logo (color, b/w, reverse, clear space)
    -- List of Do NOTs (examples of what not to do to the logo - skew logo, place over patterns, alter logo, separate elements)
    -- Brand ID Colors (PMS, CMYK, RBG, HEX breakdowns)
    -- Brand ID Typeface(s) (for Print, Word/PPT and Web)
    -- Tagline usage (if applicable)
    -- Creative (examples of Ads, Photography, Illustrations, Headlines, Direct, Business papers, Web site, etc. with call outs)
    -- List of Products/Solutions
    -- Message tone (The tone of your copy: friendly, business, straight forward, etc. and examples)
    -- List of Trademarks
    -- List of Terms (this is where you list Healthcare, not Health Care)
    -- Flyspeck (your copyright lines used in every marketing piece)

    As denise.shiffman stated, the use of visuals is important. There is a lot of information to present and the use of white space is important throughout the document.

    For examples you can do a quick search and pull up several Brand Guidelines that companies have posted to their Web sites. e.g.:
    Honeywell
    American Heart Association
    Citrix Systems
    ITT
    Duke Medicine

    I hope this helps get you started.

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