Brand guidelines are imperative for any business. A brand guideline clearly showcases the brand’s essence – including proposition, key messages, tone of voice and visual identity. This is often demonstrated in an overarching, explanatory piece – but thorough brand guidelines must also consider creating more instructional, in-depth documents. These allow employees across the business and external agencies to follow the guidelines, ensuring all use of the brand is consistent.
Brand guidelines are, traditionally, printed or PDF documents broken into ‘chapters’ to allow readers to access the parts of the guidelines they need dependent on their role. For example, a designer may need to access a logo or visual guidelines, where the social media team are required to follow a specific tone of voice.
Our live brand guideline solution offers businesses the chance to create an online, responsive brand guideline – ridding the office of out-dated brand guideline documents.
Here are the top ten reasons why businesses should consider digitalising brand guidelines…
Access information 30 times faster
A live guideline is searchable, so users can type in what they are looking for and almost instantly receive relevant results – saving time hunting through printed documents and PDF versions. Users can also often find the information they want, even if they don’t really know what they are looking for. Simply type in a search term and explore.
Save time finding what you need
By splitting live brand guidelines into sections, such as ‘brand style’ or ‘key messages’ – it is easy for different departments to only access the specific information they need. Designers will no longer need to scroll through the brand proposition section to find information on logo use. Organised sections make the user experience seamless.
An online solution evolves as the brand does
As we know, a brand is a changeable entity and will develop and change according to the progression of the business. An online version enables businesses to change and develop brand guidelines as and when it needs to – thus saving the inconvenience and potential confusion constantly updating ‘finished’ documents.
Add a little extra
An online site gives organisations the flexibility to do more, from adding a downloadable logo section to a contacts list page. Easy user exploration means people won’t get information-overload, as they can filter what they’re looking for. This allows for greater flexibility to add extra information that may be handy for employees or other stakeholders.
Easily accessible – from living rooms to offices around the world
Online sites allow remote workers or colleagues working from different sites to access the same, live information so everyone has a clear visibility of the latest guidelines. No more out-dated documents in one office, and a shiny new version in the other. Plus, an online version allows all authorised colleagues to update information as and when they need to – avoiding endless Skype meetings to make updates happen.
Responsive and available at your fingertips
Employees visiting a client or out and about checking their emails may need to access the brand guidelines asap. As online brand guidelines don’t rely on server access, anyone can access them at any time. Plus, as they’re optimised for both mobile and desktop, they are perfect for those working on the go.
Improve consistency and accessibility across all stakeholders
Businesses and organisations don’t have to restrict access to brand guidelines. Agencies, designers and other key stakeholders can be given a login to access the live brand guidelines too.
Live updates ensure old versions are truly just a thing of the past
Old versions of printed brand guidelines or those kept on a company server can often linger, making it a constant battle to ensure everyone is using the latest version. This is not an issue with a live brand guidelines, as updates completely replace the version before. Anyone using the online version will only see bang up to date guidelines – ensuring consistency across the business.
Avoid mistakes by copying and pasting… the modern way
For intricate information such as colour codes, copying from paper can incur an element of human error. Being able to copy and paste information directly from a live brand guideline will ensure every detail is correct.
Brands can change with the times
What if a brand needs a new logo for a growing social media channel, or requires an app usage guideline for a newly developed area of the business? Technologies are constantly growing and developing, and a live brand guideline allows businesses to add and update to its guidelines.
Let’s get started creating your live brand guideline
We have experience creating effective live brand guidelines for clients, transforming their experience in terms of brand consistency, accessibility and relevancy. To speak to our team about your brand guideline, or to discuss updating them with the help of our expert team, get in touch.