How do we make sure everybody uses our brand consistently?! You would think using a logo isn’t really that hard… Well it is not… but for those who like to be extra “creative”… for all those fancypantsies we have a brand book! And yes it has pictures so every circus monkey can follow it step by step.

A fancy brand book and a brand style guide are both key tools for brand management. The brand of an organization is ideally built from the ground up from the with a purpose and core idea of an organization, with the visual or tangible elements as a prime identifier for it. A brand of an organization can be thought of as making itself tangible through four vectors: Product, (Physical or Digital) Environment, Communication and Behavior…

A brand book inspires and helps keep people in your organization aligned with the purpose or core idea of your organization, and helps them think, communicate and act from that Purpose as a starting point.  

A brand style guide helps the people inside and outside of your organization who use your visual brand assets, to use them consistently and correctly.  

As you can see, a brand book is geared more to meaning and inspiration, while a style guide is geared mainly toward maintaining visual brand consistency. Both of these elements contain aspects of your brand guidelines. Brand guidelines are considered to be the log book for a brand’s identity. They are not just a document that collects information about your brand, brand guidelines are key to brand alignment.