Design & Communication Guidelines: Brand’s Holy Books

The marketing world has many rules. Even though many are subjective, a couple of them are considered  Holy Books for any brand: The Brand Manual and the Communication Manual.

Caesar can do whatever pleases him. He can lower his thumb and seal the fate of thousands of gladiators.
However, he can’t do everything, for example, writing with comic sans instead of a roman character; or even answering a comment with an emoji.

Why?
Because the brand’s manual says so.

What could happen if the most important cola of the world stops using its distinguished red color and starts sharing posts using red, white, and blue?

Or if that bitten apple brand starts sending emails using cursing words?

Or, for example, a team such as Real Madrid suddenly started using a blue, red, and yellow logo?

It would lead the world into madness.

Ok.

Maybe this wouldn’t happen, however when a brand starts communicating randomly, it loses its identity, and just like that, its fans can stop recognizing it.

To avoid this, any company needs to create a brand manual and a communication manual.

What’s a Brand Manual or Brand Guideline?

Brand manual, or corporate identity manual, is a guidebook that defines the communication rules for a brand.
It also establishes how a brand will behave in different moments or situations, for example, if a PR crisis appears.

Brand Manual/Guidelines

Even though each brand manual is exclusive, there are some points that all of them should define. For example:

Typography Characters

This section should cover every aspect related to the typographies our brand would use.
Should we communicate with lowercase or uppercase? What characters can we use in our posts or tv commercials? When should we use one instead of another?
It’s vital to set as detailed as possible all the guidelines.
Another thing that can happen is that some other brands may be using the same typography we want to use. That’s why many choose to work with a team of designers to create one of their own.
This helps brands forge their identity.

Colors

Just like with typographies, it’s necessary to define which colors we can work with and which not. They help us set the tone of our communications.

Keep in mind that each color is associated with certain emotions and feelings. If you need some information on this matter, we’ve got just the right article for you.

Although it may be expensive, it becomes quite useful working with designers to find the right palette for your brand. Maybe even developing a color of our own, this is what that famous cola brand did.

Another important thing your brand manual should define is when we use one color instead of another. What colors should we use for our headlines or copy? What colors can or can’t be used for my logo? What colors should our slideshows be?

Logos, Isotypes and Isologotypes

A logo, for example, is not just a drawing with your brand’s name. It should express our brand’s philosophy and what it does.
It should be well designed with intentionality behind it. Also, our brand manual should define which sizes, ratios, colors, everything related to the application of our logos. It also should provide usability guidelines.
Why?
Because usually different people are in charge of designing our communications. This way, any creation they come up with will be cohesive between one another.

Correct and Incorrect Uses

Whenever you show what are the things you can do, it’s equally important to show the things you can’t do.

Switching subjects, let’s talk about the other marketing’s “Holy Book”.

Communication Manual

These guidelines set the tone of our brand for online and offline communications.

It defines what we say and how we say it.

Just like our brand manual, it should also include certain key points.

Corporate Communication

We never speak the same way when in a relaxed environment, as when we are with our bosses.
That’s what the corporate communication section of the manual defines. The things we as a brand can say when having to release a “serious” communication.
Can we speak in the first person or not? Should we use a more formal or can we use a more relaxed tone?
Anything we could consider important for corporate communication should be discussed here.

Tone in Traditional Media

How is our brand communicating in flyers, billboards, or print advertisements?
Setting a tone and using it in every piece of communication helps us build our brand, not only in terms of image but also in terms of content and forms.

Tone in Social Media

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest each platform has its own language.
In our communication manual, we should define the way we are going to talk in each one of them, to maintain a certain brand identity.
A key aspect we should talk about is consistency. Even though it’s ok having certain liberties when communicating online, we should maintain a similar tone through all of our platforms. This way we are building our brand image.
Also, another thing we must define in this item of our communication manual is how we will interact with our followers. If they leave a comment, how are we going to respond? The ideal way generally is to do it in a friendly manner. Just as if we were another user, not a soulless company. Again, we mean generally, however, each situation may require different approaches.

Crisis Management

We are human beings, we make mistakes. Although some are indeed more dangerous than others.
It’s beneficial to be prepared for any eventuality, and that’s why we should write down in our communication manual how we could solve these “problems”.
Here we must be creative, think about any possible crisis we may face as a company, and then write down what we are going to do about it and what we will communicate.
One example of this kind of situation is what happened to Samsung when releasing its Samsung Galaxy 8 and a troll made a comment.

So here you go. These ain’t rules written in stone, but these manuals are indispensable when creating and building your brand. Especially that last crisis bit.

Have you ever seen these kinds of situations online? Which was the one you remember the most?