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How to Create Effective

Brand Guidelines
A comprehensive guide from HubSpot and Outfit
Table of Contents
Introduction Chapter 3
Refine Your Brand Architecture
Chapter 1 Build value with your brand hierarchy
Establish Your Brand Logo lock-ups and co-branding options
What to include in your brand story Get a grid
What’s in a brand name?
Define your brand purpose
Make a brand promise Chapter 4
Harness your brand personality Set Out Your Supporting Elements
Present your brand values Photography
Video
Chapter 2 Illustrations
Mood boards
Build the Visual Foundation
Textures and patterns
Love your logo
Icons & avatars
Primary logo
Data visualization
Secondary marks and symbols
UI elements
Size and spacing
Correct logo usage
Be color-wise Chapter 5
Primary brand colors Speak With One Brand Voice
Extended color palette Voice and Tone
Color ratios
Accessibility
Tackle typography Chapter 6
Primary font Resources and Tools
Secondary fonts
Web fonts Conclusion
Type scales
Typography principles
Introduction
Introduction
Every company needs a consistent brand. Branding defines what your organization is, what
it does, and even how profitable it is.

Presenting your brand in a cohesive way is critical because it allows customers and
prospects to recognize it instantly — and simply recognizing a brand is a big factor in
whether someone will choose to become a customer.

Strong, cohesive brands build trust with your customers and prospects based on past
experiences. As business is increasingly conducted via digital channels, being able to
create rapid connections has never been so important.

But brand consistency doesn’t just happen. It’s an outcome of good brand management
— which is the process that enables an organization to extend the brand and its elements
consistently across all channels to deliver the brand promise.

At Outfit we empower organizations to build strong, consistent brands through great

brand management every day.

The first step to protecting your brand, ensuring brand consistency, and safeguarding your
brand’s impact in the market, is to establish a clear brand style guide that not only explains
how your brand should be presented in all situations, but how it should not appear.

Together, Outfit and HubSpot have joined forces to create the definitive Brand Style Guide
Kit to help you develop a stronger, more consistent, and more recognizable brand.

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So what is a brand style guide?
A brand style guide — sometimes referred to as a brand ‘bible’ brand standard or brand
guidelines — sets out all the rules and standards that govern how your brand should be
represented, including the logo, brand colors, typography, language, photography, and
more.

These should link back to the brand purpose, which enables staff, partners, customers, and
the market in general to understand your brand, what you’re trying to achieve, and why it
should be represented in a certain way.

An effective brand style guide:

• Enables staff to represent the brand consistently
• Tells partners and other external stakeholders how to treat your brand
• Saves your organization time
• Strengthens brand cohesion and builds brand recognition
• Protects your company’s most important assets
• Enables you to update your brand efficiently and effectively

In the following pages, we’ll outline what it takes to create an effective brand style guide,
and provide all the examples, inspiration, and tools you’ll need to create your own.

We’ve also included two completely customizable brand style guide templates with this
offer. We suggest following along with this guide as you work with your team to build your
brand’s style guide from these templates.

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 Chapter 1

Establish Your Brand

Telling the story of your brand, what it stands for, and how it has evolved is an important
part of defining your brand and its values, and building trust with your community.
Your brand story, will provide context for, and give meaning to, the visual elements you
go on to develop to represent your brand, creating a cohesive brand image.

What to include in your Cadbury takes its name from John

brand story Cadbury, who founded the company

in Birmingham, UK, in 1824, believing
When defining your brand story, consider
chocolate could be a force for good in
including the following elements:
the world.
• Name
• Origins After first calling it Cadabra (a reference

• Purpose to magic) and Relentless.com, Jeff Bezos

• Promise picked the name Amazon out of the

• Values dictionary, wanting a name that started

• Personality with ‘a’ and liking the fact that the Amazon
is not only the world’s largest river, it
Clearly defining elements such as how
‘blows all the other rivers away’.
your brand got started, the reason it exists,
Electronics brand BenQ was derived from
where the name came from, and your
its core values: Bringing Enjoyment ’N’
brand’s values and personality will provide
Quality to Life.
guardrails to help you formulate a clear
visual identity.
However your brand was named, be
However you choose to present your
clear about how it should be written: for
brand’s story, it is the foundation of your
example, Mailchimp explains the subtle
brand experience, and will inform the rest
changes to its name as the company’s
of your style guide.
focus has broadened.

What’s in a brand name? And if there’s a chance your brand name

Whether your brand is named after the
could be mispronounced, take the
company founder, references the vision of
opportunity to eliminate confusion: Ice
the brand, or is somewhat more random,
cream brand Häagen-Dazs explains all in a
explaining the origin of the brand name
catchy video about the brand’s history.
provides valuable context for customers.

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Define your brand
purpose Lego offers four brand promises:
1. Play promise: Joy of building; Pride of
Brand purpose is your brand’s reason for
creation
being beyond making money. It should
2. Partner promise: Mutual value creation
connect with customers on an emotional
3. Planet promise: Positive impact
level and helps customers choose brands
4. People promise: Succeed together
that align with their beliefs.

Outfit’s brand promise focuses on the

Google’s mission is clear: “Our mission is
simple product truth: “We automate on-
to organize the world’s information and
brand production at scale.”
make it universally accessible and useful.”

Global bank HSBC takes an aspirational

Facebook’s corporate mission is to “Give
approach, launching the “Together we
people the power to build community
thrive” brand promise part-way through
and bring the world closer together”.
the COVID pandemic to emphasize
the bank’s commitment to co-creating
Ikea’s mission is to “create a better
prosperity within the communities it
everyday life for the many people”.
serves.

Make a brand promise

A brand promise is the value or
experience your customers can expect
to receive when they interact with your
company.

Atlassian’s brand promise focuses on the

benefits its software provides to teams:
Our tools and practices will help teams
work better together in an agile, open,
and scalable way.

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“Successful brands need to be
true to their DNA and their
original values and heritage,
but also to be fresh for what
audiences and customers
need today.”
Leanne Cutts
CMO, HSBC Bank

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Harness your brand • Practical with a wink: “We

personality lend a helping hand. Tips, tricks, and

An attractive, funny or even provocative how-tos are gold. We provide the right

personality can be a huge asset for a information at the right time. Having ‘just

brand. Describing the key character traits enough’ is better than all the things. We

your brand embodies instantly makes it don’t take ourselves too seriously… We

easier for designers, writers, and other are free to be funny, but we don’t force

creative contributors to ensure that the it. It’s more about being ‘human’ than

message they’re communicating on any being ‘humorous’.”

channel remains on-brand and dials up

the appropriate personality trait.

Atlassian spells it out in detail in their

brand style guide, describing its straight-
talking brand personality by outlining 3
key personality traits:

• Bold: “We take a stand. Not everyone

will agree with everything we say – and
that’s ok. We state our position and
back it up. We are clear and direct,
acknowledge the hard truths… but are
not cocky.”

• Optimistic: “We are upbeat,

resourceful, and friendly. We motivate
and demonstrate a can-do attitude to
show our customers what good things
are possible. We know that innovating
and getting things done is messy, we
acknowledge that, and then focus on the
solutions together.”

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Figma describes its brand personality through four “guidepost words”, but includes an
explanation of what they mean:

• Curious: Clever, playful, imaginative. This is your friend with the far-out ideas. They
always want to be learning more and considering the things that might not be obvious.
• Vibrant: Dynamic, confident, alive. Figma loves nerding out on certain topics and is
proud of it.
• Honest: Inclusive, empathetic, approachable. We’re never afraid to admit that we don’t
know everything, but together we can figure it out.
• Bold: Powerful, unexpected, non-conforming. We don’t live in the shoulds. We do what
is right and true to us.

“Before we designed anything,

we started with a lot of research to
nail down our strategy. It helped
to think of Figma the brand as a
living entity to better bring it to
life. If Figma were a person, how
does it walk and talk, and breathe
and live? It might wear different
clothes every day, but it still has a
distinct style.”
Tori Hinn

Creative Director, Figma

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Present your brand values
We all act according to our values, and companies should as well, so it’s important to take
the time to define your brand values so they can easily be understood by your employees,
customers, partners, and the market.

Atlassian’s 5 brand values reflect the directness of its brand personality:

1. Open company, no bulls#!t

2. Build with heart and balance
3. Don’t #@!% the customer
4. Play, as a team
5. Be the change you seek

Google’s published brand philosophy takes the form of ‘10 things we know to be true.’ It’s
revised from time to time to ensure it’s always relevant, and includes an updated version of
its historical ‘don’t be evil’ motto:

1. Focus on the user and all else will follow

2. It’s best to do one thing really, really well
3. Fast is better than slow
4. Democracy on the web works
5. You don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer
6. You can make money without doing evil
7. There’s always more information out there
8. The need for information crosses all borders
9. You can be serious without a suit
10. Great just isn’t good enough

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 Chapter 2

Build the Visual

Foundation
Before choosing or updating your core brand
elements, have a look at what your competitors
are doing to make sure your brand stands out and
accurately reflects your desired brand image.
Strong brands have clearly identifiable colors, logos, and typefaces that make their visual
identity easily recognizable, as well as clear rules for how these should — and shouldn’t —
be applied.

Love your logo

Logos are visual shortcuts for identifying a brand. They may be made up of symbols,
shapes and stylized text or a combination of all three, and through the visual choices
made, should evoke a company’s brand story. For some brands, the logo is so well-known
it can be used independently of the brand name.

Primary logo
Provide your logo in a variety of sizes and file formats for download and show how it
works in a variety of situations — the less you leave to chance, the better for your brand.
You’ll need different formats for print and digital, and also for designers, developers, and
external partners, as well as internal users.

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Netflix’s logo evokes the arc of a vintage CinemaScope and features the brand wordmark
in the signature Netflix red against a black background. Its brand guidelines also make
clear how to use the logo against colored backgrounds, and the limited occasions on
which it may appear in white.

Twitter’s logo includes approved color treatments and other instructions, such as not to
make the bird chirp, talk, or fly.

Red Hat’s logo comprises a symbol and a word mark. It contains an updated reference to
the red cap one of the founders, Marc Ewing, used to wear, which symbolizes helpfulness
and goodwill. The brand style guide specifies several ways in which the elements may
appear, as well as preferred treatments against colored backgrounds.

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Secondary marks and
symbols
Your brand should look consistent in HubSpot’s brand guidelines outline when
every situation, from the tiniest favicon its distinctive ‘sprocket’ mark should be
to the biggest poster or billboard. Your used on its own — “where the HubSpot
secondary logo, mark, or symbol can be brand has already been established,
used in places where your normal brand either through use of the full logo, in
won’t fit — such as the open tabs on your copy, or by voiceover”.
internet browser.
Leaving nothing to chance, it outlines
Secondary logos should evoke the main other acceptable instances in which
brand, repeating some of the shapes, it may want the sprocket to act as a
colors, or elements. subtle symbol of the HubSpot brand,
such as on “T-Shirts, other merchandise,
In some cases, you may have a symbol or environmental graphics like a wall
that can be used on its own, or a separate mural” where the graphics should take
logo to identify your corporate brand precedence.
identity.
Facebook features the thumb icon, which
Netflix’s ‘N’ symbol is derived from the is intended to represent liking something
first letter of its wordmark and comes with on Facebook, and comes with some clear
its own usage recommendations. dos and don’ts.

Mailchimp features Freddie, whose Facebook’s brand style guide also

winking face embodies the cheeky specifies when and how the corporate
Mailchimp personality. He appears in the entity should be treated, compared with
logo with the Mailchimp wordmark and in the social networking platform.
other places, such as the favicon.

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Size and spacing Netflix has thought of every contingency
When you’ve worked so hard to create when it comes to how its brand should
a logo that perfectly represents your not be used. It’s a good idea, as the video
organization or brand it’s important it has streaming company has done in its final
space to breathe, or the impact of all that example below, to list recent outdated
effort will be wasted. logos to avoid.

That’s why your logo should include

specifications for minimum size, and how
much space to include around the logo
symbol or wordmark: the ‘exclusion zone’.

Spotify specifies a minimum size and uses

half the height of the icon to calculate the
space around the logo. Spotify and Twitter make their logo usage
guidelines clear by thinking of every
Outfit uses the lowercase ‘o’ in its logo to possibility.
measure the clearance zone.
Be color-wise
Twitter specifies exclusion zones and There are few things more crucial to rapid
minimum logo size. recognition of a brand than color — which
is why it’s so important for people who
Facebook uses the height and width of its use your brand to get your official colors
logo to calculate the exclusion zone: and usage right.

Correct logo usage This includes your official brand colors,

Your brand style guide must be clear about your extended color palette, and the
how your logo should, and shouldn’t, be colors against which your brand can be
used. This is to ensure your brand presents used. Reproduce the color, along with the
a cohesive, easily recognizable image in RGB, HEX, CMYK, and PMS codes, and
the market in every foreseeable situation in be clear about your primary, secondary,
which it may be used. accent, and background colors.

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Primary brand colors
Starbucks complements its primary
Color should be used judiciously to evoke
green and neutral colors with a different,
the emotion or experience with which
extended color palette for each season.
your brand wants to be associated.

LinkedIn updated its color palette to help

Snapchat’s style guide specifies its
make the brand warmer, complementing
official colors, along with their relative
its signature blue with a range of other
importance.
colors.

Peloton understands color can appear

Slack’s brand style guides include a
differently in print and on screen, and
comprehensive range of primary and
offers slightly different color palettes for
secondary colors, as well as typeface
each.
colors, and instructions for how to apply
them.
Starbucks features a range of greens for
every occasion and outlines exactly how
Color ratios
each should be used.
Whatever your brand colors, it pays
to stipulate the ratio in which those
Spotify also provides examples of what
colors should be used. The University
not to do with ‘Spotify green.’
at Buffalo makes it very clear it wants to
see its heritage blue dominating at 50%,
Extended color palette
followed by white (40%), light or dark
Most brands find they need more than
gray (5%) and just a splash of one of its
two or three colors to create on-brand
secondary colors.
marketing materials for the range of
channels and occasions in which their
brand appears. An extended color
palette featuring a range of approved
colors provides additional flexibility
while continuing to safeguard brand
consistency.

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Accessibility
Consider optimizing your brand choices attention, building recognition,
to make your brand as accessible as establishing a sense of occasion,
possible. This may include nominating structuring information, and promoting
high color contrast ratios for text and understanding.
interactive elements, considering mobile
audiences, avoiding problematic color The typefaces you choose to represent
combinations such as red and green, your brand should be easy to read and
and by not using color as the only flexible enough to cover all the times and
differentiator, for example, when it comes places you need to say something.
to denoting text links.
Choosing a primary font
It may also include using plain language, Consider choosing a range of primary
providing important information in text fonts to suit different uses, platforms, and
rather than images to make it accessible occasions. Nominate the different sizes
to screen readers, and captioning videos. and weights you’d like to see used to
represent your brand.
Here’s how Spotify optimized its signature
green for accessibility and legibility. While custom fonts can be very
distinctive, don’t forget to consider how
Atlassian offers comprehensive notes on your font choice impacts your online
how to ensure accessibility as part of its presence. Some channels, web servers,
brand style guide. and marketing automation tools will
override your custom font with a web
Tackle typography standard font such as Helvetica or Arial.
At its best, typography can distinguish It’s worth defining your digital fonts to
your brand from the crowd, conveying ensure internet assets don’t go rogue.
your brand personality in an instant,
attracting and holding your audience’s

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Burger King went retro for its first redesign in 20 years through its agency Jones Knowles
Ritchie, harking back to the ’60s with a big, juicy, custom font, Flame, used in Bold, Regular,
and Sans variations.

“The idea with developing this

typeface Flame was that it led
us back to creative principles of
‘mouth watering’ and having the
irreverence evoke natural organic
shapes of food. It looks a little bit
squishy and delicious, so you can
almost taste the typeface.”

Lisa Smith

Executive Creative Director, Jones Knowles Ritchie

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Snapchat sticks with just one font, Web fonts
Graphik, but showcases its preferred
Some fonts work well in print but don’t
weights.
look great on screen, and vice-versa. If
your brand exists mostly online, make
Secondary fonts sure you select fonts that are optimized
Secondary fonts should provide you for digital.
with all the flexibility you need to
communicate your brand in different Similarly, if you’re planning on translating
channels, reflecting the different tones your website into different languages,
your brand may need to strike. make sure your font comes in all the
alphabets and with all the features you
Starbucks uses three fonts: Sodo Sans require.
(body copy), Lander (accent font), and
Pike (functional headlines). Its brand It’s also worth defining a fallback font
website enables you to play around with to be used if your specified font is not
its preferred sizes and weights. available. The range of system fonts that
come standard with most devices has
Type scales improved, but you can also choose from a
Type scales show how your fonts work wide range of web fonts.
together to communicate in a harmonious
way and can be applied broadly to create IBM uses only its custom IBM Plex font,
a uniformity across a range of brand which was designed for digital, and its
materials — for example, by increasing or amazing style guide specifies exactly how
decreasing fonts at the same ratio. it should be used.

Outfit’s primary fonts are GT Walsheim

Bold, to be used for headlines, with
Poppins Bold the open-source alternative.
IBM Plex Sans is to be used for body
copy, and IBM Plex Mono for captions
and labels. The brand style guide explains
how they work together.

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Spotify uses its custom font, Spotify Circular, but requests others use the default sans-serif
font for the platform they’re working on. It offers Spotify Circular for license and specifies
a range of web fonts as well as readily available fallback fonts to be used, in its preferred
order.

Typography principles
Give some guidance around how your typefaces should be presented: for example,
leading and spacing, whether you center or justify copy, and font color.

Sainsbury’s likes a ragged edge and the judicious use of its brand orange. It also provides
examples of what not to do with its typeface.

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 Chapter 3

Refine Your Brand

Architecture
If your organization includes a number of brands, it’s important to organize and present
them in a logical way that makes sense to your customers and helps grow the value of your
family of brands.

Build value with your brand hierarchy

There are three main brand hierarchies. Whether and how your sub-brands reflect or
support the primary brand — and vice versa — will affect how they should be treated in
your brand style guide: in some cases it may add value to share branding elements, and in
others, not so much.

Branded house: The sub-brands share a name with the main brand and are
subordinate to it.

Durham University exemplifies this model, in which the faculties, institutes, and
departments include the primary logo and name, while the colleges also reflect the logo
and include the brand name. Usage principles for all are laid out in the university’s brand
guidelines.

House of brands: The parent brand is not reflected in the other brands and may
remain in the background.

Unilever’s big blue ‘U’ contains references to its brands, but they stand alone.

Hybrid: Middle ground in which a parent brand is important to the sub-brands but may
not share a name with them. The parent logo may be incorporated into some of the sub-
brands, like the Marriott.

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Logo lockups and co-branding options
Logo lockups are a precise arrangement of individual brand elements to create a new
whole. They are often used to relate a sub-brand to a parent brand and may also be used
to denote how other elements, such as taglines and external partner brands, should
appear.

Atlassian uses lockups to show how its product brands should appear in relation to the
corporate brand.

Durham University provides lock-ups to show where its “Inspiring the extraordinary”
tagline should appear in relation to its logo and wordmark.

Red Hat provides 4 co-branding logo lockup options to indicate a partnership with another
brand. It also offers usage guidelines showing how they’re meant to look (and not meant
to look).

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Get a grid
One of the easiest ways to achieve an organized, on-brand design is to apply a grid
system. Grids provide a consistent experience across multiple features, documents, and
devices. They ensure brand elements and other content is arranged in an orderly fashion.

Atlassian uses a grid system to position product elements for its software on-screen.

Durham University uses a grid system to explain how its “Modern-day Tapestry” can
be used to hold photography or color in different combinations. It includes a variety of
executions and dimensions.

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 Chapter 4

Set Out Your

Supporting Elements
Set Out your Broader Visual Language Elements
Photography, illustrations, and other supporting visual elements complete the picture your
brand presents, and when they’re all in harmony, they create a powerful overall impression.

Photography
Many brands, particularly those that are reliant on stock imagery, neglect to think about
how photography helps to build a brand. But done right, your photographic style can
become a recognizable part of your visual signature.

Be specific about your photographic style by referencing

factors such as:
• Whether you want to show people looking at the camera or not
• How close-up your photography should be
• How light should be treated
• The mood you’re looking to capture or evoke
• Composition
• Color

Consider supplying a library of approved images press and bloggers can access or use, as
well as a centralized digital asset library of approved imagery for internal stakeholders.

Cisco’s brand style guide uses one image to demonstrate its photographic style,
highlighting the “light and airy”, “natural”, and “unstaged” feel of its imagery, with just “a
hint” of color.

Burger King’s new brand guidelines specify an “in-your-face” photographic style that
features big, dramatic close-ups and echoes the warm, bold colors of the brand’s color
palette.

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Fitness brand Garmin wants to show aspiration and authenticity in its photography. Its
brand guidelines specify the emotion it wants the audience to feel: “I want to be that
person. I want to have that product.”

It specifies 3 types of on-brand photography: action shots, non-action or lifestyle shots,

and product shots. It also outlines its focus on storytelling: “Garmin photography is not
literal or ‘see and say’.”

It also describes the “Lust to logic” customer journey on which photography should help
take customers, even outlining the number of hero shots and supporting shots that should
be shown when it comes to product imagery.

Video
Similar principles should apply to the use of video, and brands are increasingly including
B-roll in brand style kits.

Slack specifies how supers and watermarks should look, as well as the end frame.

Illustrations
Illustrations that use a consistent color palette and style are a great way to set your brand
apart from the competition. They can be used to explain complex ideas, express your
brand personality, and echo your brand values.

Atlassian’s illustration guidelines leave little to chance, explaining the role of illustrations,
when to use them, and the different types it features, including hero and spot illustrations.
It also includes some usage examples, and provides access to a library.

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“We started with Tweets at the
center. We then tore stuff apart and
layered over again. We threw paint
on photos, ripped posters, scratched
out words, and faded images. We
added textures and pixels, movement
and memes.”
Twitter’s new pop art-inspired illustrative style is designed to reflect self-expression,
currency, and unfiltered truth-talking, and was revealed in tweets on its own platform.

Figma uses its illustrative style to represent collaboration and the creative process:
Its illustrations are based on simple shapes and there is always one element still being
‘edited,’ to show that nothing’s ever quite complete or perfect.

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Mood boards
Mood boards can be a great visual shortcut to conveying a brand image in seconds
without needing to wade through pages of instructions. They should bring together a
selection of visual assets that explain exactly who your brand is.

Squarespace’s interactive brand website is a virtual mood board, bringing together its
New York-inspired image and custom typeface, photographic style, and demonstrating
how it manipulates its ‘square’ branding device:

Textures and patterns

Sometimes you’ll want to include official textures and patterns in your style guide.

Squarespace uses its custom typeface and its eponymous square design device,
represented in 3D and from different perspectives, to generate patterns that reflect and
complement the brand.

Starbucks features a color wheel of textures, patterns, and colors, dialling them up or
down, depending on the channel: high-impact patterns come to the fore on social media,
while functional block colors dominate in stores.

Icons & avatars

Icons and avatars have become increasingly important with the development of new
digital channels, apps, and platforms.

Iconography
Developing a library and style of iconography that can be used consistently across your
business will boost your brand consistency and impact in all channels, and allow your
brand to denote complex concepts with an easily recognizable visual shortcut.

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Outfit has created a range of customized icons to illustrate concepts such as product
benefits. Its guidelines also specify pairings for its library of icons.

Red Hat’s brand standards feature UI icons and standard icons. In addition to a library of
approved icons, it also provides explicit instructions for how to create new ones, as well as
correct usage.

Avatars
The use of avatars is also on the rise, and, particularly for technical brands, they can be a
great way to humanize your brand in a distinctive way.

Atlassian’s style guide features Meeples — a contraction of ‘my people’ — for when they
need to show individuals. There is a lower-fidelity version for when space is tight.

Data visualization
Infographics, charts, tables and diagrams — if your brand features any of these elements,
it’s important to standardize them to ensure the way you represent data is both consistent
and in keeping with your brand. Strive for a combination of simplicity and clarity: after all,
the point of data visualization is to make information easier to understand.

Google’s Material.io includes comprehensive data visualization guidelines including

reasons to use it, different types of charts, and how to select the right one, as well as
providing usage examples.

UI elements
Any brand with a website should consider including UI elements in its brand guidelines.
From buttons to navigation bars, there are many moving parts, and documenting how
they should look and behave will make it easy to communicate this to designers and
developers.

Duolingo has created a menu of often-used UI features for easy reference.

Amazon’s brand guidelines include a list of approved calls to action and branded
button guidelines.

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 Chapter 5

Speak With One

Brand Voice
Last but not least, when you have
defined your brand personality,
use it to develop your brand
voice. Not all brands sound the
same — and that’s a good thing.
In defining your brand voice, consider your audience, your brand category, and the
markets in which you operate, as well as your approach to headlines, sentence style,
grammar and punctuation, common abbreviations, and unique terminology.

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Voice and tone includes sections on accessibility and
writing for different channels, as well as a
It can be confusing to think about the
summary.
difference between voice and tone,
but while your brand voice shouldn’t
Sainsbury’s describes its brand voice as
change, your tone may alter depending
being “lovely and lively,” and includes
on the situation. Some brands think of it
precise instructions for how to know when
as dialling up or dialling down different
you’ve got it right.
characteristics at different times.

Slack defines its brand voice with

descriptors such as human, authentic,
witty but not silly, conversational but
respectful, friendly but not ingratiating,
clear, concise, and human: “We would
only describe people as ninjas or rock
stars if they were actually those things for
a living.”

Its brand guidelines also forestall

potential problems with the Slack name:
“We don’t use Slacker/Slacking/Slackee
to describe who we are or what we do.
That means no ‘Happy Slacking!’ to sign
off emails, no matter how catchy a phrase
it might be.”

Mailchimp lays out its writing principles

and goals, describes its brand voice as
plainspoken, genuine, translational, and
dryly humorous, and its tone as usually
informal. Its comprehensive style guide
covers abbreviations, capitalization, use
of apostrophes, numbers, and more, and

35
 Chapter 6

Resources and Tools

Once your brand style guide has been created, the real work begins!
Communicating and distributing your brand style guide, and ensuring your
stakeholders always have the information and tools they need to create on-
brand materials, can be a challenge for brand teams.
Monitor how your brand guidelines are being implemented to ensure
they’re applied correctly and, as your brand grows, take advantage of the
available technology to ease the load.
Many brands make their brand standards available online via static
downloadable PDFs — but there are a variety of other tools you can use to
ensure your brand stays on track.

Brand websites: Dedicated brand websites for maximum accessibility

Facebook’s online brand resource center combines guidelines and downloadable assets
such as logos for its house of brands.

Interactive websites: Great for showcasing dynamic brand elements

Cisco combines an interactive design booklet with interactive photography and font
guides, image and video libraries, and a checklist for anyone seeking to comply with its
branding guidelines.

Centralized asset libraries: Make approved imagery, illustrations, and other on-
brand materials readily available via digital asset managers

Atlassian provides approved stakeholders with access to illustrations and other libraries.

Brand management systems: Enshrine brand guidelines in responsive templates

covering all commonly used brand executions, enabling stakeholders to rapidly create on-
brand materials

37
Red Hat uses Outfit’s brand management system, which enshrines its brand guidelines
in responsive templates that enable stakeholders to self-create on-brand materials. More
than 10,000 designs have been generated at dramatically reduced cost, and Red Hat
knows which designs are being used frequently, which enables it to continually tweak and
improve its brand guidelines.

”We measure the benefits of Outfit just by the requests

we aren’t getting any more. I know that every time I see
something being built by Outfit, that would otherwise be a
custom piece of creative that would have to be taken care
of by my team. As that list grows bigger, I know I’m saving
more.”

Andy Fitzsimon
Global Brand Manager, Red Hat

38
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Maecenas eu libero sagittis,
finibus neque id, accumsan massa. Quisque sed egestas dui, sed sodales erat. Sed risus
tellus, blandit vel viverra nec, posuere vitae risus. Nullam at leo quam. Phasellus et tortor
sodales arcu finibus aliquet et ut ex. Nunc ut fringilla odio. Sed eu tempor felis.

Quisque ornare at magna non mollis. Integer eget metus sagittis tellus elementum
rhoncus ac sit amet erat. Vestibulum finibus nisi et purus tempus tempor. Aliquam a
nunc fermentum, aliquam metus in, efficitur nibh. Proin vulputate ex et blandit laoreet.

Conclusion
Vestibulum finibus vestibulum quam eu volutpat. Pellentesque sit amet justo eros. Integer
fermentum mollis posuere. Praesent sodales leo faucibus ligula elementum, viverra porta
purus sollicitudin. Suspendisse non dolor non nulla ullamcorper tempus vel a massa.
Curabitur ac finibus lacus, ut consequat odio. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique
senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Donec imperdiet vulputate
laoreet. Vestibulum eget augue sem. Curabitur a nulla aliquet, posuere sem nec, placerat
magna. Integer dui metus, lobortis at aliquam sed, efficitur vel ante. Nam porttitor elit
mauris, eu maximus nibh egestas viverra.

Nullam consectetur tincidunt ex, sit amet sollicitudin felis lobortis ac. Lorem ipsum dolor sit
amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Maecenas eu libero sagittis, finibus neque id, accumsan
massa. Quisque sed egestas dui, sed sodales erat. Sed risus tellus, blandit vel viverra nec,
posuere vitae risus. Nullam at leo quam. Phasellus et tortor sodales arcu finibus aliquet et
ut ex. Nunc ut fringilla odio. Sed eu tempor felis. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur
adipiscing elit. Maecenas eu libero sagittis, finibus neque id, accumsan massa. Quisque
sed egestas dui, sed sodales erat. Sed risus tellus, blandit vel viverra nec, posuere vitae
risus. Nullam at leo quam. Phasellus et tortor sodales arcu finibus aliquet et ut ex. Nunc ut
fringilla odio. Sed eu tempor felis.

39
An effective brand style guide and the tools to bring it to life will
help everyone in your organization to show the same face to the
world and speak with one voice.

Be inspired by the amazing brand standards today’s top brands have developed and use
them to lift your own brand to new heights.

Once you’ve established your brand guidelines, how you manage your brand will be a
powerful differentiator, so contact Outfit if we can help you automate on-brand production
at scale.

The more cohesive your brand experience is, the more powerful and valuable your brand
will become. To help you develop your guidelines, be sure to use the helpful template.

Download Template

40
jj

Software to fuel your growth and

build deeper relationships, from first
hello to happy customer and beyond.
With HubSpot’s marketing, sales
and CRM software, you can focus on
generating leads and revenue and
forget about managing a stack of
scattered tools.
Outfit’s templating platform empowers teams
to self-produce content at scale, at speed and
on brand every time.

The platform provides all the templates, assets and tools your organization
needs to create marketing collateral within your brand guidelines, freeing
your team to focus on strategy.