A brand is an ultimate asset to a company. From brand logos and illustrations to how the audience will perceive your company, a brand builds the identity of any organization. To impact the business world, where the audience and competitors could instantly recognize who you are, it’s important to build brand identity. It takes time to build a brand’s image, which is a consistent and company-wide effort. Brick-by-the-brick placement of the right strategies and tactics makes a brand stand out in the long run.
Brand books, Brand guidelines, Brand bible, Brand style guides, etc..etc.. all refer to the same document either in physical or digital format, which lists the concrete principles of a brand’s identity. This book ensures that people working within a company know how to use a brand’s identity as well as partners know the mission, vision, and values of your brand.
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In this brand book vs brand guideline comparison, we will see how both are similar to each other, what their purpose is, and what elements they contain.
Contents
Brand Book
A brand book is described as a brand’s user manual which describes the brand’s history, how it was created, brand position, and how a brand can be used. The elements that make up a brand are included in this book, from founding principles – mission, vision, values, etc to its visual identity – logos, colours, typography, tone of voice, etc. It works as a clear guiding document for individuals working within the brand for maintaining brand identity across all aspects of the business.
Brand Guideline
A brand guideline is no different from a brand book, rather it is a combination of a brand book and identity guidelines book. The identity guidelines book tells the marketing team and marketing partners how exactly a brand name is to be used and displayed.
Brand guidelines include clearly defined rules and standards that communicate how your brand should be represented to the outer world. This book governs and reflects the general look and feel of a company’s branding.
Brand Book vs Brand Guideline: Why do you need one?
Both brand books and brand guidelines have the same purpose. They serve as a framework of internal and external communication which maintains consistency and cohesion throughout business activities. According to research, consistency in branding practice earns 23% more revenue annually.
Having appropriate and cohesive documentation paves the way for the brand identity and also serves as a great tool to build a professional brand personality. When your audience sees consistency in colour scheme, typography, logo usage, and tone of voice across all platforms it builds a level of professionalism and credibility.
Brand books work as guidelines for internal staff members who aren’t marketing and design-oriented and make them understand how to use logos, colour schemes, typefaces, and illustrations when presenting their brand at a business level.
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Brand Book vs Brand Guideline: What elements do they include?
We read about what are brand guidelines and brand books and we know they are similar to each other. People often use terms such as a brand book, brand guideline, and brand style guide to refer to the same thing.
Both books include similar elements, some of which are mentioned below:
Brand Essence
Brand style books have a clear brand essence that automatically defines the characteristics of a brand and embraces the mission, vision, and values of the brand. Brand essence provides a tangible reference for team members and guides them through concrete elements like visual, written, and verbal style, etc.
Logo
A brand guideline should contain all the different variations and styles of a brand’s logo. The design, attributes, and other features related to the brand logo should be mentioned to ensure that different logo designs could be optimized across all platforms.
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Colours
Colors in combination with a logo define the look and feel of a brand. Brand books or brand guidelines both include the main colours and hues that are used by a brand for different purposes.
This guides people working for a brand in developing a consistent brand identity across different platforms.
Typography
These books define the usage of font styles that are official to a brand.
The instructions – when, how, and why to use certain fonts are mentioned in the books.
Tone of Voice
The tone of voice describes how your brand will sound to other people and it needs to be consistent across all platforms – emails, social media, press releases, blog posts, ads, etc.
Brand Guidelines and books define which words a brand likes and which do not! The text and phrases which are not suitable for a brand are highlighted, moreover, it has a described tone of voice allowing one to have a clear view of a brand’s persona, mission, vision, target audience, and values.
Images
Brand style books include hows, whats, do’s, and don’ts for images. It indicates the usage of photos, illustrations, and other types of graphics describing how to edit images, what colours to place them with, and other design elements related to the images.
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Takeaway
Brand book and brand guideline both refer to the same document and the terms are used interchangeably. A brand book is important in keeping a brand’s identity consistent and distinctive. These documents unite every individual in a company by keeping them under the same shadow with a unique purpose. This will give employees a framework to work with, while still giving them the freedom to do what they do best.
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