The short answer
A brand style guide should include 12 core sections: a one-page brand summary, positioning and audience, logo variations, logo usage rules, colour palette with exact codes, a typography scale, layout and spacing rules, imagery direction, iconography and graphic devices, tone of voice, real templates and applications, and governance (who owns it, where the files live, how to request an exception).
Everything beyond that is usually decoration. We have audited dozens of guidelines documents for clients across Europe, and the pattern is brutally consistent: the 80-page agency deck gets opened twice, while a 14-page working document gets used every week. This article breaks down what each page should actually say, with concrete example wording you can copy and adapt.
The 12 sections at a glance
| # | Section | Pages needed | Essential for a small team? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brand at a glance (cover sheet) | 1 | Yes |
| 2 | Positioning, audience and personality | 1 to 2 | Yes |
| 3 | Logo variations and lockups | 2 | Yes |
| 4 | Logo usage rules and misuse | 2 | Yes |
| 5 | Colour palette with exact codes | 1 to 2 | Yes |
| 6 | Typography and type scale | 2 | Yes |
| 7 | Layout, grid and spacing | 1 | Useful |
| 8 | Imagery and photography direction | 1 to 2 | Yes |
| 9 | Icons, illustration, graphic devices | 1 | Only if you use them |
| 10 | Tone of voice and writing rules | 2 | Yes |
| 11 | Templates and applications | 1 to 3 | Yes |
| 12 | Governance, files and contacts | 1 | Yes |
Total: roughly 16 to 20 pages. That is a complete, professional, enforceable brand style guide. If yours is heading towards 60 pages and you are a team of eight, something has gone wrong.
Why most brand guidelines fail
A brand style guide is not a portfolio piece. It is an operating manual. The test is simple: can a new freelancer, hired on a Monday morning, produce an on-brand LinkedIn carousel by Monday afternoon using only this document?
Three failure patterns we see constantly:
- Mood over instruction. Forty pages of atmospheric spreads and one page of actual rules. Beautiful, useless.
- Rules without files. The guide specifies a typeface nobody on the team is licensed to use, so everyone quietly defaults to Arial.
- No owner. Nobody is named as the person who approves exceptions, so exceptions are never approved, just committed.
Keep that in mind as we go section by section.
1. Brand at a glance
One page. It exists so that 80% of questions never become emails. Put the logo, the primary colour chips with hex codes, the two typefaces, and a single sentence of positioning on one screen.
Example wording
Northbay. Primary logo: horizontal lockup, navy on white. Colours: Navy #10243F, Signal Orange #FF5A1F, Paper #F6F4EF. Type: Söhne (headings), Inter (body, UI, email). Voice: direct, plain, never hyped. Download all assets: [link].
2. Positioning, audience and personality
Strategy belongs in the guide, but compressed. You are not reprinting the brand strategy deck. You need just enough context that a designer or copywriter can make a judgement call on something the guide does not cover.
Include:
- A one-line positioning statement
- Who you are for, and explicitly who you are not for
- Three to five personality attributes, each with a counterweight
Example wording
Confident, not arrogant. Warm, not cute. Technical, not academic. We speak to operations managers in mid-sized logistics firms who are evaluated on uptime. We are not a consumer brand and we do not use consumer brand tactics.
The “not” half is what makes this section usable. “Innovative, human, bold” tells nobody anything.
3. Logo variations and lockups
Show every approved version, side by side, and label when each one is used. Do not make people guess.
| Variation | Use it when | File |
|---|---|---|
| Primary horizontal | Default for web headers, documents, signage | logo-primary.svg |
| Stacked | Square or narrow spaces, merchandise | logo-stacked.svg |
| Symbol only | Favicon, app icon, social avatar, above 24px | logo-mark.svg |
| Mono white | Photography and dark backgrounds only | logo-white.svg |
| Mono black | Fax, engraving, single-colour print, partner decks | logo-black.svg |
Practical tip: name the actual file next to each variation. It removes an entire category of back and forth.
4. Logo usage rules and misuse
This is the page people genuinely refer back to. It needs four things.
Clear space
Define it relative to an element of the logo so it scales.
Minimum clear space on all sides equals the height of the letter “N” in the wordmark. No text, image edge or graphic element may enter this zone.
Minimum sizes
Digital: 120px wide (horizontal), 32px wide (symbol). Print: 25mm wide (horizontal), 8mm wide (symbol). Below these sizes, use the symbol only.
Background and contrast rules
Place the navy logo only on Paper, white, or tints of Navy up to 15%. On photography, use the white mono version and apply a 40% black overlay to the area behind the logo if the image is busy.
Misuse
Six to eight examples, each with a red cross and a one-line reason. The classics worth documenting:
- Do not stretch, squash or rotate the logo
- Do not recolour it outside the approved palette
- Do not add drop shadows, outlines, bevels or gradients
- Do not rebuild the wordmark in a different typeface
- Do not place the logo inside a box unless using the supplied badge version
- Do not crop the symbol
- Do not use the logo as a repeating pattern
- Do not combine the logo with other logos without the approved co-branding lockup
If you sell through partners or sponsor events, add a short co-branding rule: “Partner logos sit to the right of a 1px Navy divider, separated by twice the clear space, matched on optical height rather than pixel height.”
5. Colour palette with exact codes
The single most-used page in any brand style guide. Get the format right and nobody ever has to ask.
| Name | Role | HEX | RGB | CMYK | Pantone |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Navy | Primary, 60% of any layout | #10243F | 16 36 63 | 95 78 43 38 | 2767 C |
| Signal Orange | Accent, CTAs only, max 10% | #FF5A1F | 255 90 31 | 0 76 93 0 | 165 C |
| Paper | Background, 30% | #F6F4EF | 246 244 239 | 2 2 5 0 | Warm Gray 1 C |
| Slate 60 | Secondary text, borders | #5C6B7A | 92 107 122 | 67 50 39 10 | 7545 C |
Three things most guides forget:
- Proportions. A 60/30/10 rule stops someone building an all-orange landing page that is technically on-brand and visually wrong.
- Accessibility. State the tested pairs. Example: “Navy on Paper passes WCAG AA and AAA. Signal Orange on white fails AA for body text and may only be used on text 24px and above, or as a background with Navy text.”
- Functional colours. Success, warning, error and info states, if you have a product or any web forms.
6. Typography and the type scale
Naming two fonts is not typography guidance. A usable page specifies the scale, the weights, the line heights and the fallbacks.
| Style | Font and weight | Size (desktop) | Line height | Tracking |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| H1 | Söhne Dreiviertelfett | 56px / 36px mobile | 1.1 | -2% |
| H2 | Söhne Dreiviertelfett | 36px / 28px | 1.2 | -1% |
| H3 | Söhne Kräftig | 24px / 20px | 1.3 | 0 |
| Body | Inter Regular | 17px / 16px | 1.6 | 0 |
| Caption | Inter Medium | 13px | 1.4 | +2% |
Then add the boring but critical bits:
- Licensing: “Söhne is licensed for 500k monthly pageviews and 10 desktop seats. Contact [owner] before installing.”
- Fallbacks: “In Google Workspace, Office and any system where Söhne is unavailable, use Inter for headings. Never substitute a serif.”
- Hard rules: maximum line length (around 70 characters), no all-caps body copy, no faux bold or faux italic, alignment (left ranged, never justified).
7. Layout, grid and spacing
One page is enough for most teams. Define a spacing unit and a grid, and let everything inherit from it.
Base spacing unit: 8px. All margins, padding and gaps use multiples of 8. Web grid: 12 columns, 24px gutters, 1200px max content width. Print: 12 columns with 15mm outer margins on A4. Minimum outer margin on any format equals the logo clear space.
This single page prevents the slow drift where every new deck has slightly different margins.
8. Imagery and photography direction
The weakest section in nine guides out of ten, because it gets written as vibes. Make it checkable.
Example wording
We shoot: real staff and real sites, available light, mid-range depth of field, people working rather than posing, wide enough to show context. Cool-neutral grade, lifted blacks, no heavy saturation.
We never use: stock handshakes, isolated people on white backgrounds, exaggerated expressions, lens flare, tilted horizons, images where the subject looks directly at camera and smiles.
Technical: 3:2 for editorial, 16:9 for web hero, 1:1 for social. Minimum 2400px on the long edge. Never upscale. Never place text over the subject’s face.
Treatment: Navy duotone is allowed on section dividers only, at 80% opacity.
Pair it with a small approved and rejected gallery. Six yes, six no. That does more work than three paragraphs of adjectives.
9. Icons, illustration and graphic devices
Skip this section entirely if you do not have a proprietary system. If you do, state the source, the construction rules and the limits.
Icons: Lucide, 24px grid, 1.5px stroke, round caps, Navy or Paper only. Do not mix icon libraries in one layout. Do not use filled and outline styles together. The diagonal cut corner is a brand device and appears once per layout, never more.
10. Tone of voice and writing rules
Visual identity gets 90% of the pages and verbal identity gets a footnote. That is backwards for most B2B brands, where the majority of touchpoints are words: emails, proposals, product UI, support replies.
A useful tone of voice section contains:
- Three voice principles, each with a “we say this, not that” pair
- A mechanics list: contractions, oxford comma, sentence case, date format, number format, currency
- A word list: approved terms, banned terms, product names and their exact capitalisation
- Channel modulation: how the voice flexes between a legal notice, a LinkedIn post and an error message
Example wording
Principle 2: Lead with the consequence.
Say: “Your shipment will arrive Thursday. We rerouted it after the port closure.”
Not: “Following the recent disruption at the port, we have proactively implemented a contingency routing solution.”Mechanics: Sentence case for all headings and buttons. Contractions are fine. No exclamation marks in product UI. Dates as 12 March 2027. Prices as €1,250 with no decimals.
Never write: leverage, seamless, revolutionary, game-changer, solution (as a noun for our product), best-in-class, unlock.
11. Templates and applications
Rules tell people what not to do. Templates tell them what to do. This is where the guide converts from document to tool.
List each template, where it lives, and who maintains it:
- Slide deck (Google Slides and PowerPoint)
- Letterhead and invoice
- Email signature (HTML snippet, plus plain text version)
- Social post set: LinkedIn 1200×627, square 1080×1080, story 1080×1920
- Proposal and one-pager
- Business card and event roll-up
- Product UI kit or website component library
Then show three to six applied examples so people can see the system working, not just the parts.
12. Governance, files and contacts
The page everyone forgets and everyone needs.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Version | v3.1, published September 2026, next review March 2027 |
| Brand owner | Name, role, email. One person, not a committee. |
| Asset library | Direct link to logos, fonts, templates, photography |
| Exceptions | How to request one and the expected turnaround |
| External use | What partners, press and resellers may do without asking |
| Changelog | What changed since the previous version |
What you can safely leave out
If you are a team under 50 people, these sections are almost always overbuild:
- The founder origin story over four spreads. One paragraph, or link to the About page.
- Exhaustive sub-brand architecture for sub-brands that do not exist yet.
- Vehicle livery, building signage and uniform specs if you have no vehicles, buildings or uniforms.
- Pantone bridges for every tint when you print twice a year.
- Abstract “brand essence” diagrams. Nobody has ever designed anything better because of a pyramid.
- Mood boards presented as guidance. Inspiration is not instruction.
Add them later, when the need is real. A guide that grows from use beats a guide that was complete on day one and ignored ever since.
The minimum viable brand style guide (one afternoon)
If you have nothing documented at all, do this today and expand later:
- One page with logo files, colour codes and font names
- Clear space and minimum size for the logo
- A six-item misuse list
- A type scale with five styles
- Ten words you always use and ten you never use
- Links to the asset folder and the name of the person who owns it
That is six pages, and it will eliminate the large majority of off-brand output.
PDF, web page or Figma file?
| Format | Best for | Weakness |
|---|---|---|
| Sending to printers, agencies, partners | Goes stale, gets forwarded forever in v1 | |
| Web page or Notion | Everyday internal reference, searchable, always current | Needs a link that never breaks |
| Figma file with variables | Design and product teams, live components | Unfriendly to non-designers |
| DAM or brand portal | Larger teams, external partners, asset control | Cost and admin overhead |
Our recommendation for most companies going into 2027: a live web version as the source of truth, plus an exported PDF for external suppliers, with the version number visible on both.
How to keep the guide alive
- Review it every six months and log the changes
- Send the link with every freelancer and agency brief, before the first call
- When someone gets it wrong, ask whether the guide was unclear before blaming the person
- Track the questions you receive. Repeated questions are missing pages
- Keep the asset folder and the guide in sync. A guide pointing at dead links dies fast
FAQ
What are the 5 C’s of branding?
Commonly listed as clarity, consistency, character, credibility and connection. Some frameworks swap in company, customers, competitors, collaborators and context, borrowed from strategic analysis. For style guide purposes, only clarity and consistency are directly actionable: everything in your document should make one of those two measurably better.
What is the 3-7-27 rule in branding?
An old marketing rule of thumb: it takes roughly 3 impressions for someone to notice your brand, 7 for them to recall it, and 27 for them to genuinely associate it with a category or attribute. It is a heuristic rather than a researched law, but the point stands: recognition depends on repetition, and repetition only works if the brand looks and sounds the same every time. That is the commercial argument for a style guide.
What are the 7 pillars of branding?
Typically: purpose, positioning, personality, promise, perception, people and presentation. Your style guide is mostly concerned with the last two, plus enough of the first four to guide judgement calls.
What are some examples of good brand style guides?
Widely referenced public examples include the guidelines published by Netflix, Spotify, Uber, Mailchimp (particularly its content style guide, which is the gold standard for tone of voice), Shopify Polaris, the UK Government Digital Service and IBM Carbon. Study them for structure, not for aesthetics: your brand should not look like theirs, but your document can be organised just as clearly.
How long should a brand style guide be?
For a small or mid-sized business, 15 to 25 pages. Enterprises with sub-brands, physical estate and regulated communications legitimately need more, sometimes 100 pages or more, but those are usually modular, with separate documents per discipline rather than one giant PDF.
What is the difference between brand guidelines and a brand style guide?
In practice the terms are used interchangeably. Where a distinction is drawn: brand guidelines tend to include strategy, positioning and messaging, while a style guide focuses on the visual and verbal execution rules. A third document, the editorial style guide, covers writing mechanics in depth. Most organisations are best served by one document that covers all three, split into clear sections.
Can I create a brand style guide without a designer?
You can document what you already have: colour codes, fonts, logo files, tone rules. That is worth doing immediately. What you cannot do without design input is fix an identity that is inconsistent at the source. If your logo has no vector file, or your palette fails contrast checks, documenting it just preserves the problem.
How often should a brand style guide be updated?
Review every six months, revise properly every 12 to 24 months, and rebuild only when positioning genuinely changes. Version every release and keep a changelog so people know which rules moved.
Need a guide people will actually open?
At Mind The Wall we build brand style guides sized to the team that has to use them: clear rules, real templates, exact codes, and a named owner. If your current guidelines are a beautiful PDF nobody has opened since the launch meeting, get in touch and we will audit what you have.