10 best tech company Brand Books / Style Guides [+ Free Templates]
When it comes to building brand awareness, consistency is key. If you think about the world’s most recognizable brands, they all have one thing in common: they are consistent in their voice, tone, logo designs, colors and everything else that represents their brand.
But how do they manage to maintain consistency in all these different aspects? There are many things to keep in mind if you want your communication to be consistent with the true identity of your brand. To make sure that the brand’s core values are clear to everyone and to ensure a consistent use of brand assets, most companies have created a brand book with guidelines on how to communicate their brand.
In this article, we’re going to show you some examples of great brand books / style guides to give you some inspiration for creating your own guidelines. But before we get started:
What exactly is a brand book?
A brand book consists of guidelines that lay out the company’s voice, tone and messaging as well as a manual on how to use logos, fonts and colors correctly. It outlines your brand’s identity and core values and ensures that your brand image remains consistent.
In order to make your brand book accessible to everyone, it is useful to create an interactive brand book. Lytho’s brand center is a solution that allows all stakeholders (internal and external) to access the brand book everywhere and download all your assets directly from within the portal. This way you can also ensure that everyone has access to the latest version of your assets and is always up to date.
Want help creating a brand book? Download our template here!
Now, let’s explore some of the best tech company brand books that you can use as inspiration!
10 best tech company brand books / style guides
1. Apple
Apple has created a brand book for Channel Affiliates and Apple-Certified Individuals. It consists of 64 pages and outlines the do’s and don’ts when using Apple channel signatures, assets, trademarks and more.
On the second page they explain the importance of the brand book: “The Apple identity is a seal of approval and a promise of excellence. When you are authorized or certified in your area of business or expertise, you also represent Apple. By following these guidelines, you reap the benefits of the Apple identity and contribute to its strength.”
2. Facebook
Facebook has decided to create a website to make their Brand Resource Center accessible for everyone. On this website they give an overview of their guidelines as well as the correct use of their assets.
3. Adobe Creative Cloud
Adobe Creative Cloud has published a brand book that gives an overview of their brand assets, including trademarks, names, logos, icons and badges. They also give a summary of their key principles, as well as examples on how to best engage on different social media platforms.
4. Mailchimp
Mailchimp keeps it short and simple. On their website they give a brief description of the correct usage of their logo and colors and have listed some do’s and don’ts that should be kept in mind.
5. Spotify
In Spotify’s brand book the focus lies mainly on the correct usage of logo designs and colors but in the last section they also give some example phrases for messaging.
6. Slack
Slack gives a very detailed overview of all their brand guidelines. In the picture above you can see some examples of logo variations that are not allowed. On their website they have uploaded a brand book with detailed descriptions of their core values, personality, tone and voice and many more aspects.
7. Microsoft
Microsoft is also very strict about logo usage: On their website they have created a FAQ section with exact descriptions of size, shape and colors of the logo. They also mention a broad variation of logo examples that are not allowed.
8. Dell Technologies
Dell has created a clear and detailed overview on their website, where you can find a structured description of logos, colors, typography, voice, images and icons. They have also created a page with a long list of FAQs, to answer a wide range of questions.
9. Amazon
On Amazon’s advertising website you can find a wide range of advertising policies, including brand usage guidelines. On this page you can find exact information about size and the correct logo usage. Just like most of the other brands, they have also created a long list of logo examples that are not allowed to be used.
10. Netflix
In order to make their brand assets accessible to everyone, Netflix has created a brand site where everyone can download the logo. You can also find a list of examples of which logo variations should be avoided and what colors can be used as background.
As you can see, there are a lot of different ways to create a brand book. However, you may have noticed that there are some aspects that all these brand books have in common: the guidelines are clear and structured, there are examples to illustrate the do’s and don’ts of logo usage and, most importantly, the brand book is accessible for everyone.
This way you can ensure make sure that the brand’s core values are clear to everyone and to ensure a consistent use of your assets, which is the foundation of building brand awareness and becoming more recognizable.
If you’d like help in documenting your own brand guidelines, go ahead and download our free template here!
You might also find interesting:
Originally published at https://insights.lytho.com.
