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New GenAI & AI agent development

Graphic Design & Creative Services

Brand Guidelines Design

We document logo use, colour, type, layouts and do-and-don't examples in a clear brand book, PDF or web, so agencies and staff produce consistent work without asking for approval each time.

  • Brand book
  • Logo clear-space rules
  • Layout templates
  • Do and don't examples
Years of delivery
8+
Years of delivery
Projects shipped
350+
Projects shipped
Clients across US, UK, AU & SG
200+
Clients across US, UK, AU & SG

What’s included

Everything You Need to Keep Every Touchpoint On-Brand

We audit how your brand appears today, then build a usable brand book your team, agencies and printers can follow.

  • Existing Brand Asset Audit

    We review your logos, documents and channels to find inconsistencies, so the guidelines fix real problems in your materials.

    • Inconsistency report
    • Asset inventory

  • Brand Foundations & Purpose Section

    We document your mission, values and personality in plain language, giving every new hire and vendor the same starting point.

    • Brand story page
    • Values summary

  • Logo Usage Rules & Clear Space

    We set minimum sizes, clear space and misuse examples so your logo stays strong on every surface.

    • Logo rules
    • Misuse examples

  • Colour Palette & Typography Standards

    We specify exact colour values, font hierarchies and accessible contrast pairings for print, web and presentations.

    • CMYK, RGB, HEX codes
    • Type hierarchy

  • Photography, Iconography & Layout Rules

    We show approved image styles, icon rules and grid layouts so teams produce on-brand content without waiting for design.

    • Image style guide
    • Layout grids

  • Tone of Voice & Writing Guidelines

    We turn your voice into practical dos and don'ts, so copy from every department sounds like one company.

    • Voice principles
    • Writing examples

  • Brand Book Delivery & Template Library

    You get an interactive PDF brand book plus editable templates, so staff apply the standards quickly and correctly.

    • Brand book PDF
    • Editable templates

Need something specific?

Why Kramate

Why Business Owners Choose Kramate for Brand Guidelines

Short, practical rules that your whole team can follow.

  • A Rulebook Your Team Will Use

    Instead of

    a thick document nobody opens

    With Kramate

    We keep pages short and use real examples from your own materials, so staff find answers fast.

  • Easy for Outside Suppliers Too

    Instead of: printers and agencies guessing your colours

    With Kramate: We write the rules so a printer or freelancer you have never met can follow them alone.

  • Updates When Your Brand Grows

    Instead of: a guide that goes out of date

    With Kramate: Come back when you add a product or change your look, and we update the book.

  • A Set Price Agreed First

    Instead of: bills that grow with every extra page

    With Kramate: After the free chat you get a detailed estimate within a day, and the page count is agreed.

  • We Work Beside Your Team

    Instead of: designers who never ask your staff

    With Kramate: We sit down with the people who use your brand daily and write rules that fit their jobs.

Our approach

How We Create Your Brand Guidelines, Step by Step

We write down the rules so everyone uses your brand the same way.

6 clear steps 6 deliverables you keep

  1. Brand Material Review

    We collect everything you already use, from logos to old flyers, and note what is consistent and what is not.

    You receive: Findings list

    You send us all current brand material

  2. Rulebook Outline

    We agree which sections your brand book needs and who will read it, so it stays useful.

    You receive: Contents plan

    You tell us who will use the book

  3. Logo & Colour Rules

    We set out how the logo may be used, how much space it needs, and which colours and fonts to pick.

    You receive: Core rules

    You check the rules against real use

  4. Image & Layout Rules

    We show what photos, icons and page layouts look right, with simple good and bad examples.

    You receive: Visual examples

    You choose sample images that fit

  5. Voice & Wording

    We describe how your brand sounds, with sample phrases your writers can follow.

    You receive: Voice guide

    You approve the tone and wording

  6. Brand Book & Templates

    We lay out the finished book and add ready-made templates your team can open and edit.

    You receive: Brand book

    You share the book with your team

Tools & technologies

Technologies We Use for Brand Guidelines

Layout and documentation tools that turn rules into a guide your team will use.

  • Adobe InDesign: Page layout for brochures, catalogues, e-books and reports.
  • Adobe Illustrator: Vector artwork that stays sharp at any size.
  • Figma: Design tool for dashboard wireframes and layouts approved before build.
  • Adobe Photoshop: Retouching and image compositing for polished visuals.
  • Google Fonts: Free web fonts for consistent typography.
  • Pantone: Colour matching standard for print and packaging.
  • Iconify: Huge open icon library for consistent icon styles.
  • SVG: Scalable vector format for logos, icons and web graphics.
  • Notion: Shared workspace for roadmaps, decisions and documentation.
  • Webflow: Visual website builder for fast, designed landing pages.
  • Google Slides: Shared decks your team can edit together.
  • WordPress: Content management system for websites, blogs and landing pages.
  • Google Drive: Cloud folders for sharing files and final assets.
  • Dropbox: Cloud storage for large source files.
  • Adobe Acrobat: Print-ready PDFs with accurate fonts and colours.

Expert guide

Brand Guidelines Design: A Complete Guide for Businesses

Brand guidelines design is the work of turning an existing identity into instructions that other people can follow without calling the original designer. Done well, a new hire, a freelancer or a print vendor can look up the right logo version, color value or tone of voice in seconds.

Most guidelines fail for ordinary reasons: they were written as a showcase, buried in a shared drive, and never updated. A useful set is specific, easy to find, and has an owner.

This guide covers what to include, how to choose between a PDF, a web portal and a design library, how to write rules that can be checked, and how to maintain them. It also notes trademark practices relevant in the USA, UK, Australia and Singapore.

What brand guidelines are for

Guidelines exist to settle everyday decisions quickly. Should the logo go on a photo? Which blue is used for buttons? Can a partner place our mark beside theirs? Every question answered in the document is one fewer email to the marketing team and one fewer inconsistent result.

Identify your users before you design anything. Internal marketers need templates and tone guidance. External vendors need exact files, color codes and spacing. Developers need digital values. Partners and press need a short, permission-based section. One document rarely serves all of them equally well.

If you have no identity yet, start with brand identity design and add guidelines when the choices are stable. A brand guidelines design project is also the moment to decide who owns the document after launch.

What to include in brand guidelines

Core sections of brand guidelines and the decisions they settle
SectionDecision it settlesExample of a checkable rule
Logo use Which version, where, how large Keep clear space equal to the height of the symbol; never stretch or recolor
Color Approved values and pairings Give values for screen and print; list which text colors may sit on which backgrounds
Typography Fonts and hierarchy Name a fallback font for tools that lack the brand font
Imagery Photography and illustration style Describe subject, lighting and cropping, with approved and rejected examples
Voice How copy sounds List words to prefer and avoid, plus before-and-after sentences
Layout Grids and spacing Provide ready-made templates instead of only describing margins
Co-branding and legal Use by partners; symbols and notices State approval steps and where trademark notices appear

Skip pages that restate the obvious. A concise guide that people read beats a long book that nobody opens, which is the main test of any brand guidelines design.

Choosing a format: PDF, web portal or design library

Delivery formats for brand guidelines
FormatBest forLimits
PDF Small teams, one-off projects, offline sharing Goes out of date; old copies circulate in email
Web portal Many users, frequent updates, downloadable assets Needs hosting, access control and someone to edit it
Design-tool library Designers and product teams working in shared files Useful only to people with access to that tool
Templates Non-designers producing slides, documents and posts Cover only the formats you build

Many organizations combine them: a short portal or PDF for everyone, plus a component library for designers and developers. See how libraries and shared styles work in Figma’s Help Center (opens in a new tab) if that is your design tool.

Writing rules people can actually follow

A rule is useful when a stranger can check it. Compare “use the logo with sufficient breathing room” with “keep a margin equal to the height of the letter M on every side”. The second can be tested by anyone.

  • Show right and wrong side by side. Examples teach faster than paragraphs.
  • Explain the reason in one sentence, so people can handle cases the guide did not predict.
  • Give exact values: color codes, minimum sizes, file names.
  • Say who to ask and how long approval takes.
  • Provide the assets next to the rule, not in a separate folder somewhere else.

Digital standards, motion and accessibility

For websites and apps, guidelines should give developers values they can paste: color tokens, type scales, spacing units and component behavior. Platform rules matter here; Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines (opens in a new tab) explain how typography and layout adapt on Apple devices, and Material Design’s motion guidance (opens in a new tab) describes how movement communicates state.

Accessibility rules belong in the guidelines, not in a separate document nobody reads. Include approved color pairs tested against the WCAG contrast requirement (opens in a new tab), and a short standard for alternative text. The W3C images tutorial (opens in a new tab) shows when an image needs a text description and when it should be treated as decorative.

Assets, ownership and keeping guidelines current

Guidelines decay without an owner. Name one person or team, set a review date, and keep a short change log so users know what moved.

  • Asset library: logos as SVG for screens (see the W3C SVG 2 specification (opens in a new tab)), print-ready PDFs, and source files, named consistently and versioned.
  • Approvals: define who signs off on external use and on exceptions.
  • Third-party material: record the license for each photo, font and illustration. Licenses such as the Creative Commons licenses (opens in a new tab) carry different terms, so note the exact one beside each asset.
  • Training: a short walk-through for new staff and agencies prevents most errors.

Cost factors and how to plan a budget

The price of brand guidelines design depends less on page count than on how much has to be invented. If the identity already exists, guidelines are mostly documentation and organization. If decisions are missing, design work comes first.

  • Whether the identity is finished or still evolving.
  • Number of audiences and sections.
  • Format: a PDF, a hosted portal, a component library, or several.
  • Number of templates built, such as slides, documents and social posts.
  • Digital tokens and developer handoff.
  • Training, translations and later updates.

A fixed price suits a clearly scoped document, while a dedicated team suits a growing library with regular updates. Budget for maintenance as well as creation, and for presentation templates if sales teams will use them heavily. Print-facing rules can also point to business card and stationery templates.

How to choose a brand guidelines design provider

  1. Sample guides with real rules, not only attractive pages.
  2. A user-first process: they ask who will use the guide and what they get stuck on.
  3. Format flexibility: can they deliver a portal, a library and templates, or only a PDF?
  4. Asset handling: correct file types, naming and versioning.
  5. Accessibility built in, not appended.
  6. A maintenance plan that explains how updates happen after launch.
  7. Full ownership of the document, templates and source files.

How Kramate delivers brand guidelines

A dedicated project manager coordinates the work, with daily Slack or Teams updates and a demo at the close of each two-week round, so you can test draft rules on real tasks. An NDA comes first, and all intellectual property, including templates and source files, is transferred to you. The sequence is set out in our approach.

You begin with a free consultation and get a detailed estimate within 24 hours, as a fixed price, a dedicated team or hourly support. Four to six hours overlap with US Eastern time and a full working day with the UK, Australia and Singapore make review calls practical, and we can work alongside your brand team or run the project.

Frequently asked questions

What should be in brand guidelines?

At minimum: logo use, color values, typography, imagery style, tone of voice, layout examples and legal notices. Add co-branding rules, digital standards and templates if people outside your design team produce materials regularly.

Is a PDF or an online portal better for brand guidelines?

A PDF is simpler and works offline but ages quickly. A portal stays current and can hold downloadable assets, yet needs hosting and an editor. Teams with frequent changes usually prefer a portal or design library.

How do we keep brand guidelines up to date?

Assign an owner, schedule regular reviews, keep a short change log, and withdraw old versions from shared drives. Update the asset files together with the text so the two never disagree.

Do small businesses need brand guidelines?

A short version is worthwhile once more than one person creates materials, and logo files alone justify a page. Even a few pages covering logo files, colors, fonts and tone prevent drift. Expand it as the business and its materials grow.

Who should own the brand guidelines?

One accountable team, usually marketing or brand, with named contributors from design, product and legal. Shared ownership with no single named owner is the usual way guidelines go stale over time.

Can brand guidelines include website and app standards?

Yes, and they should if you build digital products. Include design tokens, components and accessibility rules so developers do not guess. If the underlying identity is still being defined, see brand identity design services first.

Sources and further reading

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Scope of the guide is the main driver. A short logo-and-colour sheet costs less than a full brand book. Other factors are the number of applications covered, such as social, print and packaging, how much existing material needs auditing, and whether you want templates and asset libraries built alongside the document.

Most projects start with an audit of your current assets, then structure, layout, a review round and final export. Timeline depends on how many sections you need, how fast feedback arrives, and whether the underlying identity is settled. Unresolved brand decisions are the most common cause of delay.

You do. After final payment, Kramate transfers the finished guide, the layout source files and any templates to you, along with rights to use them. Fonts and stock images are the exception because they carry their own licences. We list each one so you know what to renew or buy.

Yes. We begin by auditing what you use today, then document the parts that work and tidy the parts that clash. Your logo, colours and fonts stay unless you ask for changes. The guide is then written so your designers, agency or printers can follow it without calling us.

A useful guide covers logo versions and clear space, colour values, typography, imagery style, tone of voice, and examples of correct and incorrect use. Many also add social, email and print templates. We agree the contents with you first, so the guide matches how your team actually works.

Brand identity design creates the visual system, such as the logo, colours and type. Brand guidelines design records how to use that system consistently. If your identity already exists, you only need the guidelines. If it does not, the two are usually done together.

You normally get a PDF for sharing, plus the editable layout files in the software we used. Colour values are supplied for print and screen. If your team needs a web-based version or downloadable asset folders, we can set that up. Tell us during scoping so we plan for it.

Common problems are too many pages, rules with no visual examples, missing digital formats, and guides that were never tested by the people who use them. We keep the document focused, show correct and incorrect use side by side, and ask your team to review a draft before it is final.

Taking new projects

Let’s talk about your Brand Guidelines Design needs

Tell us about your project and get a free consultation and estimate within 24 hours.

  1. We reply within 4 business hours A real consultant reads your brief — no bot, no queue.
  2. 30-minute discovery call We dig into goals, constraints and budget. NDA signed on request.
  3. Proposal in 24 hours Scope, timeline, team and price — clear enough to decide on.
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