Brand Guidelines

Brand guides can be slim and concise or multipages behemoths, depending on the needs, size and reach of the client. They can be printed and bound or exist entirely online but are the key to a consistent brand message.

A clearly defined set of guidelines allow your brand to be communicated to your customer, supplier, employee and investor but all too often brand guidelines are a strict set of rules that frustrate designers and restrict the implementation of the brand.

The Bigger Boat creates simple and flexible guidelines that aim to inspire, excite and instill a belief in the brand. Brand guidelines should motivate people to embrace the brand vision not bash their heads against a brick wall. We have a great deal of industry experience in creating and managing brand guides and assets for well-known big name brands and small local companies.

The Bigger Boat brand guidelines allow anyone to quickly find the right information on how to apply the brand across all media, whilst still providing a degree of creative freedom.

'Do’s and dont's' can be a waste of time, if your designer thinks that stretching or distorting a logo is a good idea then you may be talking to the wrong people! The Bigger Boat guidelines typically contain the following:

Logo specification
Specifying such things as exclusion areas, how to use clear space, exclusion areas etc. will result in a high-quality definition with legibility across all applications.

Logo application
Specifying the primary colourway, black and white versions, single colour, application on a photographic background etc.

Colour palettes
Colour can be a huge asset. Brands should not be afraid to use colour but neither should they be slap-dash with its application. Pantone, CMYK, RGB and web colours will be specified.

Typography
To bring communication to life, the style of typography sets the tone of the brand. Titles, headings, body copy etc. will be specified.

Tone of voice
Arguably the single most important part of any brand guidelines, tone of voice is often overlooked. A brand personifies a faceless company or product, a conversational style is an essential indicator of personality.

Photography
Photography can be one of the most powerful ways of illustrating a brand. It should always be of a high quality – if your pictures don’t look good, you don’t look good. Rubbish in, rubbish out.

Implementations
The brand guidelines end with a series of example implementations that demonstrate how a competent graphic designer can apply the guidelines across a wide range of media.