Developing a consistent brand begins with creating a brand style guide. These branding rulebooks help graphic designers, marketers, web developers, community managers, and even product packaging departments present a unified vision of the brand to the public.
The best brands stick in our minds because their presence is defined by the repetition of the same logo, fonts, colors and images. Once we see them sufficiently, they become immediately recognizable. All of this is possible when every member of your team adheres to a consistent brand style guide.
So what is a brand style guide? In this article, I’ll go over the elements of a style guide and share some amazing examples of them in action to inspire you on your next branding project or website redesign.
Table of contents
What are Brand Guidelines?
Brand guidelines, also known as brand style guides, regulate the composition, design and general appearance of a company’s brand. Brand guidelines can determine the content of a logo, blog, website, advertisement, and similar marketing materials.
Imagine the most famous brands that come to mind.
You probably learned to recognize them for one of the following reasons:
- There is written or visual consistency throughout the message.
- The same brand colors are reflected in all assets.
- The language sounds familiar to me.
- It’s all very organized and not rigid, but still coherent.
But before you jump into creating your branding guidelines, I recommend you take a step back and define your brand’s mission statement and buyer personas. These strategic elements will later help you address the tactical components of your brand style guide.
Brand Guidelines Mission Statement
Your Brand Guidelines Mission statement ensures that all of your content works towards the same goal and connects with your audience. It can also guide your blog and your paid content, ad copy, visual media and tagline.
Brand Guidelines Buyer Persona
Your Brand Guidelines Buyer Persona directs your blog content, ad copy, and visual media that can attract valuable leads and customers to your business. You can quickly create one with our free persona tool.
The elements of a brand style guide
A brand style guide involves much more than just a logo (although that’s important too). It visually encompasses everything your brand is about – right down to the purpose of your business.
Here are some key elements that I believe make or break a brand style guide, with links to in-depth articles if you need further guidance or information:
- logo. Logos are a powerful way to determine how your brand is perceived. We have put together a nine-step guide to help you.
- Color palette. Your brand’s color palette influences every aspect of your design, especially the visual impact and user experience. We have 50 unforgettable palettes that will inspire you.
- typography. Typography plays a crucial role on any website as it ensures that we can read and process any text-based content comfortably. When a website’s typography works, we don’t notice it. If this fails, there is a high chance that we will bounce off the page.
- Imagery and iconography. Ensure the best possible user experience with these icon best practices.
- Brand voice. Build your best brand voice with our free brand building guide.
Examples of style guides
- City of Chicago
- Olympic games
- Amnesty International UK
- Sonic the Hedgehog
- Burger King
- Eurovision Song Contest
- OpenAI
- DC Comics 1982
- Reporter San Frontières
- Major League Soccer
- Czech Railways
- Coronation 2023
- EPA (1977)
- documentation
- Zagreb airport
- Oxford Students’ Union
- Fiat 2019
- Team Canada
- Hulu
- Federal Governor of Brazil
- IBM
- American Airlines
- British Railways
- Elizabeth Line, transport for London
- medium
- Walmart
- Asana
- Spotify
- Starbucks
- Paris 2024
- Urban Outfitters
- I love driving
- Barbican
- I love New York
- TikTok
- Helsinki University of the Arts
- Western Athletic Conference
- discord
- Netflix
- NASA
- New York City Transit Authority
1. City of Chicago
Look at the whole thing City of Chicago Brand Guide.
What I like: Chicago’s brand guidelines are based on the beauty and simplicity of the city’s flag, both in color and design. Plus, the guide’s tone is fun and light – just as it acknowledges how popular Chicago stars are in tattoo designs.
A fun detail: the custom font Big Shoulders is from Carl Sandburg’s poem “Chicago” which earned the city the nickname “City of Big Shoulders.”
2. Olympic Games
Look at the whole thing Olympic Games Brand Guide.
What I like: The Olympics still uses the 1913 logo and colors, but the brand was refreshed in 2022 by Ben Hulse (whose work appears a few times in this list). The bold interpretation of the Olympic colors embodies the brand characteristics: hopeful, universal, inclusive, vibrant and progressive.
3. Amnesty International UK
Look at the whole thing Amnesty International’s UK brand guide.
What I like: Amnesty International UK sums it up on the cover: bright, bold and positive. The brand colors pink, yellow and blue are cheerful, optimistic and bold. This guide also illustrates the do’s, don’ts and exceptions particularly well.
4. Sonic the Hedgehog
Look at the whole thing Sonic the Hedgehog Brand Guide.
What I like: Cartoons also need a style guide. Sonic the Hedgehogs includes phrases for each character, which is a fun and novel way to ensure brand consistency.
5. Burger King
Look at the whole thing Burger King brand guide.
What I like: Burger King says everything it does is designed to make food “even more desirable” – including the shape of the font, which is specifically designed to evoke the shapes of food.
6th Eurovision Song Contest
Look at the whole thing Eurovision Song Contest brand guide.
What I like: The font is adjusted so that there are no characters other than those in the word “Eurovision”. This gives the brand an unsurpassed uniqueness.
7. OpenAI
Look at the whole thing OpenAI brand leader.
What I like: OpenAI has put a lot of thought into the symbolism behind all of its color choices. For example, it uses a lot of black and white in its branding to make the point that “OpenAI is an empty vessel that adapts to its contents.”
8. DC Comics 1982
See excerpts from the DC Comics 1982 Brand Guide.
What I like: what is not like? Even MCU apologists can appreciate the storytelling that went into DC Comics’ 1982 style guide. Superheroes are grouped by color palette and each character includes a written introduction with catchphrases, mythology and other details.
9. Reporters San Frontières
Look at the whole thing Reporters San Frontières brand guide.
What I like: One of RSF’s slogans, “Fight for Facts,” is simple but effective, which is reflected in RSF’s three colors: black, white and a bright rose-colored red. The guide indicates how to use accent colors – red or black should only make up 20% of a design, while white should make up the other 80%. This underlines RSF’s simple but powerful branding.
10. Major League Soccer
Look at the whole thing Major League Soccer brand leader.
What I like: Major League Soccer’s style guide must include color combinations for 20 teams. To ensure brand cohesion, MLS has a single logo, the crest, with no design variations. It also includes specific instructions for applying color layers to images.
11. Czech Railways
Look at the whole thing Czech Railways brand leader.
What I like: The Czech Railways’ beautiful color palette focuses on dark blue and deep orange, and the logo is reminiscent of railway tracks.
12th Coronation 2023
Look at the whole thing Coronation 2023 brand guide.
What I like: This 23-page guide covers just one: the emblem used for the coronation of Britain’s King Charles in 2023. Therefore, it is a fascinating case study in detail. The guide contains half a dozen examples of using the emblem on royal loot and is extremely specific in its dos and don’ts.
13. EPA (1977)
See excerpts from the EPA Brand Guide.
What I like: The 1977 Environmental Protection Agency trademark guide is a favorite of graphic designers for good reason. Look at the patterns called program identifiers, such as “toxic substances,” “noise,” and “radiation.”
The EPA’s jewel-toned rainbow of brand colors includes a muddy green called “Pesticides Green” and a color called “Solid Waste Brown.” The EPA must have been a pleasant place to work in the 1970s.
14. Documentation
Look at the whole thing Docusign Brand Guide.
What I like: Docusign includes a page of colored pie charts to illustrate correct color ratios. Docusign also features a vibrant accent color – a bright coral that contrasts beautifully with the purple tones of the brand’s palette.
15. Zagreb Airport
Look at the whole thing Zagreb Airport brand guide.
What I like: Zagreb Airport in Croatia uses a simple triangle as a building block for complex iconography that references Croatian heritage and culture.
16. Oxford Student Union
Look at the whole thing Oxford Student Union brand guide.
What I like: Adding color combinations is a nice touch here. I’m one of those people who can take a perfectly beautiful color palette and turn it into a dirty mess, so I’d like to see that in more style guides.
17. Fiat 2019
Look at the whole thing Brand leader Fiat 2019.
What I like: The four diagonal lines in the Fiat logo are fascinating. Fiat incorporated these simple four lines into its branding in a playful, creative way, for example by changing the length of half of the lines, as is the case on the cover (above).
18. Team Canada
See excerpts from the Team Canada brand leader.
What I like: Although there are only a few excerpts available from the full 88-page brand guide, I’m including this one because it’s awesome. Canada’s red maple leaf could have been an outdated symbol, but designers reimagined it with complex geometric patterns and bold colors.
19. Hulu
Look at the whole thing Hulu Brand Guide.
What I like: Hulu does a lot with a relatively limited palette, mixing it up with bold fonts and whimsical illustrations. I also like this shade of green – despite being a common color, Hulu chose a standout shade.
20. Brazil Governo Federal
Look at the whole thing Brasil Governo Federal brand guide.
What I like: The Brasil Governo Federal’s bold style and eye-catching colors are a real eye-catcher, to say the least. The style guide includes information about using the logo in videos, which in my experience is a branding question that often goes unanswered.
21. IBM
Look at the whole thing IBM brand leader.
What I like: IBM’s Brand Guide is an incredible interactive experience with videos and custom font previews. It’s also among the most comprehensive of this entire list, as it offers support for non-Latin scripts like Arabic and fonts that support alternative glyphs and even ligatures. There is even an entire section dedicated to data visualization.
22. American Airlines
Look at the whole thing American Airlines brand guide.
What I like: American Airlines’ style guide provides numerous examples, including details on what part of the aircraft can be shown in a photo. Considering how many different types of ads the airline runs, it’s helpful to have as many specific details to avoid human error and inconsistencies.
23. British Rail
Look at the whole thing British Rail Corporate Identity Handbook.
What I like: British Rail’s corporate identity handbook collects several decades of brand changes – it’s worth taking a look just to track the subtle differences over time.
24. Elizabeth Line, transport for London
Look at the whole thing Elizabeth Line brand guide.
What I like: TfL, London’s transport authority, has created a brand guide for its latest addition, the Elizabeth line. It even includes a section on “Flexibility of Design Language,” which provides guidance on how much Elizabeth line branding to use on a scale from “locality” to “Elizabeth lineness.”
25. Medium
Look at the whole thing Medium-sized brand leader.
What I like: Medium’s simple brand style guide emphasizes the use of its logo, wordmark, and icon. Medium’s logo is the brand’s most important graphic element and was designed to appear “confident, high-quality, timeless and modern”.
26. Walmart
Look at the whole thing Walmart Brand Guide.
What I like: The guide covers the brand’s logo, photography, typography, illustrations, iconography, voice, editorial style and more. Walmart’s color palette is so integral to its brand identity that its primary color is called “Walmart Blue.”
27. Asana
Look at the whole thing Asana Brand Guide.
What I like: Asana’s simple style guide highlights the logo and color palette. It also explains how to properly use the brand’s assets.
28. Spotify
Look at the whole thing Spotify Brand Guide.
What I like: Spotify’s color palette includes three color codes, while the rest of the company’s brand guidelines focus on logo variations and album covers. The style guide even lets you download an icon version of the logo, making it easier for you to represent the company without having to recreate it manually.
29. Starbucks
Look at the whole thing Starbucks brand guide.
What I like: Starbucks’ interactive brand style guide provides details on how to use its core elements such as the iconic Siren logo and green color palette. Additionally, the guide provides a visual spectrum of how your creative assets can be used across different channels.
30 Paris 2024
Look at the whole thing Brand guide for Paris 2024.
What I like: The Paris 2024 brand identity pays homage to the 1924 Olympics through an Art Deco-inspired design. Best of all, the designers used eco-branding methods to reduce ink and paper use for physical materials and limit the power and data consumption of digital elements.
This brand guide also reinvents all 62 Olympic and Paralympic Games pictograms as “crests that serve as rallying cries for sports fans.” Each pictogram is designed on an axis of symmetry that reinforces the coat of arms iconography. Go directly to the pictogram guidelines take a look. The following represent surfing, swimming, table tennis and taekwondo.
31. Urban Outfitters
Look at the whole thing Urban Outfitters brand guide.
What I like: Photography, color and even tone of voice can be found in Urban Outfitters’ California-inspired brand guidelines. Additionally, the company provides information about its ideal consumer and what the brand believes in.
32. I love driving
Look at the whole thing Brand guide “Love to Ride”..
What I like: Love to Ride, a cycling company, is all about color diversity in its visually appealing style guide. The company’s brand guidelines include nine color codes and tons of details about its secondary logos and images.
33. Barbican
Look at the whole thing Barbican Brand Guide.
What I like: Barbican, an arts and learning center in the United Kingdom, has a loud but simple style guide that focuses heavily on the logo and supporting fonts.
34. I love New York
Look at the whole thing I Love New York brand guide.
What I like: Despite its famously plain t-shirts, I Love New York has a branded style guide. The company begins its guidelines with a detailed explanation of its mission, vision, history, target audience, and tone of voice. Only then does the style guide deal with the positioning of the logo on various goods.
35. TikTok
Look at the whole thing TikTok Brand Guide.
What I like: TikTok’s style guide isn’t just a guide – it’s an interactive brand book. First, it provides an in-depth look at how the company brings its brand to life through design. There is then an overview of the logo, co-branding, color and typography.
36. Helsinki University of the Arts
Look at the whole thing Helsinki University of the Arts brand guide.
What I like: The University of the Arts Helsinki style guide is more of a creative branding album than a traditional marketing guide. It shows you dozens of contexts in which you would see this school’s provocative logo, including animations.
37. Western Athletic Conference
Look at the whole thing Western Athletic Conference brand leader.
What I like: The Western Athletic Conference Brand Style Guide provides detailed information about its history, mission and vision. It also highlights its member universities and the sports championships and awards in which it is involved.
38. Discord
Look at the whole thing Discord brand guide.
What I like: Discord’s brand guide is as colorful and playful as the communities it serves. The brand’s motion elements are based on the point that represents the Discord user interacting with others in the communities they belong to.
39. Netflix
Look at the whole thing Netflix brand guide.
What I like: When it comes to its public brand assets, Netflix focuses primarily on the treatment of its logo. The company offers simple rules for the size, spacing, and placement of its famous capital letters.
40.NASA
Look at the whole thing NASA Brand Guide.
What I like: NASA’s Graphics Standards Manual is as official and complex as you think. Across 220 pages, the guide describes countless logo placements, color usage and supporting designs. And yes, NASA’s space shuttles have their own branding rules.
41. New York City Transit Authority
Look at the whole thing New York City Transit Authority brand guide.
What I like: Like NASA, the NYCTA has its own graphic standards manual, which lays out some fascinating typography rules for the public transit numbers, arrows, and symbols that the average commuter takes for granted every day.
Branding Guidelines Tips
If you want to take your branding style guide to the next level, let us HubSpot’s Brand Kit Generator Do some of the hard work for you.
I would also recommend following the following best practices that the HubSpot creative team used to disseminate branding information to the rest of the HubSpot marketing team.
Not only has this made my job as a blogger easier, but it also ensures that our branding feels well thought out and consistent.
1. Make your policies a brand document.
Whether you publish your branding guidelines online or create an internal presentation, you should consider turning the guidelines themselves into a branding document.
Make sure the published document follows your established brand voice, uses the icons and images you created, and uses the colors and typography that make your brand feel like you.
Insights from HubSpot’s creative team
When our creative team rolled out an update to HubSpot’s brand visual identity, we were all given access to a brand playbook that summarized all the changes and described how we should represent HubSpot online moving forward.
I was a big fan of not only the update, but also the way it was presented to our team in a brand document.
You can do the same regardless of your budget. Our creative team actually used a free tool, Google Slides – so it’s totally doable for a small or freelance brand!
2. Name your brand’s colors.
You’ve already chosen your color palette – why not go as far as naming the colors?
Giving your colors unique names (other than “blue” or “orange”) helps you integrate the tactical elements of your branding into an overall theme or ethos.
Not to mention, it’s great to be able to refer to a company’s colors with a unique name. Imagine if we called Solaris, HubSpot’s main brand color, “HubSpot Orange” – it just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
Insights from HubSpot’s creative team
In refreshing our visual identity, our creative team brightened and intensified our color palette and then renamed each shade.
They wrote: “Each color, tint and shade is based on central themes. (…) Whether it’s a subway line in Paris or a flower-lined street in Japan, the names of secondary colors are a veritable tour of important cultural and geographical touchstones from HubSpotters around the world.”
Think about what makes your brand unique and why you chose the colors. For example, if you work at a law firm that specializes in car accident cases, you might choose red as one of the brand colors and call it “Stop Light.”
3. Create user-friendly brand templates.
Alongside your branding guidelines, there should be templates that allow your team to easily design brand assets, even if they are not designers.
Insights from HubSpot’s creative team
At HubSpot, we store all of our templates in our team’s Canva account. There, anyone (including me) can edit pre-made designs for any number of use cases.
As the author of the HubSpot blog, I need to create graphics to complement the information I share.
The brand templates created by our creative team have made my job a lot easier, and I imagine the same goes for our social media team.
Not everyone is a designer, but with templates you can ensure your brand looks professional no matter who is creating an asset.
4. Make sure your branding is optimized for all channels.
Your branding guidelines should include different specifications for different channels.
Alternatively, have assets and themes that can be customized for different channels and media. Not just for size reasons, but also for accessibility reasons.
For example, if you market your brand primarily through Instagram and on your website, your branding should have web-friendly colors and Instagram-friendly designs and sizes.
However, you don’t want to change your branding significantly from channel to channel. It should work relatively well no matter where you market your brand.
Create an unforgettable style guide yourself
Once you create your unique brand style guide, customers will recognize your brand and associate it with all the visual cues you want them to have.
I hope you’ve been inspired by our list of great brand style guides and wish you the best of luck in creating your own timeless style.
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in January 2017 and has been updated for completeness.