How to build a brand guide in an afternoon
A brand guide is not a forty-page PDF that nobody opens. For a small team, it is a short, working document that answers one question: when someone makes something for your business, what should it look and sound like.
You can write the useful version in an afternoon. Here is how.
Five things that actually matter
Skip the brand-archetype essays. A small business needs five things written down.
- Colors. Two or three you actually use, with their hex codes. Not eleven.
- Type. One font for headings, one for body, and where to get them.
- Logo. The files, plus one rule: the minimum size and the space around it.
- Voice. Three words for how you sound, and two short do and don't examples.
- Audience. One sentence on who you are talking to and what they want.
That is the whole spine. Everything else is decoration.
Write the voice section like a person
Most brand guides describe voice in adjectives nobody can act on. "Approachable yet authoritative" tells a writer nothing. Show it instead.
We say: "Your card was declined — update it here." We don't say: "Unfortunately, a billing exception has occurred."
Two lines like that do more than a page of theory. Write three or four pairs and you have a voice guide your whole team can follow.
Make it the source, not a snapshot
The reason brand guides go stale is that they live somewhere separate from the work. The logo sits in a drive. The colors live in a designer's head. By the third month, every tool has its own slightly-wrong version of your brand.
The fix is to keep the guide where the work happens. In MINI CMO, your brand guide is the context every app reads from — so when you write an email, design an image, or publish a page, your colors, fonts, and voice are already loaded. You set it once and stop re-explaining yourself.
A 90-minute plan
- Minutes 0 to 20: pull your colors and fonts. Paste the hex codes and font names in.
- Minutes 20 to 40: upload your logo and write the one sizing rule.
- Minutes 40 to 70: write three voice do and don't pairs.
- Minutes 70 to 90: write the one-sentence audience description and read it all back.
Done. It will not be perfect, and it does not need to be. A working brand guide that everyone uses beats a beautiful one that nobody opens.
When you are ready to make yours the engine behind every piece of marketing, start with the Brand Guide Manager. It is free to set up.