Skip To Content

Brand Books: Why Your Company Needs One Now

Sep. 21, 2023 | Lindsey Hart

Brand Book Team Working

Brands and their branding elements are becoming the main focus areas in businesses in today’s economic society. According to Anthem Branding, “77 percent of marketers say that branding is critical to future growth.” 

This is a huge percentage to consider. You may be thinking, “Where do I even start with branding?” or “How would I even pull something together to include all of our business’ branding elements?” 

To ensure your business incorporates great branding, Perfect Afternoon suggests creating a brand book. This comprehensive, detailed guide comes into play for your business to create or enhance partnerships, and it’s one of the main tangible assets we find most valuable for our clients.

Then, you may ask, “Isn’t that something bigger corporations only need?” The answer is no! Brand books are an integral tool for the messaging of any business, no matter the size or the industry!

Web Designer work on project in front of laptop

What Is a Brand Book?

A brand book can seem like some type of enigmatic, high-design tool that is only really applicable when talking about the brand’s logos and colors for larger companies and corporations. It’s so much more than just the design elements at play in your brand! 

Think of your brand book as a liaison. It represents the same gesture as sending a manager to work with an advertising company to make sure they know how to properly represent your brand, or having a senior employee that’s familiar with your brand train a new hire on how your business presents itself.

Your brand book is everything you would want someone to know who is working with your brand. If you are submitting a small ad in a local paper, you would send your brand book to the advertisement company as a guide to make sure it will look like the rest of your branding materials!

What’s In It?

To have your brand book properly reflect all the elements of your brand, you will want to add details more robust than only logos and colors. The true value in a brand book is all of the other pages, detailing who the company is and how it is presented. 

One item we believe your brand book should include is your brand’s mission statement. This statement shows the motivation behind why you do what you do. Additionally, write a section discussing your brand’s tone. This is great when you need to hire a copywriter – you can hand off the brand book, and they will know how to represent your business through writing. 

Each component within the brand book works to inform the consistency and cohesion of your brand across all messaging, whether it’s visual, textual, or audio. The content of each brand book fluctuates slightly depending on what your brand’s focus is. For instance, PA has a section dedicated to iconography since our brand utilizes it quite a bit, but we know this type of branding is not applicable for every brand. 

We’ve combined a list of extra elements to add to a brand book after establishing a baseline of what to include:

  • Brand Elements
    • Brand History
    • Brand Values
    • Brand Personality / Tone
  • Logo Definitions
    • Logo Spacing
    • Logo Variations
    • Logo Uses
    • Logo Misuses
  • Color Palette
  • Typography
  • Marketing Collateral
    • Business Cards
    • Sell Sheets
    • Brand Guide Uses

Once your brand book is created, you have set in stone the brand elements that should be incorporated across all communication channels. Your business can now feel confident in hiring a designer to take on some graphic work because you can hand them everything they’ll need to keep it on-brand. The book, in and of itself, is a statement on how you like things to be presented in a print format. A great deal of style can be derived by looking at how elements are laid out page to page. 

Our team at PA, especially the Creative team, is excited when clients come to us with a fully-developed brand book. This equips us, as an agency, to fully understand the brand while making an even more well-suited design!

Start the Creative Brand Book Process Today

Interested in having a brand book for your brand? It will help your business’ consistency through its online and print messaging and design. We have helped many companies, both small and large, solidify their brand stance and feel more confident in their messaging. 

Get in touch with PA to sculpt your brand into a true masterpiece!

Primary Image Source: Envato Elements

Secondary Image Source: Envato Elements