The 5 kings of a brand guide

Branding

Dec 9

Looking for support with building your brand guide? Start here.

Last week I lead a group of ambitious entrepreneurs through a 45-minute workshop where we worked through everything brand development. Of course everything was high level and lacking deep strategy, BUT what it did include was the opportunity for these entrepreneurs to start seeing the benefits of creating cohesion in their branding.

I wanted to focus on the 5 Kings of a brand guide.
Once you know and are comfortable with these elements, strategy or not, your business will undoubtedly start looking more professional and be set up for success. These do not have to be in this order!

The first king is Logo Design

Obviously, in this workshop I was not able to help these folks with their logo design, however, we did start here and speak about the benefits of having 3 logo styles to best encompass your brand across all platforms. ( primary, secondary, stamp) We also talked about the specific logotypes which you will use in different marketing variations. (Web vs Print)

The Second King is Key Words

This is the start of developing your brand positioning. Finding your unique keywords that resonate with your brand's values and practices. Think about what you want people to say about your business. Then slowly start using these words in your tag lines and building imagery and graphics around these key identifiers.

The Third King is Typography

What is the type of your logo? Finding a type that is unique, easy to read and open for commercial use can be tough! But once you find it, make sure that you use it in headers and large-scale areas in branding. You will also want to think about a secondary font which compliments it and can be used in more paragraph-styled areas.

The Fourth King is: Colour Theory

Colour theory is so important to help with the mood and vibe of your brand. It is also an easy way to carry your branding throughout all of your esthetics with just a simple colour block. ( especially in website design) The best practice is not to have more than 5 colours- two of which should be neutrals.

The fifth King is Supportive imagery

Building a mood board is a great step to help you pull your “vibe” of the brand together. Here you can use images with your colours, find the type that replicates your logos, and collage images that define your values and your mood. Once you have images that align with your brand, you can use them across all your platforms as Breather / supportive images.

And that's it!
Depending on where you are in your business, this can 100% change. But make sure you keep it updated so it's easy to reference back to when you are building a marketing campaign, a post, an email or updating your website.

Having these items set alleviates so much in-between time when it comes to creatives. Building a guide gives you the foundation to build your business with a clear and concise vision!

WORKSHOP:
DIY YOUR OWN BRAND GUIDE

$19.99

Create confidence in your marketing and eliminate any doubt about how to show up online. Build your very own mini-brand guide for your business.
In this workshop, we determine your voice, style, colours, and keywords for your brand. We also speak about how to use supportive imagery and what type of logo is best suited where for your marketing.

Using the Canva template will allow you to finally create a standard for your business. This is a great tool to have when you are building your marketing, updating your website, changing your brand or having for your marketing team to make sure your business is always looking fresh, professional and on brand!

Workshop Includes