Brand guidelines ensure brand consistency across various platforms.

Through a detailed brand guideline document, you can narrate an impactful brand story to the audiences and your team members. 

You can educate people about your brand's vision, struggle, and perseverance. It's a compelling summary of your hard work and dedication that has led to this day. Elements like fonts, colors, logos, etc., all have a significant role in crafting the perfect brand guideline for your company. 

Here are 5 companies with killer brand guidelines that can inspire you to devise something magical of your own.

1. Cisco

Image Source: Cisco

Cisco's branding guidelines are a harmonious collection of everything that the company has achieved, the problems it has solved, and where it's headed in the coming years. The guidelines are interactive and take the user through a journey over the course of a few pages. 

Its branding template uses the CiscoSans typeface, and the color palette varies from topic to topic. The introductory layout has its neatly designed logo with a strong brand message that talks about their logo's importance with its name elegantly written just beneath the logo. 

2. Starbucks 

Image Source: Starbucks

Starbucks, the world's largest coffee chain, calls its style guide a brand expression guide. It highlights how Starbucks thinks, feels, and acts. The style guide starts with multiple elements on the first page that outline their motto. If you're looking to have a multi-element introductory page for your brand identity guidelines, learn it from Starbucks.

Their expression guide continues to unfurl various aspects of their company with sheer elegance. It's a fantastic online manual for a retail company. Starbucks utilizes different fonts for headings, accents, and body text, with its logo being consistent on all guideline pages. 

3. Shazam

Image Source: Shazam 

Shazam wants to be friends with you right from the start. It asks the user to think of Shazam as their buddy having "sound" knowledge of music, TV, etc. The brand utilizes a straightforward approach to showcase various design elements with a touch of humor that always keeps the tone light. 

They have a flexible color palette with six colors added in their branding guidelines. The monochromatic logo speaks volumes of their simplistic ideology. The style guide also talks about their social, promotional, and administrative guidelines, which keep you engaged right till the end of the document. 

4. Spotify

Image Source: Spotify

Not many brands can pull-off the duotone branding template like Spotify. Its iconic logo is enough for people to recognize the brand without even a formal mention of its name. That's precisely what Spotify offers in its style guide. 

The company's brand guideline document runs you through the do's and don'ts of using their logo icon. It also briefs you about app collaboration and restrictions on naming. It's the best brand guidelines example that educates you on setting brand limitations while also addressing your loyal users.  

5. Root + River

Image Source: Root and River

Root + River uses inspirational images throughout its brand identity guidelines that consist of its core values, mission, and more. They reiterate their brand's voice through effective imagery and convey their message with elegance. 

The images have their logo icon and a soothing background score to make the photos more attractive. Their brand guideline follows a similar approach throughout as you move from one style guide to another. The images are self-explanatory and utilize numerous colors available in their color palette guide. 

To Conclude

Any brand guidelines template typically talks about the brand's story, logo, color palette, etc. What differentiates one guideline from another is each brand's unique journey – its people, its audience, its motivation. 

You can easily create a brand guideline for your business once you have a handful of keywords that define your brand, an attractive logo, and the colors that make the magic happen. 

Which brand inspires you the most to craft the perfect brand guideline for your brand? Let us know in the comments section.