Your audience processes visual information way faster than it does words. In an era in which attention spans are short and distraction everywhere, the onus is now on visual storytelling.

You often have little time to communicate what your brand stands for, so it's crucial that your brand identity visually encapsulates your company’s purpose and values.

The smarter brands go further creating an impactful visual language, unique to their brand, and adapted for all channels. This allows designers and content producers to build online and offline worlds to which their audiences want to belong.

But creating that sense of place, through great storytelling and compelling design is only possible if you have the core design elements to begin with. And for this reason having a set of brand guidelines, which are fit for purpose, is as important as it's ever been.

Brand Guidelines >

Your brand guidelines are a detailed description of the elements which make up your brand identity together with instructions on when, where and how to apply them.

A single set of guidelines defines the use of core identity elements, including logo, typefaces, and primary and secondary colour palettes. It will often describe the wider visual language including the use of iconography, photography and graphical elements. It will describe the use and application of sub-brand identities. It will specify layout and dimensions when applied across landing pages, emails, social graphics, infographics etc. It may include sets of generic templates, e.g. powerpoint decks. It may include guidelines covering video, describing style and tone as well as graphical detail such as the use of lower thirds and animated idents.

Storytelling across channels >

Ultimately a good brand identity is one which is impactful and encapsulates your brand’s purpose, while also providing a visual language. It needs to allow for creative expression, while providing the necessary constraints to ensure consistency. It should be adapted for all marketing channels and media types.

Crucially it should facilitate visual storytelling, allowing your content producers the scope to build a unique sense of place, which allows for deeper connections with target audiences.

TEN80 deliver full branding exercises from scratch, or take an existing identity to refine and develop.

by Dave Brewis, TEN80