Brand guidance, more than a PDF
PDF 'brand guides' are no longer fit for purpose, dead-end documents challenging to maintain, missing things and hidden from view.
What can we do to manage complex brand systems in an ever-changing digital world?
Over the years I have had the pleasure of both making brand guidance and using it. I have never really felt happy with how these have been shared and created, both by me and with me. I believe there is plenty to do to make things better for both makers and users alike by learning to adapt and prepare.
Principles for guidance in the digital age…
1. ‘Full’ brand experience
Ensuring guidance considers the breadth of a brand is cross-channel (covers the touch points a brand is experienced in) is systematic in a way that allows multiple points of use to be coherent. An absence of systematic work on a brand adds a huge additional burden to delivery teams who use them. This can result in defining brand experience while they deliver leaving little time to codify what they learn or consider wider impacts.
2. User needs (not the 'Design police')
Guidance is not a tool for enforcing rules it should be dynamic and serve its users well. Offering direction, but allowing flex and continuous improvement so that it stays relevant and changes to the new demands. To work effectively it needs to remain a maintained up-to-date trusted source. Poor systems will be ignored altogether. This is not an enforcement problem, but a system that is not fit for purpose long-term this can impact the quality of products, services and brand.
3. Access in the right places
Considering how people will find the ‘rules’ you want them to follow is fundamental to success. Can they use them effectively? Can they give feedback and how hard is it to feed this in to support others?
4. Adaptability designed to change
Technology is always changing so how we engage with brands and how we design them needs to change too. We can know what is coming next so we need to build in the ability to change our systems. How how we manage and own them as well as how we add new guidance and or changes to already complex systems.
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All good service experiences start with providing the right tools to support and guide the teams making them. How we can make guidance so that our end users or customers get the best possible experience across every channel?
