- [Instructor] Once you have the final brand asset files
set up and organized to make usage easier for your client,
you also want to lay out a brand standards guide.
I have two types of brand standard guides I want
to show you.
The first is a simplified format and I usually provide this
for small business clients.
It explains usages and will help them manage
and use their brand assets
without making the process overly complicated.
So this is an example
of my simplified brand standards guide.
It has all the formats of their logo.
We have one layout option here, another one here
that's more horizontal that they might want to use
on their website and that's provided in process.
The central area is spot and black and white.
This is page one.
We'll go to page two.
Page two has an option where it embeds the logo
is the letter U in Unity.
So if they prefer using this format,
they can and the brand mark itself.
Once again, process spot and black and white.
And the third page is the system of icons I developed
for their various services.
And I provide those as well in the brand colors.
Both CMYK spot and of course, black and white.
I also provide what I call reverse versions.
These are versions of their brand logo that can work
on a colorized or dark background.
And this one's white and gold.
We also work it out in just a simple one color, white only
and these are all the assets.
So in this case, the simplify guide is only five pages
and each explanation explains what they would possibly want
to use this on such as CMYK for offset printing,
spot for example, if they wanted to do t-shirts.
Since it references colors associated
with the solid color Pantone referencing.
So this would be the simplified format that I provide,
mostly for small business clients.
When it gets into a more comprehensive guide
and we did that on elevated culture here,
I get more design oriented with it because this is something
that's going to live for quite a long time.
So this would be the cover of that guide.
And if we go to the introduction page,
this is almost like the mission statement
for elevated culture brand and it defines it right up front.
Then we get into the brand colors and I define
all the brand colors being used here.
You can see the Pantone call-outs as showing here
and then it gets into breaking down
all the brand assets by category.
This category is process color.
So this would be the cover page for that.
And then it goes into all various brand assets
and deliverables, broken down by format
and it lists the color.
And of course, what these are used for process,
because this is geared more for somebody who,
whether it's a marketing director and they understand
how to utilize these assets, I don't bother to go
into explain what you could use those for.
I only do that on the simplified guide
because it's for people who don't understand all of that.
It's for small business.
This is usually being presented to a marketing director.
They have their own in-house staff or I'm providing this
for an ad agency and then they know how to handle
all of those things.
So this would show all the brand assets for CMYK.
Then we get into spot and all the spot formats
for the same assets.
And we get in to black and white,
all the black and white assets as listed here.
And then we get into the reverse versions
of this specific logo would change the color formatting,
but ultimately, we also give them a white only format.
So this just organize all the assets.
It explains every aspect for the brand asset in terms
of its color, so they know exactly what needs to be done
if they give it to a vendor.
Here's where it's really important to set up
an improper usage of brand graphics.
This is actually where you'll want to establish
what fonts they're going to be using and have those listed
and where they can buy them if the company needs
to buy rights to those.
And also, how to you use the brand graphic assets
that you're organizing for them.
So here's the typography for this brand.
I show how the original font I derived elevated
from has been customized, but I showcase the font
that it was customized from down here,
along with other members of the same font family.
So we have bold extended, medium extended,
regular and bold.
And I list where they combine those fonts as well
if they need to.
Also, one of the most important parts of graphic standards
is setting the standards on how to utilize the brand assets.
What not to do.
What's not allowed by a vendor, for example.
So this shows the first one is the space.
How much space should be given around brand image
before other elements interact with it?
So that's what you'd want to use there.
You want a buffer space.
Here's the next one, effects.
You don't want a vendor to slap a drop shadow.
That would be a big no-no.
So you wouldn't want to do that.
So it would define this obstruction, adding elements,
changing colors, transparency, distortion.
They might squish it, which is horrible.
Even if something looks good.
So if you look at this added type,
this doesn't look bad, but it's embedded into the logo.
And unless you're the company creating, for example,
a t-shirt design, this should be off limits for any vendor.
Alterations, adding additional colors that aren't
in the design and changing the actual elements
of the design itself.
And so, this would be
an alteration example here, orientation.
It's not in the proper orientation.
Maybe it's been rotated slightly
or editing the existing elements in the design,
such as the spark of knowledge in the forehead
and making that larger.
These are important.
Some of these are really obvious,
but you'd be surprised how many vendors have no hesitations
to doing this.
So sending them your asset to work on a project is fine,
but also send them your creative brief and request
that they read through it, so they know
what the simple rules are.
And then at the end of this comprehensive one,
tying it up nicely.
So, having a brand standards guide
will help a business prevent misuse of their brand assets
by employees and vendors alike.
It will also ensure a company's brand expression
remains intact as they move forward using the assets.
Brand standards could be viewed as a rule book
for documenting the best practices, usage of brand assets
in order to retain the continuity of the company's identity.