Why You Need Brand Guidelines
Brand Guidelines is a component which differentiates between a local raw brand from a structured international brand. A brand is a personality of a company entity which manifests itself in the products and services that it delivers. So when one seeks to create a brand the traits and visual entity embodies a niche that appeals to a particular target audience. A set of design rules and creative policy is required to maintain a consistency and parity of all the media outputs of the brand, be it in printable version, or web interface or the social media marketing snippets.
Most companies are not concerned about the brand logo font, color scheme or iterations based on background ( Light / Complimentary / Contrasting colors ) strategy is not guided by typesetting pattern, color palette, icon & logo demarcation, slogan / catch-line positioning, Letter-head variation for full-color/monochromatic, use of image type ( Real photos, clip arts, illustration, stylized content ) for print/web/social banners, and lack of consistent tonal message for audio-visual AD. Actually branding of a product or company is essential for reaching out to a dedicated audience and if the character of the brand changes frequently due to lack of brand regulations then the consumers seem to confuse the brand and the value proposition created by earlier campaigns are diluted.
Thus the trademark of a particular brand logo or icon or the copyright registration of a specified brand content is necessary to safeguard a brand entity against any competitive brand violation or duplicity.Many surveys conducted in rural and urban consumer behavior often proves how lack of brand awareness and consumer consciousness gives free lease to forged fake products. Often localized brands are easily discernible from the big brands just by few common traits like, spelling errors, use of uncopyrighted common design elements, lack of parity in color scheme and mostly the copy of other brand content or theme. So it is the prerogative of the company to get the proper consultation of the design team to make a brand strategy before positioning in market. Also most brands are following the trend of sub-branding based on product line to target segmented market through specific brand guidelines.
