A common problem I’m still seeing in 2025 among online business owners is their struggle to maintain a cohesive and consistent brand experience. Online businesses that prioritize brand consistency will earn the trust of prospective clients more easily than those in a perpetual state of brand reinvention. Back in 2021, a report revealed that brand consistency can actually increase your revenue by 33%. This remains true today.
Without formal brand guidelines designed to keep your creative easy to manage and even easier to recognize, you’ll find yourself starting from scratch every time.
If you’re ready to improve brand consistency and want to know how to create brand guidelines of your own, here are five branding guideline examples from my own clients to help you do just that.
CONTENTS
1. BRANDING GUIDELINE EXAMPLES FOR LOGO DESIGNS
Each of my brand identity clients receive a brand style guide. This is a digital brand guidelines book outlining everything they need to use and honour their brand identity assets.
The first section of this brand guidelines PDF always covers the logo designs. For each individual logo design in their brand identity, the guidelines will outline:
the role or preferred usage
the brand colours the logos are available in
safety zone boundary
When creating your own brand guidelines, give each logo design a name. Consider the proportions of each logo design (eg. tall, wide, round) and the places you’ll use your logos most often as you establish roles for them in your branding guide PDF.
In addition to the guidelines for each logo design, I also include two pages that outline what not to do as well as some best practices for using logo designs in creative and over brand imagery.
Logo Brand Guideline Tips:
Overly detailed logo designs shouldn’t be used at small scales → make sure you have a simplified brandmark design in your logo collection.
Be mindful of light font weights or subtext that becomes challenging to read at small scales.
Wordmarks are great for social media footers as they retain legibility without taking up too much space.
2. BRANDING GUIDELINES FOR COLOUR PALETTE
Using your brand colours consistently is not to be overlooked. Our brains process colour so fast which is why we can easily recognize Tiffany blue, Starbucks green, and Cadbury purple without needing a logo present.
The brand colour palette guidelines I outline in the pages of my clients’ brand style guides are as follows:
brand colour codes
brand colour hierarchy
tints and shades
colour combinations and usage
Primary and Secondary Colour Palette Guidelines
Establish your primary and secondary colour palettes. Your primary colour palette will feature the colours you’ll use most often across your brand experience and become strongly associated with your brand.
Using a signature brand colour is known to improve brand recognition by 80%.
Your secondary colour palette will include the colours that play a supporting role. They are often reserved for accents and are never the dominating colour palette in any brand creative.
Remember, every brand is different, so create your brand guidelines to meet the needs of your brand experience.
Brand Colour Combinations
Not every brand colour will work in harmony together. One of the most important branding guidelines example to include is approved colour combinations. This will avoid any displeasing brand colour usage and ensure all brand assets are legible.
3. BRAND TYPOGRAPHY GUIDELINES
Curating a strong typography family will make your brand look so much stronger and simplify your creative efforts. The brand identities I develop for my clients have anywhere from three to five typefaces.
Creating Your Brand Typography Guidelines
Establish clear typography styles, including font name, weight, and casing for each of the following and set them up on your website for consistency online:
primary headings (h1 and h2)
secondary headings (h3)
tertiary headings (h4)
paragraph copy
calls to action (buttons)
Brand Typography Selection Tips:
Look for typefaces that have a range of weights and styles. This will add versatility to your brand identity while maintaining a cohesive look and feel. Google Fonts is a perfect source for professional typefaces that are free to use.
4. BRAND GUIDELINES FOR SOCIAL MEDIA
The purpose of brand guidelines is to give you healthy creative parameters to work within. This leads to consistent brand visuals, making your brand easier to recognize, improving brand awareness, and overall trust.
All of the branding guidelines examples we’ve covered above should apply to your social media creative too. To make things fool-proof for my clients, I like to include a few simple brand guidelines for social media in their style guide as well.
Alongside some social media design examples, I include clear branding dos and don’ts for their social media creative. Taking this extra step for your own brand identity will help ensure you’re creating a cohesive brand experience that supports your business growth.
5. BRANDING GUIDELINES FOR WEB
Your website is your storefront, your home on the web. A website that’s been designed thoughtfully and cohesively will lead to a positive user experience for your visitors. Aligning the visual experience on your website with your social media channels, freebies, and products reassures prospective clients of your professionalism.
Just like I did with the social media brand guidelines, I establish clear website dos and don’ts to make designing their website as easy as possible while honouring their brand. These branding guidelines for web are designed to capture the overall brand atmosphere and personality while promoting legibility and good user-experience design.
Bonus Tip for Creating Your Brand Guidelines Book
As you format your own branding guidelines PDF, be sure to use your new style guidelines throughout. You can see in the branding guideline image examples above that each of the style guides use the client’s own typography guidelines.
Establishing and following guidelines across your brand experience ensures your client’s journey from website to social media or vice versa always feels cohesive and unified. Use these five branding guideline examples as inspiration for your own brand identity. Remember, brand consistency has a positive correlation with your bottom line. Be sure to grab my free Brand Consistency Guide for a high-converting brand experience.
Pin This
Jenny Henderson Studio develops memorable brand experiences and strategic brand foundations to improve recognition and revenue for service-based small businesses.