How To Build a Brand Bible That Defines Your Business
Imagine this scenario: You hire a new graphic designer and have them work on your new brochure. However, it looks nothing like your brand when it comes back to you. The color, font, placement of your logo design, and photographs used are completely off your brand’s usual style. Now you’re scrambling to redo the material all while struggling to explain to the designer how it should look.
The solution to this problem? A brand bible.
Your brand bible contains guidelines to stay aligned with your branding. Whether it’s new hires or journalists who will write about you, all of them can use your brand bible as a reference to ensure that your materials stay consistent.
Want to create one for your business? We got you. Scroll down to read our deep dive into brand bibles below, and you’ll be sure to make a great one by the end of this article.
What is a brand bible?
Your brand bible is a rulebook that explains everything about your brand. From the size of your logo to the HEX code of your color scheme, down to the correct line spacing between your texts—your brand bible has it all.
It’s not limited to your visual choices either. Your mission and vision, the tone and style you’ll use in your writings, and the storyline you’ll use in your marketing are all included in your brand bible.
Key Benefits of Having a Brand Bible
Here are some reasons why having a brand bible is important:
- It keeps your brand consistent everywhere: Imagine a brand that posts chic black and white photos on Instagram, only to have a bubbly neon look everywhere else. That’s confusing for customers! A brand bible ensures that your look and vibe, from the visuals to writing, are consistent no matter where your customers encounter you. This cohesiveness is even more important if you are doing omnichannel marketing.
- It makes you recognizable: Consistency is key to building familiarity and recognition. Let’s take Tiffany & Co. as an example. If they used their iconic blue shade only once a year, would people associate that color with them? No, right? The same applies to every brand. Consistent branding makes you recognizable, and a brand bible makes it easy to do just that.
- It saves time and effort: A brand bible gives your team an exact guideline on what colors, fonts, imagery, and other elements to use. Thus, they spend less time asking questions or wondering what visuals to use and more time creating. It also lessens the chances of producing material that needs tons of revisions.
- It sets standards for everyone: Aside from your team, your brand bible also helps keep your brand consistent for external people working with you. Whether they are press, influencers, reviewers, or agencies, it ensures that every material or content they create still feels on-brand.
How To Create a Brand Bible
Let’s now walk through each element you need to include in your brand bible. These are:
Your brand foundation
Source: Dove
Start by identifying what makes your brand you.
Establish your mission and vision. What are your core values? What do you want your brand to do? What is your ultimate goal that you want to achieve?
An example is Dove. Their mission is to empower women and to portray them as real as they can be. They believe, “Beauty should be a source of confidence and not anxiety.”
This is reflected in all their marketing materials. They never use professional models or celebrities in their campaigns, nor do they retouch photos. Their ads are focused on promoting positive body confidence, such as their iconic Real Beauty campaign.
Next is your Unique Value Proposition (UVP). What makes you different from others? Why should people use your brand?
An example is Imperfect Foods. What sets them apart from other grocery delivery services is their UVP of sustainability through reducing food waste.
They do this by offering products rejected by grocery chains for cosmetic reasons but are otherwise fresh and delicious. For example, produce that is bumpy, misshapen, or scarred. Produce that is bigger or smaller than the standard size. Products that still have old packaging after a rebrand. And so on.
Last is your brand identity. What personality should be associated with your brand? Friendly and casual? Chic and sophisticated? Sporty and active?
You can see this in how top makeup brands market themselves. Charlotte Tilbury is glamorous and chic, Glossier is approachable and friendly, while Pat McGrath is bold and experimental.
Make sure these three items are clearly defined in your brand bible as this will guide the direction and story of all your materials.
Your visual identity
Next is how your brand should visually look, or your style guide. Think of this part as a checklist where you clearly define your do’s and don’ts, unlike the previous part where it’s similar to telling your friend your life story.
Visual identity is composed of four things: logo, color palette, typography, and imagery.
Logo design
Source: Google
List down clear rules on how your logo should appear. These could be:
- Logo design: What font and color does your logo use?
- Logo variations: Compile all the logo variations you may have. This could be an icon-only one, a horizontally stacked one, etc. Indicate clear rules on when these variations should be used. For example, the icon logo can only be used for your social media profile pictures. Otherwise, you’ll use your primary logo.
- Space requirements
- Size restrictions
- Dos and don’ts: Is your logo only to be used against a specific background color? Should it always be placed on the top center?
Color palette
Source: Spotify
Include details such as:
- Primary and Secondary Colors: What are these colors? When should they be used?
- Color Codes: List down the RGB, CMYK, and HEX codes of your color palette
- Color Usage Guidelines: Which colors can be used together? Is there a specific color to be used for your typography? What level of contrast is needed? Can you add a gradient?
Typography system
Source: Coca-Cola Foundation
List down your:
- Primary and secondary fonts: What fonts do you use? When should they be used?
- Font hierarchy: How should your text be arranged? When should you bold or italicize your text?
- Spacing and sizing rules: What font size should you use on your materials? How big is your line spacing? How much kerning is needed between your letters?
Imagery
Source: Headspace
Depending on the brand, you may favor illustrations, photography, or a mix of both (as seen here with Headspace). List down rules regarding your imagery such as:
- Subject matter: What type of people, things, or places should appear?
- Design principles: Do you use specific facial expressions, shapes, or sprites? What art or photography style do you use? Is there a specific mood or tone? What kind of images will be used in different scenarios?
- Treatment: Can you add illustrations or frames on top of your photographs? Do you need to add exposure or sharpness? Do you use a specific filter?
Your brand voice
Source: Slack
Next is to define your brand voice, or how you speak to your audience. A well-defined brand voice sets the tone for communication and is crucial in shaping the customer experience. Implementing a CX program can help ensure your brand voice consistently aligns with your audience’s expectations, enhancing satisfaction and loyalty.
Add these guidelines to your brand bible:
- Tone of voice: How should you write your texts? Friendly and casual? Professional and knowledgeable? Witty and humorous? You can list down adjectives that can be associated with your tone as well as give specific examples.
- Writing style: Do you use American or British English? Do you spell out numbers or just use the figure itself? Do you use emojis? Do you use slang or throw references to pop culture?
- Terminology and phrases: Are there any terms, jargon, or brand-specific words you use? (For example, only Twitter uses the word “retweet”). Do you refer to your audience or products in a specific way?
- Social media voice guidelines: Some brands use a casual tone on their TikTok and Instagram but use formal language on LinkedIn. List down any rules like these to retain consistency.
The more detailed your brand bible is, the better. You can give examples like Duolingo to make it clearer for your reader:
Best Practices for Implementing and Distributing Your Brand Bible
Now that you have your brand bible, it’s time to ensure that people can see and follow it.
Here are our tips on how to do it:
Make it accessible
The brand bible should be accessible anytime, anywhere. Create a PDF or other digital document and upload it online. A copy should be on your website and in shared cloud storage. Make sure the file is publicly available and can be accessed by your team and external people such as journalists, influencers, or freelancers.
Integrate it into your team processes
Make it a priority for your team to learn your brand bible. You can do this by holding training or onboarding sessions where you walk them through the document. This also gives your team a chance to ask questions or clarifications they may have.
You can also hold refresher sessions, especially after a major update or rebrand, like when you do website development on an old site. This helps keep everyone on the same page.
Check for consistency
How do you know that people follow your brand bible? Marketers have reported an 86% increase in brand exposure when maintaining consistent branding across platforms, highlighting the importance of ensuring your brand bible is easily accessible and followed. One way to enhance this process and indirectly improve your SEO efforts is by focusing on good design. This not only ensures a cohesive brand image but also plays a crucial role in SEO rankings, as visually appealing and user-friendly websites encourage better engagement, boosting link-building opportunities. To achieve this, consider creating an approval process where senior designers, writers, or brand managers will review material before it gets posted for public view. Additionally, implementing a checklist assigned to team members to tick off before submitting their work ensures consistency and attention to detail, further aiding in high-quality link building.
One is to create an approval process where senior designers, writers, or brand managers will review material before it gets posted for public view. You can also create a checklist assigned team members can tick off before submitting their work.
Make it easy to use your branding
You can prepare pre-made templates for social media posts, email newsletters, brochures, presentations, and other materials that already reflect your brand. This streamlines your processes and makes it easier to create consistently branded content.
Tools like BrandCrowd can help you easily design materials aligned with your branding. Check out our templates for YouTube banners, posters, business cards, and other materials.
Review and update your brand bible
Your brand is not static. It’s in a constant evolution due to changing trends, technology, and market demand. Schedule a regular review of your brand and brand bible to see if the document is still relevant and accurate.
Get feedback from people who use your documents the most. Is there any confusing part? Do they need more examples? Their insights should help you refine and polish your brand bible.
Tools To Use To Manage Your Brand
Your brand bible may be the cornerstone of your branding process, but it’s not the only thing you’ll use to build your identity. Industries undergoing building materials industry transformation, for example, also rely heavily on tools like collaboration platforms and digital branding assets to ensure consistency and efficiency in their evolving markets.
Some tools you can add to your arsenal are:
- Storage tools: Cloud-sharing tools like Google Drive, Dropbox, and Microsoft Sharepoint can be used to store and view your brand bible, creative assets, marketing materials, and other important documents.
- Collaboration tools: These tools make it easier to connect with your team, delegate tasks, and monitor projects. Some popular tools are ClickUp, Asana, Trello, Google Workspace, and Jira.
- Communication tools: Whether you are working remotely in a virtual office or in an actual office space, effective communication is a vital part of any brand’s success. Use chatting tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Chanty for instant messaging. If you need to hold meetings, try Zoom or Google Meet.
- Brand monitoring tools: These tools help you track your marketing campaign’s success, protect your brand reputation, and see any mention of your brand. Some tools to use are Mention, Brandwatch, Google Alerts, Sprout Social, or Meltwater.
- Design tools: Tools like BrandCrowd provide customizable design templates for various digital or print materials so you don’t need to create one from scratch. Once you create or upload your logo in BrandCrowd, we will automatically generate social media designs and other materials with your font and colors in mind, to keep them in line with your branding.
Conclusion
What makes a brand memorable? It’s when they have a clear identity. You just need to spot the “swoosh” mark of Nike and the iconic green color of Spotify to know that the ad you see is theirs.
These brands didn’t become a household name in just a second. It took a constant, consistent use of their distinct branding to make them recognizable in a customer’s mind.
This is where your brand bible comes in. Without it, how do you ensure that your team will produce materials that stay true to your brand? How do you align influencers and journalists with the messaging you want to put out?
By creating a brand bible that defines your brand’s essence, visuals, and voice, you set the foundation of your brand. Anyone working with your brand just needs to refer to your brand bible to create content that accurately reflects your values and identity.
If you need any help to design your brand bible or create your branding assets, BrandCrowd’s got your back. Check out our tools like AI logo generator, background remover, or video maker to help you create beautiful designs in a flash.
