While talking about the brand book, we instinctively think about bloated PDF files accumulating on the computer. But how to manage all the digital assets, while working for an international client?
To start with, what is a digital brand book?
Whether you call it a digital brand book, brand guidelines, or style guide, it basically refers to the set of guidelines. They show how a company acts, sounds and looks. Solid identity brand principles are created to ensure brand consistency, especially while working in multiple teams for an international client. Applied correctly to design, they provide not only a consistent image of the brand but also may save money, time and frustration.
Digital brand book: the importance of sharing brand assets digitally
Usually, a brand book consists of fixed elements, such as logotype, along with an explanation of what it represents, possible compositions, sizes, and positions. You can also find incorrect usages of logotype, typography with different typefaces for both digital and print use, brand colors, and examples of many possible applications. Those strong fundaments may be accompanied by additional elements that can strengthen the message your brand wants to share. Such elements could be video components, illustrations, iconography, imagery, or patterns. But why is it a good idea to share those assets digitally? The most significant point here would be accessible for everyone. As consistency is key in creating a recognizable brand. It is important to ensure all brand guidelines are available and easy to access for the whole community, globally.
One of the many advantages of creating a digital brand book that way is the fact that it can be easily updated, even after sharing with external partners or multiple clients around the world. Each change might be quickly implemented for the whole company. This is quite challenging with the classic, PDF format of a digital brand book. Another strength of such a solution is that it can be easily shared worldwide, even with 3rd party partners. It allows a smooth communication flow when it comes to visual brand identity.
Digital brand books examples
There are quite a few good examples of digital brand books, like those from Starbucks, Uber, or Netflix. By those examples, you can see that sharing brand guidelines is not only about following principles. What is more important, is understanding the company’s values, style of communication, look and feel. That ensures high brand consistency for global companies, even when it comes to the messaging that they aim for.
Dealing with assets: digital repository
Another crucial thing while working globally is to focus on brand assets. How to share them in the most effective and efficient way? How to deal with updating them? One of the solutions would be similar to the digital brand book. Placing all assets digitally for example on a brand portal has many advantages. E.g. such as unlimited scalability, easy searching, real-life synchronization all over the world, and accessibility. Sharing assets, such as pictures, pictograms, patterns, illustrations, or even videos helps in understanding the look and feel of the brand. Most importantly, it provides consistency in materials used through the company.
Our way in Admind
Overall, providing clients with digital brand books is a great way to allow brands to evolve over time and be flexible enough to answer all client’s needs. Within Admind, we work closely with international clients, such as ABB. In Brand Advisory, we think that these kinds of guidelines are a great way to help with the onboarding of newcomers, introducing external partners to the brand. But most importantly, they are providing a consistent image of technology leader throughout all the applications of the brand.
Hungry for more knowledge? Read all you need to know about brand governance and how to use Frontify.