Creating brand guidelines in 2022

Household brands become instantly recognizable thanks to their uniform visual identity. The design elements of Coca-Cola or Apple are engraved in our minds, from the stylish logos to the recognizable jingles. Other brands use their look to signal their personality, values and industry, making them instantly recognizable.

This applies to your freelance business too. A distinctive, high-quality brand may help you impress and win new clients. If you are a designer, a sleek and impressive presentation of your visual identity project may be the reason why the client will choose you amongst the others.

With our partners at Corebook°, we will share with you the secrets about why your brand needs strong visual branding.

What does your visual branding consist of?

It is not just your logo, the background colour of your website or a cool LinkedIn banner. It includes elements such as your:

All of these elements make up your visual style and communicate with your audience. You need to think about each part of your visual language and make conscious choices about it.

It is also important that you keep these details in one place and have one reference point whether you work with in-house design team or with other freelance designers.

Corebook° is excellent for that as it allows you to keep all your visual identity elements, fonts, drafts, layouts etc in one place so they can be accessible for the entire team inside or outside the organisation.

- Strengthens your brand and values

We've talked a lot about how personal branding will elevate your business, but how do you communicate your brand to your audience at a glance? Using all the elements listed above, you can craft the right identity and project it to your audience.

See the brand style guide in action in this short The Futur video:

- Allows for a uniform identity

We may not pay attention to it, but good brands use a consistent visual identity across all of their touchpoints. If they fail to do that, we will instantly notice that something is out of place. As your business grows and you begin to cover more ground, your visual identity will be the core that keeps your social media, website and other elements in check.

Using a consistent design language also eases designing new elements of your brand. Planning to use a custom email signature? Just use your brand colours and fonts! Want to work with a professional to create the perfect website? Don't waste time explaining what you want, just send over your visual identity guidelines. A well-maintained hub of your visual identity elements, such as Corebook°, will help this collaboration run smoothly.

- Helps you look more professional

As freelancers, we are constantly trying to win business over agencies and other independent professionals. When comparing different options, clients will look across all of your profiles. Having a matching look will show that you made the effort to build your brand and are thoughtful about your communication and making a good impression.

If you are a designer looking to create that wow feeling when pitching to your clients, consider proceeding with your proposals in Core Studio° from Corebook° to create dynamic, interactive and what's most important, always accessible online. The wow effect is guaranteed.

- Simplifies onboarding

When you get to the point where you want to hire new people and delegate your work, having a place where your brand guidelines live will help your new colleagues get up to speed with your brand and be able to style their communication to fit your brand.

If you are looking for a solution to create brand style guides with ease, Corebook° offers an online, intuitive builder. It will save you hours making a guide in Photoshop, Indesign or any other graphic app. All the designs you make can be attached directly to your brand guidelines and shared with your partners in all the formats you need. Learn more about using Corebook° here!

Corebook° are an online brand guidelines platform, which develops & maintains brand design integrity for the world's most brilliant branding teams and creative agencies. Learn more about them here.