Brand Guidelines Template

What's in the template

**Brand foundation.** Three slots: (1) Brand purpose — why you exist beyond making money. (2) Brand promise — the one thing customers can always count on you for. (3) Brand personality — 3–5 adjectives that describe how you'd act if you were a person.

**Voice and tone guide.** Voice is constant; tone shifts by context. Fill in: your brand voice in 3 words, what you sound like (example sentences), what you never sound like (anti-examples), and tone variants for sales copy, support responses, and social posts.

**Messaging pillars (3–5 pillars).** Each pillar has: a headline claim, 2–3 supporting proof points, and the audience it speaks to. These are the arguments your brand keeps returning to — your ICP should be able to recite them after repeated exposure.

**Logo usage rules.** Sections for: primary logo, secondary/stacked variant, minimum size, clear space rule, approved background colors, and forbidden uses (stretch, outline, drop shadow, busy backgrounds).

**Color palette.** Primary brand colors (hex + RGB + CMYK + Pantone), secondary palette, neutral palette, and accessibility notes (WCAG contrast ratios for each foreground/background pair).

**Typography system.** Primary typeface (headings), secondary typeface (body), fallback web-safe stack, size scale (H1 through body and caption), line height and letter spacing rules, and one 'never use' callout.

**Photography and imagery style.** Describe the visual feel in 3 words, list approved subject matter, list forbidden imagery, and include 3–5 example images that pass and 2–3 that fail.

**Application examples.** Show the brand applied to: a social post, an email header, a slide deck cover, and a business card. These give reviewers a gut-check reference before publishing new assets.

How to use it

1. Fill in the brand foundation section first — purpose, promise, personality. If you can't complete these three slots, stop and align with your founding team before touching visuals. Everything downstream is derived from these.

2. Work through voice and messaging next. Write real example sentences, not descriptions of example sentences. 'We write conversationally' is useless; 'We'd say: Launching your first campaign shouldn't take a week' is a guide.

3. Complete the visual sections — logo, color, typography — with exact values (hex codes, not 'a kind of blue'). Ambiguity here costs hours in every future design review.

4. Publish the finished document in one authoritative location (Notion, Google Drive, or a PDF in your asset library). Link to it from your onboarding checklist so every new hire, agency, and contractor gets it on day one.

5. Review and update the guidelines any time your product positioning changes materially — not every quarter on a schedule, but after a repositioning, a rebrand, or a new market entry.

**CoMo can generate your brand guidelines from scratch.** Connect CoMo to your existing assets — website, decks, ads — and its agents will draft a filled-in brand guidelines document you can review and refine. Most teams finish in one session instead of two weeks.

RELATED