"Hey, we've been working on our brand guidelines internally, and it’s all over the place. We have logos, color palettes, fonts—basically everything—but it doesn’t feel like it’s communicating our brand identity clearly. How do we fix that?"
This was the question one of our clients posed to our Creative Director during a virtual call. They were a mid-sized company that had recently undergone a rebranding and were struggling to structure their brand guidelines in a way that would truly capture their essence. But what stood out wasn't just their frustration, it was the underlying problem: brand guidelines aren’t just about listing design elements. They’re about weaving those elements into a narrative that people—internally and externally—can understand and use to create consistent and authentic communication.
Our Creative Director immediately pointed out that a brand guidelines presentation isn’t just a document to check off. It's the DNA of your brand. If it’s not presented thoughtfully, it will fail to convey your true identity, and worse, it can lead to inconsistencies across all your brand touchpoints. A brand guidelines presentation should go beyond the basics of color codes and logo usage; it should tell a story about your company’s personality, values, and the unique experience it offers.
At Ink Narrates, our blog posts are inspired by real client conversations like this one. We believe that the best insights come from the very challenges people face in the real world. So, in this blog, we’ll discuss how to craft a unique brand guidelines presentation that goes beyond the traditional and brings your brand’s story to life. Let’s dive in.
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How to Craft a Unique Brand Guidelines Presentation
1. Start With the Foundation: Understand Your Brand
It’s shocking how often we see brand guidelines presentations that jump straight into visual elements without establishing the core principles of the brand. Before you even think about choosing colors or selecting fonts, you need to understand your brand’s foundation.
Your brand is more than a logo or a catchy tagline—it’s the sum of your company’s values, mission, vision, and the experiences you create for your audience. So, before diving into the presentation design, gather your team and spend some serious time defining your brand identity. If you can’t clearly articulate who you are and what you stand for, then all the visual elements won’t matter. Without a strong brand foundation, all you’re doing is adding noise, not creating value.
Start with these essential questions:
What are your core values?
What’s the story behind your brand?
How do you want your audience to feel when they interact with your brand?
Answering these questions will help form the backbone of your presentation. Only then can you move on to choosing the right design elements to represent your identity.
2. Less Is More: Be Clear, Not Overloaded
This is where many brand guidelines presentations fall flat. Designers love to show off their skills, but when you're crafting brand guidelines, you need to simplify. A lot of clients ask us how many colors or fonts they should use, and while there's no magic number, the key principle here is clarity over complexity.
For instance, we recently worked with a client who had a beautiful set of vibrant colors and an extensive font family. But here’s the problem—they tried to use all of them. The result? A brand guidelines presentation that was visually overwhelming and lacked coherence. The takeaway here is simple: focus on the essentials. Choose a primary and secondary color palette, pick 2-3 core fonts, and then explain how they should be applied consistently across different platforms.
But this doesn’t just apply to visuals. It applies to how you structure the entire presentation. Don’t overstuff the document with unnecessary details. Make sure everything you include serves a purpose in telling your brand’s story.
3. Tell Your Brand Story Through Visuals
Once your brand's foundation is solid and you’ve narrowed down your design elements, the next step is to present them in a way that tells a cohesive story. Your brand guidelines presentation is not just a list of rules; it’s a visual representation of your brand’s narrative.
Think about how each element—from logos to imagery to tone of voice—can be part of that story. Don’t just say “here’s our logo”; show how it works across different backgrounds, in different sizes, and in different formats. Illustrate how imagery should reflect your brand’s personality, whether it's professional, playful, or innovative.
The trick here is to make the visuals feel connected to the message you're trying to convey. Each slide in your brand guidelines presentation should feel like it’s reinforcing the same narrative—consistent, clear, and meaningful.
4. Get Into the Practical Details: Apply, Apply, Apply
Brand guidelines are meant to be used. Period. Too many companies create these presentations and think they’re done. But the true value of a brand guidelines presentation comes in how you apply it across every touchpoint. This means showing examples—and lots of them.
You need to demonstrate how your brand elements translate into real-world applications. Don’t just say “Here’s how the logo looks on a website” or “Here’s how the color palette should be used.” Show it. Include real examples of how your brand looks on business cards, social media posts, product packaging, and so on.
The more practical examples you can show, the more helpful your guidelines will be for your team, designers, marketers, and anyone else who will be using them. Show, don’t tell. If you truly want consistency, you have to make it easy for everyone to see exactly how the brand should be applied in real-world scenarios.
5. Don’t Forget About Flexibility
One of the most common mistakes brands make when putting together their guidelines is being too rigid. Sure, you want consistency, but you also need flexibility. The world of design evolves fast, and your brand guidelines need to account for that. Don’t box your brand into a set of rules that don’t allow room for adaptation.
For instance, you might want your logo to look a certain way on a website, but what if your brand is used in a social media ad that needs a more dynamic approach? Your guidelines should acknowledge these possibilities and provide clear guidelines for adapting elements without breaking the overall brand identity.
6. Keep It Simple, But Not Too Simple
This may sound contradictory but let me explain. Simplicity is crucial, but it’s not about cutting corners. You still need to provide enough detail for your team to execute your brand vision effectively. Just like you wouldn’t wear a bland, uninspiring outfit for an important meeting, your brand guidelines presentation can’t be too plain.
The key here is to strike the right balance: clean and straightforward without losing depth. Provide just enough context, examples, and flexibility to ensure that anyone using the brand guidelines can execute them correctly and confidently.
Let's work together
Now, if all this feels overwhelming, don’t worry. It’s a big task, and sometimes it’s easier to bring in professionals who can help make it all come together. Crafting a unique brand guidelines presentation is an art that requires a deep understanding of your brand and the design principles that bring it to life. And if you find this task more challenging than you thought, it's very easy to get started with us.
Just click on the "Start a project" button on our website, make payment, and get started. Or, if you’d like to talk first, feel free to reach out to us through the contact section of our website. We’d love to help you create a brand guidelines presentation that tells your story in the most powerful way possible.
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