# Brand guidelines template A reusable brand-book structure with visual examples and source fields. **TL;DR** Write down the brand decisions so someone else can make the next thing without calling you. Replace the fictional examples, include usable files, and explain the exceptions. “Make it feel right” is not a guideline. Status: Working reference ## Before you start For: Designers documenting an identity Use when: A visual direction has been approved and other people need to use it. Bring: Approved marks, palette, typefaces, voice and a list of real applications. Leave with: A reusable identity reference with examples and ownership. ## Worked example (fictional) For a fictional repair service, define a primary text color, an accessible link color, two type sizes and a sample booking confirmation before making promotional mockups. ## Check the result Ask a second designer to create one application without additional verbal guidance. ## Limitations The source uses fictional placeholders. Replace them and verify font and image licenses. A brand guide has to keep working after the designer leaves the room. Someone should be able to open it, choose the right file, and make a page without calling you to ask what the rules meant. This template gives you a place to put those decisions. Acme is a fictional example, not a finished identity to borrow. Replace it with your own work and keep the examples that explain something a colleague will actually need to do. ## Method 1. Start with a short account of the organization, its audience and the promise the identity must support. 2. Document voice, logo usage, color roles, typography and layout. Explain exceptions as well as the normal case. 3. Include accessible color pairs, font licensing information, minimum sizes and examples at realistic content lengths. 4. Finish with file locations, ownership and an approval record. A guideline is useful only when someone else can apply it. ## Handoff Record the input sources, decisions, assumptions, owner and acceptance checks. Have the responsible person approve the record before downstream automation. ## Tools, in order ### Before documenting [Notion](https://www.notion.com/) · A versioned project folder Gather approved identity decisions and the files that prove them. Leave missing values as questions rather than filling the template with plausible choices. Carry forward: An approved source inventory. ### While assembling [Claude](https://claude.ai/), [ChatGPT](https://chatgpt.com/), or [Grok](https://grok.com/) · [Figma](https://help.figma.com/hc/en-us/articles/15145852043927-Create-and-manage-variables) Draft the explanations around the supplied decisions, then build real usage examples in the design file. Test the template with a long name and realistic content. Carry forward: A guideline draft with visual examples and traceable values. ### After the draft [Browser and accessibility checks](https://www.w3.org/WAI/test-evaluate/preliminary/) · A versioned project folder Ask another practitioner to make one application without a verbal briefing. Record what they could not find or interpret, and fix the reference. Carry forward: A usable guideline with ownership, examples, and source files. ### Review the work with partners We make and revise the work with Claude, ChatGPT, or Grok, then put selected versions on our Studio project pages for partners to review. Check the preview before sharing it. You can do the same with a private prototype or shared document; use a workspace that can access the files you need. Name the version, say what changed, and ask the question you need answered. Keep feedback with that version and discuss conflicting requests before making the next changes. Confirm approval separately, and keep confidential work in a restricted space. For this method: Could someone make the next application from this reference without asking us what it means? ### Delegate the routine work Populate known source fields, format sections, and check repeated values against an approved inventory. Keep with a person: Identity choices, accessibility judgments, and permission to reuse assets are not template-filling tasks. [Sequence prompts, then delegate](https://noord.dev/polder/delegating-with-prompts) [Choose a model for the design task](https://noord.dev/polder/choosing-design-models) Source: https://noord.dev/polder/guidelines Public working material from Noord. Third-party code, fonts and assets retain their own licenses. Publication does not imply a license to redistribute third-party material. ## Complete source reference ```json { "slug": "template", "brand": "Acme", "version": "v1.0", "year": "2026", "accent": "#00AEEF", "cover": { "label": "Brand Guidelines Template · 2026", "title": "Every brand starts\nfrom this shape", "subtitle": "The master template behind every Noord-built brand system. Each section below is a placeholder: the structure, the components, and the order are the deliverable; the client supplies the content." }, "overview": { "heading": "The brand", "paragraphs": [ "Two or three paragraphs that say what the company is, who it serves, and why it exists, written the way the founders would say it across a table, then edited until nothing performs.", "The overview sets the register for everything that follows. If a sentence here wouldn't survive being read aloud in a client meeting, it doesn't survive here." ] }, "strategy": { "heading": "Strategy", "positioning": "One sentence that places the brand: who it's for, what it does, and the difference that makes it the obvious choice.", "mission": "The change the company exists to make, in one line.", "values": [ { "word": "First value", "def": "One sentence on what this value means in practice: a behavior, never a platitude." }, { "word": "Second value", "def": "Values earn their place by excluding something; say what this one rules out." }, { "word": "Third value", "def": "Three is usually enough. A value nobody would ever reverse isn't a value." } ], "audience": "The two or three audiences that matter, named specifically enough that the photography and tone sections can point back at them." }, "voice": { "heading": "Voice", "intro": "How the brand sounds: one register, held everywhere from the homepage to a support reply.", "principles": [ { "word": "Plain", "def": "Short sentences, concrete words, no jargon the reader has to translate." }, { "word": "Level", "def": "Good and bad news in the same calm voice; confidence never needs volume." }, { "word": "Specific", "def": "Numbers, names, and examples over adjectives." } ], "say": [ "An example sentence in the brand's actual voice.", "A second one, showing how it handles a claim.", "A third, showing how it handles bad news." ], "avoid": [ "The vocabulary this brand never uses", "Superlatives and exclamation marks", "Anything the reader has heard a hundred times" ] }, "logo": { "heading": "Logo", "intro": "The mark and the wordmark, where each is used, and the files to use them from. The Acme placeholder mark stands in here. The client's mark takes its place, with its own construction note.", "mark": { "viewBox": "0 0 48 48", "color": "#00AEEF", "markup": "" }, "clearspace": "Define clear space in units of the mark itself (a wave, a letter height) so it scales with use.", "misuse": [ "Do not recolor the mark outside the palette", "Do not stretch, rotate, or add effects", "Do not set the wordmark in another face", "Do not redraw it: use the provided files" ], "credit": "Credit the mark's designer here, with a link." }, "color": { "heading": "Color", "intro": "The template ships in process color — cyan, magenta, yellow, key — so every swatch is visibly a placeholder. The client's palette replaces it one-for-one: a working accent, grounds, ink, and a note on what each color is for.", "palettes": [ { "label": "Process", "swatches": [ { "name": "Cyan", "hex": "#00AEEF", "role": "Primary accent — links, data, active states" }, { "name": "Magenta", "hex": "#EC008C", "role": "Secondary accent — sparingly" }, { "name": "Yellow", "hex": "#FFF200", "role": "Highlight — rarer still", "light": true }, { "name": "Key", "hex": "#1A1A1A", "role": "Ink — text and marks" } ] }, { "label": "Ground", "swatches": [ { "name": "Paper", "hex": "#FFFFFF", "role": "Light ground", "light": true }, { "name": "Tint", "hex": "#F2F2F2", "role": "Raised surfaces", "light": true }, { "name": "Key 900", "hex": "#111111", "role": "Dark ground" } ] } ], "ramps": [ { "label": "Cyan", "steps": [ { "name": "100", "hex": "#00AEEF" }, { "name": "75", "hex": "#40C2F3", "light": true }, { "name": "50", "hex": "#80D7F7", "light": true }, { "name": "25", "hex": "#BFEBFB", "light": true }, { "name": "10", "hex": "#E5F7FD", "light": true } ] }, { "label": "Magenta", "steps": [ { "name": "100", "hex": "#EC008C" }, { "name": "75", "hex": "#F140A9", "light": true }, { "name": "50", "hex": "#F580C6", "light": true }, { "name": "25", "hex": "#FABFE2", "light": true }, { "name": "10", "hex": "#FDE5F4", "light": true } ] }, { "label": "Yellow", "steps": [ { "name": "100", "hex": "#FFF200", "light": true }, { "name": "75", "hex": "#FFF540", "light": true }, { "name": "50", "hex": "#FFF980", "light": true }, { "name": "25", "hex": "#FFFCBF", "light": true }, { "name": "10", "hex": "#FFFEE5", "light": true } ] }, { "label": "Key", "steps": [ { "name": "100", "hex": "#1A1A1A" }, { "name": "75", "hex": "#535353" }, { "name": "50", "hex": "#8C8C8C" }, { "name": "25", "hex": "#C6C6C6", "light": true }, { "name": "10", "hex": "#E8E8E8", "light": true } ] } ], "accentNote": "One color behaves like ink and does the interactive work; the others earn their appearances. Name the rule for the client's palette here." }, "typography": { "heading": "Typography", "intro": "One family, few weights, a fixed scale. The samples below describe themselves. Replace them with lines in the client's voice, set in the client's licensed face.", "fontStack": "'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif", "foundry": "Credit the typeface and foundry here, with a link to the license.", "scale": [ { "label": "Display XL / 46", "spec": "46px · 600 · -0.03em", "sample": "The display size carries one idea", "px": 46, "weight": 600, "tracking": "-0.03em" }, { "label": "Display / 38", "spec": "38px · 600 · -0.03em", "sample": "A display line, and nothing beside it", "px": 38, "weight": 600, "tracking": "-0.03em" }, { "label": "Title / 24", "spec": "24px · 600 · -0.02em", "sample": "Titles hold sections together", "px": 24, "weight": 600, "tracking": "-0.02em" }, { "label": "Subhead / 17", "spec": "17px · 600 · -0.01em", "sample": "Subheads do quiet structural work", "px": 17, "weight": 600, "tracking": "-0.01em" }, { "label": "Body / 15", "spec": "15px · 500 · -0.01em", "sample": "Body text is the brand most people actually meet: a comfortable measure, a steady rhythm, and no tricks. Everything else exists to bring readers here.", "px": 15, "weight": 500, "tracking": "-0.01em", "lineHeight": 1.6 }, { "label": "Label / 12", "spec": "12px · 500 · 0em", "sample": "Labels · metadata · captions · 12px", "px": 12, "weight": 500, "tracking": "0em" } ], "rules": [ "State the caps rule — most brands here never set all caps", "Fix the scale; add width to the page, never to the paragraph", "Name the fallback stack for email and documents" ] }, "grid": { "heading": "Layout & grid", "body": "The structural rules every surface shares: the module, the gutters, the reading measure, and how boxes sit on the grid. Keep this section even for print-only brands. The discipline is the point.", "columnLabel": "Reading column · ~592px" }, "imagery": { "heading": "Photography", "body": "The art direction in two or three sentences: what gets photographed, in what light, from what distance, written so a photographer the brand has never met could shoot a usable set. The plates below hold the place of the client's photography.", "rules": [ "State the light rule (natural, overcast, hard flash; pick one)", "State the people rule (working, never posing, or none at all)", "State what is banned (stock, filters, tilted horizons)" ], "plates": [ "Establishing — the world the brand operates in", "Detail — the work up close", "People — who does it, mid-task", "Context — where it lands, in use" ] }, "environments": { "heading": "Out in the world", "intro": "The same eight contexts every system is tested against. The green panels are exactly that: chroma surfaces where the client's artwork composites in, so one photo set serves every brand.", "items": [ { "kind": "large-screen", "label": "Large screens", "desc": "A keynote or lobby display. The green area takes the client's slide: logo and one line, left aligned.", "src": "/brand/template/gs-large.jpg" }, { "kind": "small-screen", "label": "Small screens", "desc": "The brand at phone scale in a real hand. The green display takes a homepage or app screen.", "src": "/brand/template/gs-small.jpg" }, { "kind": "outdoor", "label": "Outside", "desc": "Glass-door signage. The green panel takes the mark, centered, in vinyl scale.", "src": "/brand/template/gs-outdoor.jpg" }, { "kind": "merch", "label": "Merch", "desc": "Apparel and objects. The green print area takes the mark or a single line, following the fabric.", "src": "/brand/template/gs-merch.jpg" }, { "kind": "billboard", "label": "Billboards", "desc": "Out-of-home at road scale. The green face takes one headline and the mark. Nothing else survives at 80 km/h.", "src": "/brand/template/gs-billboard.jpg" }, { "kind": "subway", "label": "Subway ads", "desc": "Platform posters read at close range. The green face takes a longer line set at reading scale.", "src": "/brand/template/gs-subway.jpg" }, { "kind": "bus-stop", "label": "Bus stop ads", "desc": "The abri format, behind glass. The green face takes the same system as the billboard, one size down.", "src": "/brand/template/gs-busstop.jpg" }, { "kind": "conference", "label": "Conference presence", "desc": "An immersive booth. The green wall takes large typography that follows the architecture.", "src": "/brand/template/gs-conference.jpg" } ] }, "motion": { "heading": "Motion", "body": "How the brand moves: the duration, the easing, and the one-sentence character note — calm and physical, quick and precise, whatever the brand is. Nothing here should need a video to explain. The demos below are the fixed structure; the words and tempo become the client's.", "chips": [ "One easing", "One duration scale", "State what never happens" ], "demos": [ { "kind": "word", "text": "A line in the brand's voice", "label": "Typography — name the move and its timing" }, { "kind": "ui", "button": "Primary action", "label": "UI — state changes; layout holds still" }, { "kind": "line", "text": "The campaign line goes here.", "label": "Campaign — how lines enter and leave" } ] }, "icons": { "heading": "Icons", "body": "The brand's icon set, drawn fresh for every client on the same 16px grid. The geometric placeholders below hold the structure: the client's set replaces them in its own stroke weight, terminals, and color.", "glyphs": [ { "name": "square", "markup": "" }, { "name": "circle", "markup": "" }, { "name": "triangle", "markup": "" }, { "name": "cross", "markup": "" }, { "name": "line", "markup": "" }, { "name": "point", "markup": "" } ], "note": "State the construction rules here: the grid, the stroke weight and how it holds across sizes, the terminals, and when an icon may fill.", "color": "#00AEEF" }, "components": { "heading": "Components", "body": "The interface kit in the brand's clothes: buttons, fields, tables, and one worked card example so engineers inherit decisions instead of making them.", "card": { "label": "Card label", "title": "A worked example", "body": "One realistic card, filled with the client's actual content, never lorem ipsum." } }, "expressions": { "heading": "Expressions", "intro": "How the brand flexes across named surfaces or sub-brands, if it has them: same identity, different jobs. Delete this section for single-surface brands.", "items": [ { "name": "Acme", "line": "The primary expression: the company as the market meets it.", "list": [ "The website and product", "Sales and tenders", "The fleet and signage" ] }, { "name": "Acme Labs", "line": "A second expression sharing the same visual system under its own name.", "list": [ "Research publications", "Events and talks", "Early-access releases" ] } ] }, "rules": { "do": [ "Keep every rule falsifiable — someone must be able to break it", "Show one worked example per rule", "Write for the person who joins after you leave", "Date the system and note what changed" ], "dont": [ "No rule without a reason attached", "No lorem ipsum anywhere in the final system", "No section kept empty for ceremony; delete it", "No PDF as the only home; the system lives where the work does" ] }, "footer": "Brand Guidelines Template · v1.0 · The master every client system starts from" } ```