Brand Guidelines: A Roadmap to Indian Brand Style Guide

Last Updated on April 17, 2024 by DesignerPeople

Did you know that 3,871 new companies have been registered in India in 2024 by now? This validates the emerging economy of Indian startups in this era.

With new Indian brands readily rising every month, the market is getting even more competitive. If you have an emerging startup or a business that needs more recognition, you need to emphasize building solid brand guidelines more. This creates a rock-solid foundation for your future branding endeavours.

However, creating brand guidelines can get tricky if you need the proper guidance. After working with numerous brands in India for years, we have developed this extensive roadmap to creating successful Indian brand guidelines this year. Let’s revamp your brand together!

What are brand guidelines?

Brand guidelines are a set of rules and standards that convey your brand personality and details to the consumers. Typically, your brand guidelines represent your brand to the consumers and stakeholders. It is all about what your company is, what it does and what it ultimately stands for. Your brand guidelines play a significant role in maintaining strict consistency for your brand. It also determines the quality of promotion of your business. Since it has crucial elements of your brand, like brand values, mission, principles, etc., it will represent your brand image to the world.

Why do Brand Guidelines work as a Secret Weapon for Indian Brands?

As we said, brand guidelines are all about representing your brand to the world. It is everything you do and sells in the market. Hence, creating a clear and cohesive experience through your brand guidelines is essential. This will help your brand stand out from the competition, especially in this competitive market.

Creating well-laid brand guidelines in India can also prevent any misinterpretation and miscommunication when working towards the next steps of brand building. It clarifies updated and relevant details about your brand. As your company grows in the future, your brand guidelines will eventually adapt to it and evolve for a more consistent experience.

What are the Elements that Should be Included in Brand Guidelines?

Your brand guidelines comprise several key elements that determine your brand’s overall look and feel. Here are the key elements that you must consider when crafting your professional brand guidelines.

1. Logo

Being the most integral element of any brand-building activity, your logo design is something you can never compromise on! Your logo design is one such prominent feature that will represent your brand consistently across all marketing materials and channels. This logo design will contribute to increased brand recognition and reputation in the target market.

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2. Color palette

Be very careful when choosing a colour palette for your brand guidelines, as it ultimately sets the entire mood of the book. Your brand colour palette should be based on your brand mood and personality. Take the green and yellow hues of Dabur, a leading brand in India. The colours signify health, vitality, warmth, positivity, and energy. This reflects the brand’s commitment to holistic well-being for the consumers.

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3. Typography

Ensure to choose simple yet interactive typography for your brand guidelines. Highlight the texts and create a hierarchy to increase the readability of your brand guidelines. You can also explore details like sizes, weights, and spacing according to your preference to maintain consistency across different mediums.

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4. Mission statement and values

Your brand mission statement captures your brand’s purpose to its most authentic essence. Be concise yet impactful in this step. Ensure that your mission and values are related to your brand’s actions, objectives, and target audiences.

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5. Voice and tone

Your voice and tone determine the style of communication of your brand guidelines. Ensure that your brand uses definite and consistent language, vocabulary, and manner in which it speaks to audiences. Whether it is formal, friendly, or authoritative, remain consistent, which will help build trust and meaningful connections with consumers.

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How Branding Agency Create Guidelines: Step-by-Step Process

Creating brand guidelines in 2024 is extremely important. This one important step determines the direction of your future branding endeavours. Thus, let’s take a deeper look into how a branding agency creates successful brand guidelines in 2024.

1. Craft an appealing brand narrative

Every brand always has a unique story. And this sets the brand apart from others. Share your most authentic brand story in the most compelling way. This will define your brand and how it emerged in the industry. Share your company’s vision, mission, and core values here. Share how the ingredients are sourced and how you came up with this business idea. This will also help you convey your company’s values to the target public. If your brand story is authentic and relatable to the audience, you can expect a significant increase in your sales and revenue.

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2. Establish your visual style

Follow your brand’s overall style through the brand guidelines as well. This includes your brand logo, typography, brand colour palette and more. Ensure to remain relatable to your brand and the audiences. It should be readable, easy to understand and attractive to the eyes of the readers.

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3. Generate user-friendly branded templates

Branded templates can really help you create branded assets easily, especially when you are not a designer and need to craft branding materials occasionally. Ensure that the branded templates adhere to your brand style. However, they must also be adaptable to different forms of content in your brand guidelines.

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4. Design your brand identity

Brand identity is another important asset that will set your company apart from its competitors. When crafting your brand guidelines, ensure that you define your company’s truest brand identity. Again, outline all the brand mission, vision, values, voice, and other elements that will represent your brand to the public. Highlight your brand’s USPs through the brand identity, and this will help you score the maximum number of customers with ease.

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5. Implement technologies that promote brand consistency

Several technologies have made the entire process of creating brand guidelines easier. Tools like digital asset management systems, site factories, etc., help brands manage and secure data for brand guidelines in a centralized location. This will help deploy different aspects of the brand into the brand guidelines in a more unified and simpler way, especially when brands have multiple products and websites to work on.

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6. Get assistance from experts

Again, creating brand guidelines that work well takes time and effort. This is why most brands rely on branding agencies that create compelling brand guidelines. A professional branding agency can effectively nail down the most essential parts of the brand and create solid brand guidelines customized according to your brand. While this may look like a steep investment, you can be assured of the ROI it delivers in the future years when your brand grows among consumers.

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Indian Business Challenge and How Brand Guide Helps

Most Indian startups shut down because they fail to stand out from their competitors. Due to negligence in their branding efforts, they easily get overshadowed by industry leaders. Brand guidelines are absolutely essential in preventing this hazard from happening to your brand!

Consistent brand guidelines enhance overall brand recognition, higher profits, brand communication, and customer loyalty. All of this contributes to a successful brand, regardless of fierce competition. Thus, if you really want your brand to make a difference in the industry, you must establish strong brand guidelines this year.

Conclusion:

Your brand guidelines can help you effectively understand the complexity of the market landscape. They will also help you target and communicate with diverse audiences with ease. By following the above-mentioned roadmap, you can create solid brand guidelines that reflect your brand’s truest value to consumers. Feel free to share more insights in the comments below on creating brand guidelines that have impacted customers’ purchasing decisions.

If you need professional help creating your upcoming brand guidelines, connect with our branding experts today. With decades of experience in working with Indian companies, we ensure customized brand guidelines tailored to your brand and target demographics. This will ultimately boost your brand recognition and consumer trust in the forthcoming years.

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Author: Anush Malik