Having worked in marketing and design for many years, I finally became convinced that most people, including even professional designers and advertisers, confuse the concepts of "gaydaline" and "brandbook". And most often these two completely different words are perceived as synonyms. In this short article, we will figure out how these concepts differ and put all the dots over all the letters.

Guideline

Most often, when a client says that he needs a brandbook, he means the guideline. And to be more precise, the developed corporate identity, to which the guideline will be attached. The guideline is translated from English as "manual" or "instruction", and in relation to design, it is a guide to working with a logo and corporate identity. The guideline is primarily a tool for a graphic designer. When starting to develop any layout, be it an advertising leaflet or a business card, the designer should follow the rules prescribed in the guideline. They usually include instructions on how to use the logo, color palette, fonts and identity elements. These rules, for example, describe the acceptable options for placing the logo on a graphic layout, the main and accent colors, and where and in what situations they can be applied. The guidelines of major global brands are as detailed as possible — they contain hundreds of examples of advertising media with a detailed technical description of each of them. Working on the guideline simplifies the designer's life, but, most importantly, it allows the brand to be recognizable and through visual communication to convey to the consumer the ideas laid down ... where? That's right, in the brandbook!

Brandbook

The brandbook is a more extensive and in—depth document, and the guideline (guide to working with corporate identity) is part of it. As the name suggests, a berndbook is a guide to working with a brand. It describes not only the visual component, but also the entire philosophy of the company, its values, vision and relationship with the consumer. In addition, brandbooks describe portraits of the target audience, the history of the company, the rules of internal corporate culture and even the norms of employee behavior.

And there is also a logobook

In addition to the guideline and the brandbook, you may have heard such a term as logobook, which is a simplified version of the guideline and contains information only about the logo and the rules for its use. The logobook can also contain a description of the color palette and font options that can be used with the logo.

What is the result

So, logobook, guideline and brandbook are components of each other, but still they are completely different concepts. Logobook is part of the guideline, and the guideline is part of the brandbook. And you can read more about what a brand is and about the rules of its structure in a separate article "What is a brand? Principles of the structure of brands"