Branding: The Importance of Brand Guidelines
As CEO of Integrity Billing, the greatest asset we have is our brand. After our first collaboration with a professional branding firm, designRoom, we were given a Brand Guidelines book; it is our Bible for anything branding. We use Brand Guidelines. They are rules for daily usage of the Integrity Billing brand. A brand without guidelines has no integrity.
A brand without a logo has no face. The brand has to be managed and communicated consistently to all audiences. We have Brand Police who are rigid yet flexible. The Integrity Billing identity system and the standards for its application are designed to create a strong and memorable position in the marketplace. Our logo is considered a wordmark, which means our name is also our primary logo image – with add-ons. The dots over the I’s and crosses over the t’s are a purposeful play on the phrase “dot all the I’s and cross all the t’s”. It’s a visual way to say that Integrity Billing makes every effort to care for every detail, even minor ones; and our approach will often deliver additional reimbursements.
The lower-case letter forms are friendly, approachable and engaging while the mark itself is simple and bold.
Our tagline, Expect more communicates on a variety of levels. Telling customers what they can expect from Integrity Billing; hinting at a higher level of service, accuracy, integrity (of course). It is general enough to invite questions, yet specific enough to directly answer questions about services, expertise, honesty and thoroughness.
Examples of Brand Guidelines help us to use our identity and image properly and consistently are as follows:
Logo – when is it used? Make sure the proper proportions and sizes, clear space and multiple file formats. I’s are dotted and t’s are crossed.
Color Palette – For print and digital our Primary Colors are Cool Gray and candy apple red.
Tagline usage – Define the tagline, key messaging and exactly when, where and how to use it. Our tagline is “Expect more”.
Image Strategy – Examples of image style and subject matter that help define the brand.
designRoom also presented the following in our Brand Guidelines;
- Brand History/Story
- Mission, Vision and Value Statements
- Copy Writing Style
- Editorial Guidelines
- Logo Orientation – Our Logo is a Wordmark
- Clearspace and Minimum Size
- Explaining Color Reproduction
- One Color Logo
- Logo on a Background
- Incorrect Logo Usage
- Logo Typeface and our name in Text
- Corporate typefaces
Now that we have Brand Guidelines, I wonder how we survived without them. It’s the gift that keeps giving. designRoom can be found at designRoom.com. I highly recommend them. Pretty cool stuff, huh?
