Creating brand guidelines is important for any brand because it helps to establish and maintain a consistent visual and messaging strategy across all channels and touchpoints. They help maintain Consistency, ensuring that all of the visual elements of the brand are consistent across different channels and touchpoints. This includes things like the logo, typography, color palette, imagery, and tone of voice. Consistency helps to create a cohesive and professional image for the brand and makes it easier for customers to recognise and remember it. Brand guidelines also enforce clarity. Having clear guidelines and standards for how to represent the brand, can help to reduce confusion and misunderstandings among customers.

Having brand guidelines is also useful for scalability. As my brand grows and expands, brand guidelines can help me to ensure that my brand remains consistent and coherent as new products, services, or channels are added. One of the most important reasons for having brand guidelines is Protection. By establishing clear brand guidelines and enforcing them, I will be able to protect my brand from misuse or misalignment with the values and messaging. This can help to prevent confusion or damage to the brand’s reputation.

Overall, brand guidelines are an important tool for helping to establish and maintain a consistent and cohesive brand image and experience for my customers. They can help to differentiate Circle from competitors, build trust and loyalty, and support the growth and scalability of the brand.

Below is the set of brand guidelines that I have created for Circle. They enforce the usage of the visual and wordmark, the colour palette, typography, tone&voice, and application. It is important that these brand guidelines are followed on every occasion that the brand may be used in order to ensure consistency.

The guidelines begin by explaining the brand, its mission, and its vision for the future. This helps to communicate the purpose of the brand and why it exists. Next, it explains the logo and how it came to formation. The safe zone for the logo and visual mark is also a vital aspect of the guidelines as it will enforce consistency across all applications. It was also important to explain the misusage of the logo for the same reason.

Creating these brand guidelines has helped me to better understand and articulate the key elements and values of my brand, and learn how to effectively and consistently represent my brand across different channels and touchpoints. This can help to build trust and loyalty with my customers and support the growth and scalability of the brand.