This is something I’ve been looking around at recently too, as it happens.

I found a couple at soleio.com/work/ (Static > identity system) which I thought were pretty well presented and good that they were online.  Are they up to scratch?

Agreed, some kind of discussion would be great.  Speak up can often be good for that.

There’s an interesting article about “visual branding” in the SAP Design Guild. A german portal website dedicated to this, but check the links section, it’s a quite wholistic collection. And then i know cidoc.

I worked on “branding guidelines” before and i agree that they’re mostly too “formulaic” (have you heard about apporaches building “anti-guidelines”, something that is the official documentation, but actually has nothing to do with the formal brand elements; something to rather inspire people working with the brand? To trigger interpretation and brand metamorphosis?).

But what i realized - and this is somehow funny - is that some even really BIG brands have NO central documentation at all. And here i would always recommend a simple solution that provides the basic elements of a brand - logos, colours, font rules etc. to start off. Of course it’s important not claiming this to be “branding guidelines” in a sense of voice, tone, story, message ..., but clearly communicating it as an essential platform or depot consisting of some formal good/bad examples and downloadable items. Saves a lot of chaos, time and money.

In “The Brand Gap,” Marty Neumeier talks about developing a brand compass, which is like a set of branding guidelines for your whole company. You’re right, branding is about so much more than the visuals, and Marty nails this better than anyone I’ve seen.

Think the definitions need to be clarified.

Corporate Identity (C.I.) guideline should cover logo usage, specific colour breakdowns (spot, process) examples, exclusion zones.

Brand(ing) Guidelines should cover specifice of the personality of the company, explanation into the use of colour pallettes, why certain types of photography are used and what is supposed to be communicated etc.

I have many examples of C.I. guidelines (i.e. cidoc site), and as yet have only one exaple of brand(ing) guidelines.

whoops - always tend to jump in with both feet first, try reading first:

This isn’t really branding, it’s implementation guidelines for elements of the brand, not the brand itself.

What if a corporation maintains different brands? Would you call the part with some basic elements and definitions “the CI of a brand”?

Oh, my last comment is related to 1981’s first comment ... ;-)

http://www.designerstalk.com/corpid/

Look for the Branding Guidelines for AT&T (you might search att.com from google, as the site is probably password protected, but can be overridden with the google search from what I remember)—I worked on it with them years ago, and they have been since updated many times, but their guidelines were always professional and thurough.

http://users.ncrvnet.nl/mstol/index.htm

An example:
http://www.accelrys.com/about/corp_guidelines/#print

Have you heard about the “MTV International Styleguide” that Hi-Res! did? It’s featured in “Latest Work” on their website. They call it “a styleguide for people who don’t like styleguides”. Would be interesting to know if and how this is being used.

Cidoc has loads of them tidied away in it’s archives IIRC.

the yale style guide linked up above is pretty nice although a bit outdated.

As part of my job I daily have to follow brand design guidelines set by colleagues and other design companies and find that when they are designed well they help to keep the integrity of the brand and that they actually help rather than hinder jobs.

The only time I find a brand is ‘indermined’ is when the guidelines have been poorly thought out and are mere logotype usage guidelines. It alkso helps if the client has someone who polices the brand.

As you say Mark quite well a brand is far more than a logotype and the problem arises when people mistake a set of logotype guidleines for brand guidelines. Brand design guideline should cover everything associated with a brand, logotype, phoography, grid, fonts, colours, literature, signage, advertising, packaging, messages, digital media etc etc

Logotype guidelines
http://www.surestart.gov.uk/brand/default.htm

Brand design guidelines
http://www.metadesign.de/html/en/1042.html

The thing I find is that clients don’t undertsand the necessity for a true set of guidelines and thus as designers we should educate them more on the importance of this.

Very interesting post, and great comment links, thanks!

I was wondering, how do you deal with typography within branding when the web has so few (if any) guaranteed available fonts?

I would eventually integrate this or that thought in my early planning of a website :-)

Thanks Christophe, I’m aware of both techniques and have used DTR. But I don’t recall seeing either applied very often - maybe I’m looking at the wrong websites?

I haven’t seen too much neither. I guess we’re both looking at the wrong websites. Feels good not to be alone.

I just think you must check Edinburgh Brand Identity, It?s one of the best Brand Identities sites I?ve ever seen. A complete guide on branding guidelines.

I have also collection a few styleguides on my websites. You can find them here

<a title="http://jedisthlm.com/2005/09/27/styleguide-resources/" href="http://jedisthlm.com/2005/09/27/styleguide-resources/">Styleguide resources</a>

Sorry, my post above messed up when I posted it.