Have you ever worked on producing branding guidelines?

I’ve always felt branding guidelines are too formulaic. Dont do this with the logo, use these colours and this typography. This isn’t really branding, it’s implementation guidelines for elements of the brand, not the brand itself.

A brand is so much more than just a logo and colours. It’s tone of voice, photographic treatment, the ethos behnd the brand. The message. The story.

Anyway, I’ve been doing some research into what I’d call ‘good’ brand guidelines available on the web, and quickly realised that it’s all a bit of a mess. It’s very difficult to find guidelines that are available, let alone in the right format. But because of the nature of where these things are kept, Google doesn’t do a great job of indexing them.

So, I had an idea. What I need, is a resource (a website) where I can download current excellent examples of brand guidelines. I couldn’t find one and don’t know of any in existance. Do you?

Anyhow, I’d like to begin the trawl for guidelines and get together some sort of website to put them all - who knows, this could then grow into something larger (i’ve a few ideas spinning round my head). But I need your help to get the ball rolling.

Do you know of any good branding guidelines that available online?