Brand guidelines

Brand guidelines that keep a brand consistent.

Keep a brand consistent across every touchpoint. We connect you with a designer who builds practical brand guidelines your team will actually open, rather than a long PDF that sits unread in a shared drive.

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Takes under 2 minutes.

Only if you would rather be called than emailed.

Your brief goes to an experienced Australian brand design studio. We aim to respond within 1 business day. No sales calls, just a quote on what you asked for.

What it is

Brand guidelines, explained

Brand guidelines (also called a brand manual, style guide or brand book) are the rules for how a brand shows up everywhere: what fonts to use, how the logo should appear, which colours are allowed, how to write in the brand's voice, and what not to do. Good guidelines prevent drift and remove a category of decision from everyone's day. They become essential the moment more than 1 person is creating content for the business.

What you get

What a brief like this usually covers.

Logo usage rules

Every variation with clear rules on when to use each, safe space, minimum sizes, and what not to do.

Colour system

All primary, secondary and accent colours with hex, RGB and CMYK codes plus usage scenarios.

Typography hierarchy

Heading and body fonts with clear hierarchy rules for web, print and social.

Imagery and photography

Photography style, art direction and approval criteria so every image feels on brand.

Voice and tone

How the brand speaks: the words to use, the phrases to avoid, and tone variations by context.

Templates and examples

Worked examples showing how the guidelines apply to business cards, social, web and print.

How the work runs

How a project of this kind unfolds.

Phase 1

Brand audit

A review of existing assets, identifying inconsistencies and gaps.

Phase 2

Rules definition

Drafting rules covering every brand element, with clear examples of correct and incorrect use.

Phase 3

Design and layout

The guidelines document designed for clarity and practical use.

Phase 4

Delivery

A PDF document plus an editable source where that is in scope, ready to share with your team.

Pricing

What this work tends to cost.

The bands below are illustrative. They describe how quotes for this kind of work are commonly structured in Australia, not a surveyed dataset, so treat them as a starting frame rather than a market rate. Your enquiry goes to a professional brand designer who quotes a fixed price on your actual brief.

Mini
$800 to $1,500

Core rules in a short document. Suits a solo operator or a small team.

Standard
$1,500 to $3,500

Guidelines covering all major elements.

Premium
$3,500 to $7,000

Extensive guidelines with worked examples and templates.

Enterprise
$7,000+

A full brand manual with multiple audience variations and a digital style guide.

Related

Keep exploring

Brand design

Guidelines structure guide

Brand strategy

How the referral works

What happens after you send the form.

Step 1

You send the brief

Fill in the quote form with what you need, roughly when you need it, and any budget you have in mind. It takes under 2 minutes and there is no call.

Step 2

It goes to a brand designer

Your enquiry is passed to an experienced Australian brand design studio. We do not do design work ourselves and we do not employ designers.

Step 3

They quote on your actual brief

You get a price written against what you asked for, not a package guess. From there you deal with the designer directly. We aim to respond within 1 business day.

Branding Services Australia is a lead generation and referral service. It does not employ designers directly and does not perform design work. Read how the referral works in full.

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Comprehensive guidelines cover logo usage rules with every variation, the colour system with all codes, typography hierarchy and font sources, imagery style and photo direction, voice and tone rules, and worked examples showing the guidelines applied. Simpler guidelines can skip the examples. Larger organisations often add iconography, motion principles and digital-specific rules.
There is no single number. The indicative bands here run from roughly $800 for a short document covering logo, colour and type, up to $7,000 or more for a comprehensive manual with extensive examples. They are planning figures rather than survey data. A web-hosted digital style guide that is maintained over time costs more than a static PDF and is usually only worth it for a team producing content constantly.
Short enough that people read them. A mini document covers the core rules in a few pages. A standard document runs longer because it adds imagery, voice and worked examples. Very long manuals exist, and they are usually justified by scale rather than by usefulness. If your team cannot find the answer to a question in under a minute, the document is too long.
If you are genuinely solo and not producing much, a short guidelines document is enough, and it mostly protects your future self from drift. The moment you add team members, contractors or an external designer, proper guidelines stop being optional, because everyone is otherwise guessing at your colours from a screenshot.
For a very early-stage business, yes. We publish a free structure guide setting out the 8 sections a workable set of guidelines needs, which you can build in whatever document tool you already use. It is a written outline rather than a file to download. Once the brand is established, custom guidelines are worth the spend, because they document the decisions actually made for your brand rather than generic placeholders. Start with the outline and upgrade when it stops answering your questions.

Ready to start?

Tell us about your project. Your enquiry goes to an experienced Australian brand design studio that quotes on your actual brief, and we aim to respond within 1 business day.

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