Design Service Dubai, UAE
Brand guidelines
teams can use
Brand guidelines from Dubai: the rules, examples and templates that keep a brand consistent once it leaves the hands of the people who designed it.
A brand stays consistent only when the people using it every day know the rules. Guidelines are how they know.
Most guidelines are a PDF that was read once at launch. We write them for the marketer making a post at six in the evening and the agency briefed for a campaign: clear rules, real examples of right and wrong, templates for what gets made most, and a format that can be updated as the brand grows. We document identities we designed and identities others designed, and we can tidy up a brand that has drifted.
For brands that look different every time someone new touches them.
Growing companies whose marketing is now made by more people than designed the brand, groups working with several agencies, and businesses with an identity they like but no rules beyond a logo file.
- Every agency or new hire interprets the brand differently
- Your team rebuilds the same documents from scratch
- Nobody is sure which logo file or colour value is current
- Your guidelines are a PDF nobody has opened since launch
What a brand guidelines engagement covers
Audit of what exists
A review of everything in use today, from the website to sales decks and signage, showing where the brand is applied well and where it has drifted.
The rulebook
Logo use, colour, type, imagery, layout, iconography and tone of voice, each with clear rules, the reasoning and examples of what to avoid.
Templates and assets
Editable templates for the documents and posts your team makes most often, and an organised asset library so the right file is always easy to find.
Format and handover
Guidelines as a website, a PDF or a design library, set up so they can be updated, and a training session with the teams and partners who will use them.
How we work
Audit
We gather what your teams and suppliers actually make and find the patterns, the gaps and the questions they keep asking.
Codify
The decisions behind the identity written down as rules, with any loose ends in the system resolved along the way.
Build
Guidelines, templates and the asset library, tested by giving them to someone new and watching what they make.
Hand over
Training for your team and partners, an owner named for the guidelines and a simple way to request updates.
What we believe about guidelines
Written for the busiest user
Guidelines are used in a hurry. Every rule should be findable in seconds and understood without a designer standing beside you.
Show, do not just tell
A rule with an example of right and wrong is followed. A rule on its own is interpreted. We put examples beside everything.
Living, not finished
A brand grows, so its rules must too. We set guidelines up to be updated, with an owner, rather than printed and forgotten.
What you walk away with
- One source of truth for how the brand looks and sounds
- Rules with examples, so judgement calls get easier
- Templates that make the right thing the quick thing
- An asset library where the current files are easy to find
- A team and partners who have been shown how to use it all
Questions we are asked about brand guidelines
Can you write guidelines for a brand another agency designed?
Yes. We document the identity as it stands, resolve gaps where the system is unclear, and flag anything that needs a design decision before it can be written down.
What drives the cost of brand guidelines?
How much of the system already exists, how many areas the guidelines must cover, how many templates you need and whether the format is a PDF or a website. We scope it after the audit.
How long do brand guidelines take?
Four to eight weeks, depending on the size of the system and the number of templates. A light update to existing guidelines can be quicker.
Do the guidelines cover Arabic?
Where you communicate in Arabic, yes: Arabic typefaces and their pairing with Latin, right-to-left layout, numerals and how the logo sits in bilingual settings.
Who owns the guidelines and templates?
You do. Every file, template and the guidelines themselves are yours to edit, share with suppliers and keep up to date, with or without us.
