Edip Kilinc is the founder of Webwavers. Together with his team, he develops websites, brands, and digital presences for ambitious companies – with over 250 completed projects, and honored with awards including the German Design Award 2026.
The typical brand guide is forty to eighty pages long, starts with a brand story and a values chapter, and gets to the logo on page twelve.
It is read once and then never opened again. Not out of disinterest, but because it does not answer everyday questions.
The questions that are actually asked are: What color is the headline on a presentation slide? How big can the logo be on a pen? What do I do if the logo is on a photo? What font size do I use for a caption?
A guide that answers these questions in two minutes will be used. One that first explains the brand philosophy is bypassed – and then everyone decides for themselves.
From this follows the most important rule: A brand guide is a reference work, not a document for reading.
The typical brand guide is forty to eighty pages long, starts with a brand story and a values chapter, and gets to the logo on page twelve.
It is read once and then never opened again. Not out of disinterest, but because it does not answer everyday questions.
The questions that are actually asked are: What color is the headline on a presentation slide? How big can the logo be on a pen? What do I do if the logo is on a photo? What font size do I use for a caption?
A guide that answers these questions in two minutes will be used. One that first explains the brand philosophy is bypassed – and then everyone decides for themselves.
From this follows the most important rule: A brand guide is a reference work, not a document for reading.
Ten to twenty pages are enough. These chapters:
1. The Brandmark. All variants – horizontal, vertical, logomark alone, monochrome light and dark. With clear space and minimum size.
2. Incorrect applications. Five to eight examples of what does not work: distorted, recolored, with shadows, on a busy background, too small.
3. Colors. Primary, secondary, functional colors, neutral tones. For each color, the values for screen and print and the rule of what it applies to.
4. Typography. Font family, weights, size scales with line spacing, and which scale applies to what.
5. Imagery. Four criteria, six examples, three counter-examples.
6. Design elements. Grid, spacing, shapes, icons, handling of white space.
7. Applications. One example each for website, presentation, business stationery, social media, signage.
8. Tonality. One page: how you write, which words you avoid, three example sentences in correct and incorrect versions.
Chapters two to four are in almost every guide. What is missing are the rules for exceptional cases – and these are exactly what decide whether the system holds up in everyday life.
What happens when there is very little space? A ballpoint pen, a favicon, an embroidery. Is there a reduced version?
What happens on a photo? Does the logo need a background area? Which one?
What happens in a cooperation? Two logos side by side – in what ratio, with what distance, who is on the left?
What happens in dark mode? Which color variants apply there?
What happens with a color that is not in the palette? For example, a customer's color in a presentation.
Each of these questions arises within the first year. If they are not answered, people will improvise – and the improvisation becomes the standard.
Four chapters that take up space and are rarely needed.
The brand story. Interesting, but not the purpose of this document. Belongs on the About Us page.
The derivation of the logo. Why the arch stands for movement – no one who is currently trying to design a slide will read that. If it needs to be documented, then in a separate appendix.
Values and guiding principles. They guide the brand, but belong in the strategy document, not the application manual.
Detailed design philosophy. The more explanation, the less application.
What deserves space instead: more examples. A guide with twelve pages of application examples is better than one with twelve pages of text and two examples.
A rule of thumb: if a chapter does not help with a concrete design decision, it does not belong in there.
A brand guide without templates remains theoretical. What must be delivered with it:
Logo files in all variants: SVG for web, EPS or PDF for print, PNG with transparency in multiple sizes, favicon set.
Presentation template with pre-set colors, fonts, and slide layouts. This is the single most effective file because presentations are created most frequently and quickly go off-brand.
Document templates for offers, invoices, letters.
Email signature as a ready-to-use block for insertion.
Templates for social networks in standard formats.
The font files with proof of license, as well as a fallback font for cases where the main font is not available.
Plus a storage location that everyone knows and can access. A guide that sits as a PDF in an email attachment from 2023 practically does not exist.
The test is simple and takes twenty minutes.
Give someone without design experience a task. Design a one-page customer information sheet, build a presentation slide, create a social media post.
Watch where they hesitate. Every point where they have to ask a question is a gap in the guide.
Look at the result. Does it look like you? If yes, the system works. If no, either a rule or a template is missing.
In addition, a second test after a few months: Collect ten materials created in the last quarter and lay them side by side. Deviations show which chapters are not getting through.
And finally: A brand guide needs a responsible person and a date. Without both, it quietly becomes outdated. Once a year, one hour is enough to keep it up to date – and to add the exceptions that have emerged over the course of the year.
