Before creating my own brand guidelines, I thought it would be beneficial to look at some examples from different companies. Of course these are more in-depth than mine need to be but it will give me a good idea of the layout and what to include.
I like that they have full page illustrations. This breaks up the content and makes it more digestible as it gives the user a quick break. It is also visually appealing and reinforces their brand over and over again. I would consider having something like this in mine, even if it is something simple.
I like that the tone of voice tells its employees what they are and also what they aren’t. This prevents people getting carried away with certain aspects of the brand. For example, if employees were told to be helpful, this can become overwhelming, unnecessary and even annoying for the user.
The usage on backgrounds section is a page I want to include in mine. This is because the wordmark typeface is quite intricate and twisty and can become hard to read on certain backgrounds. The same applies to the logo. When placed on a dark background, its less legible and doesn’t work as well.
Having an accessibility page would be important to me. I want it to be clear what coloured text can be used on what coloured background. This is because these colours would have been contrast checked and approved. Any other colours used would be at risk of being inaccessible. For children who are learning how to read, having accessible colours enables them to clearly read the text.
Illustrations is something I would like to include in the brand guidelines. These would have to be quite a specific style to match the tone of the brand. However, at this point in my project I haven’t started to do illustrations. Therefore, this might have to be very general for now. However, I could definitely include an imagery page. There will be a lot of imagery of the different books available within the app. I could talk about how these should be high quality and a consistent size.