Brandbook: structure and mandatory sections
A brandbook, a guideline, and a logobook — these are different documents
Three terms are used as synonyms, which is an error that leads to conflicts between the client and the executor. Each document has its own audience and its own area of responsibility.
| Document | What it includes | Who uses it | Access |
|---|---|---|---|
| Logobook | Only logo usage rules: versions, protective field, minimum sizes, prohibitions | Freelance designers, print shops | Open, can be shared externally |
| Guidelines | The entire visual system: logo, colors, fonts, patterns, application on media | Design teams, agencies, marketing departments | Open or partially closed |
| Brandbook | Strategy (mission, values, positioning), visual system, tone of voice, communication rules | All company employees, top management, key subcontractors | Closed, part — confidential |
If you have a team of three people and just need to figure out how to properly place a logo on business cards — one logo book with 15-20 pages will be enough. If your company is growing and regularly hires external designers — you need a style guide. A full brand book is required when decisions about the brand are made not by one person, but the strategy needs to be conveyed to new employees without distortion.
There is no golden standard structure — and this is normal
Most articles in the top of the search results list four blocks: the conceptual part, the visual system, the media, and tone of voice. This is the base, but not a universal template. The structure of a brand book depends on two things: the business profile (an online service is organized differently from a retail chain with offline stores) and who will be opening the document — a designer, a marketer, or an advertising contractor.
A minimum brandbook that makes sense to call a brandbook and not a logobook includes:
- strategic part — mission, values, positioning, audience portrait;
- visual system — logo, color, typography, graphic elements;
- rules of application on real company carriers (not abstract, but those used by this specific business);
- tone of voice — principles of verbal communication.
Everything else — patterns, iconography, logo animation, branded merchandise — is added as needed, not for the sake of volume.
How many pages are needed: from startup to a network of hundreds of locations
The rule here is: the brandbook volume grows together with the number of people who will read and apply it. The approximate range looks like this.
| Type of company | Volume | Features |
|---|---|---|
| Startup, small business | 20-40 pages | Mini brandbook: strategy compressed, basic visual system, minimum carriers |
| Growing company, franchise | 60-120 pages | Full structure, carrier detailization for specific sales channels |
| Large network, federal brand | 150-300 pages | Extended detailing: individual blocks for regions, point formats, sub-brands |
A telling example of extreme detail is Perekrestok's brandbook, which devotes 20 pages to logo usage rules alone: versions on different backgrounds and its treatment on shop windows, price tags and private-label packaging. For a chain with thousands of locations, this level of detail is justified — any nuance that is not explicitly specified will be interpreted differently across branches. For a startup with a single office, such detail is money wasted on design documentation that will never be used in full.
The section on the logo in any brandbook, regardless of the overall document volume, should cover a specific list of items:
- main and additional versions (horizontal, vertical, mark separately);
- monochrome version for black-and-white printing;
- minimum sizes in millimeters for print and in pixels for digital;
- protective field around the mark;
- examples of acceptable and unacceptable use in photos.
How strategy turns into visual and verbal solutions
This is the moment that falls out of almost all brandbook guides. It's easy to write 'our values are reliability and innovation.' But showing how this formulation gave rise to exactly this font, exactly this palette, and exactly this way of writing headlines is a task that brandbook developers usually leave 'off screen,' and they're wrong.
The working approach is to include in the brandbook not only the result but also the logic of transitioning from meaning to form. For example: the positioning of 'an expert who speaks simply' logically leads to a grotesque sans-serif font (the feeling of modernity and clarity), a restrained palette without bright contrasts (not to distract from the essence), and short sentences in texts without jargon. Every visual decision in a good brandbook should be tied to a specific point in the strategy, not exist by itself as 'just beautiful.' This is the only way brandbook development codifies something rather than reinvents it from scratch — because the brandbook itself should come after strategic decisions have already been made, not instead of them.
Tone of voice: the section that is most often underestimated
Of the four main blocks of the brandbook, tone of voice is usually omitted first — and this is a strategic mistake. Visual identity creates recognizability: a person sees the logo and remembers the company. But relationships with the audience, trust, and repeat visits are built precisely by the way the brand speaks — how it formulates a response in support, writes a post in social media, or signs a letter of apology for delivery delay. Commercially, this often gives a greater effect than yet another logo variant on packaging.
In the tone of voice section, at least three things must be covered:
- Brand dictionary — which words are used and which are forbidden (for example, never 'client,' only 'guest');
- Tone in different situations — how the brand speaks in advertising, support, and crisis communication (these are different registers of one personality, not one template for all cases);
- Examples of 'correct/incorrect' on real phrases — abstract descriptions like 'friendly but not sycophantic' without examples are useless for a copywriter who sits down to write text at nine o'clock in the evening before a deadline.
Companies skip this section because it's harder to formalize than color in HEX code. Voice tone cannot be measured with a ruler, so it's either described in one vague paragraph or not described at all — and then each copywriter writes in their own style.
When to develop a brandbook and how to update it without losing identity
A brandbook is the final, not the initial stage of brand work. The logic is: first, the team (strategist, designer, marketer, copywriter, project manager) makes decisions about positioning, visual language, and communication style, and the brandbook then fixes the already completed result in the form of a document for internal and external use. Creating a brandbook 'from scratch' before the strategy is defined is like spending time on decorating emptiness.
This gives us a practical guideline: a brandbook is needed not at the time of company registration, but when the business can no longer keep all agreements in the head of one founder. This usually happens when hiring a second designer, when entering a franchise, or when the first major contractor comes on board.
A separate complex task is updating a brand book for a company that has long been on the market and has a recognizable style (a situation typical for large banks or retailers). Here, you cannot simply replace the old document with a new one — the audience is already attached to existing visual markers, and radical rebranding risks undermining recognizability. The working practice in such cases is evolutionary updating: preserve key anchor elements (the shape of the logo, the main color), but rebuild the system around them — update typography, add modern graphics, rewrite the tone of voice for the current audience. In this case, the new brand book should clearly indicate what remained unchanged by the company's decision, and what was reviewed consciously — otherwise, contractors and new employees will confuse old layouts with current ones.
| Document | What it includes | Who uses it | Access |
|---|---|---|---|
| Logobook | Only logo usage rules: versions, protective field, minimum sizes, prohibitions | Freelance designers, print shops | Open, can be shared externally |
| Guidelines | The entire visual system: logo, colors, fonts, patterns, application on media | Design teams, agencies, marketing departments | Open or partially closed |
| Brandbook | Strategy (mission, values, positioning), visual system, tone of voice, communication rules | All company employees, top management, key subcontractors | Closed, part — confidential |
If you have a team of three people and just need to figure out how to properly place a logo on business cards — one logo book with 15-20 pages will be enough. If your company is growing and regularly hires external designers — you need a style guide. A full brand book is required when decisions about the brand are made not by one person, but the strategy needs to be conveyed to new employees without distortion.
There is no golden standard structure — and this is normal
Most articles in the top of the search results list four blocks: the conceptual part, the visual system, the media, and tone of voice. This is the base, but not a universal template. The structure of a brand book depends on two things: the business profile (an online service is organized differently from a retail chain with offline stores) and who will be opening the document — a designer, a marketer, or an advertising contractor.
A minimum brandbook that makes sense to call a brandbook and not a logobook includes:
- strategic part — mission, values, positioning, audience portrait;
- visual system — logo, color, typography, graphic elements;
- rules of application on real company carriers (not abstract, but those used by this specific business);
- tone of voice — principles of verbal communication.
Everything else — patterns, iconography, logo animation, branded merchandise — is added as needed, not for the sake of volume.
How many pages are needed: from startup to a network of hundreds of locations
The rule here is: the brandbook volume grows together with the number of people who will read and apply it. The approximate range looks like this.
| Type of company | Volume | Features |
|---|---|---|
| Startup, small business | 20-40 pages | Mini brandbook: strategy compressed, basic visual system, minimum carriers |
| Growing company, franchise | 60-120 pages | Full structure, carrier detailization for specific sales channels |
| Large network, federal brand | 150-300 pages | Extended detailing: individual blocks for regions, point formats, sub-brands |
A telling example of extreme detail is Perekrestok's brandbook, which devotes 20 pages to logo usage rules alone: versions on different backgrounds and its treatment on shop windows, price tags and private-label packaging. For a chain with thousands of locations, this level of detail is justified — any nuance that is not explicitly specified will be interpreted differently across branches. For a startup with a single office, such detail is money wasted on design documentation that will never be used in full.
The section on the logo in any brandbook, regardless of the overall document volume, should cover a specific list of items:
- main and additional versions (horizontal, vertical, mark separately);
- monochrome version for black-and-white printing;
- minimum sizes in millimeters for print and in pixels for digital;
- protective field around the mark;
- examples of acceptable and unacceptable use in photos.
How strategy turns into visual and verbal solutions
This is the moment that falls out of almost all brandbook guides. It's easy to write 'our values are reliability and innovation.' But showing how this formulation gave rise to exactly this font, exactly this palette, and exactly this way of writing headlines is a task that brandbook developers usually leave 'off screen,' and they're wrong.
The working approach is to include in the brandbook not only the result but also the logic of transitioning from meaning to form. For example: the positioning of 'an expert who speaks simply' logically leads to a grotesque sans-serif font (the feeling of modernity and clarity), a restrained palette without bright contrasts (not to distract from the essence), and short sentences in texts without jargon. Every visual decision in a good brandbook should be tied to a specific point in the strategy, not exist by itself as 'just beautiful.' This is the only way brandbook development codifies something rather than reinvents it from scratch — because the brandbook itself should come after strategic decisions have already been made, not instead of them.
Tone of voice: the section that is most often underestimated
Of the four main blocks of the brandbook, tone of voice is usually omitted first — and this is a strategic mistake. Visual identity creates recognizability: a person sees the logo and remembers the company. But relationships with the audience, trust, and repeat visits are built precisely by the way the brand speaks — how it formulates a response in support, writes a post in social media, or signs a letter of apology for delivery delay. Commercially, this often gives a greater effect than yet another logo variant on packaging.
In the tone of voice section, at least three things must be covered:
- Brand dictionary — which words are used and which are forbidden (for example, never 'client,' only 'guest');
- Tone in different situations — how the brand speaks in advertising, support, and crisis communication (these are different registers of one personality, not one template for all cases);
- Examples of 'correct/incorrect' on real phrases — abstract descriptions like 'friendly but not sycophantic' without examples are useless for a copywriter who sits down to write text at nine o'clock in the evening before a deadline.
Companies skip this section because it's harder to formalize than color in HEX code. Voice tone cannot be measured with a ruler, so it's either described in one vague paragraph or not described at all — and then each copywriter writes in their own style.
When to develop a brandbook and how to update it without losing identity
A brandbook is the final, not the initial stage of brand work. The logic is: first, the team (strategist, designer, marketer, copywriter, project manager) makes decisions about positioning, visual language, and communication style, and the brandbook then fixes the already completed result in the form of a document for internal and external use. Creating a brandbook 'from scratch' before the strategy is defined is like spending time on decorating emptiness.
This gives us a practical guideline: a brandbook is needed not at the time of company registration, but when the business can no longer keep all agreements in the head of one founder. This usually happens when hiring a second designer, when entering a franchise, or when the first major contractor comes on board.
A separate complex task is updating a brand book for a company that has long been on the market and has a recognizable style (a situation typical for large banks or retailers). Here, you cannot simply replace the old document with a new one — the audience is already attached to existing visual markers, and radical rebranding risks undermining recognizability. The working practice in such cases is evolutionary updating: preserve key anchor elements (the shape of the logo, the main color), but rebuild the system around them — update typography, add modern graphics, rewrite the tone of voice for the current audience. In this case, the new brand book should clearly indicate what remained unchanged by the company's decision, and what was reviewed consciously — otherwise, contractors and new employees will confuse old layouts with current ones.
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