Notes for owners · Branding and communication
What goes into a brand guidelines document an SME will actually open
A ten-page outline for a small firm's brand guidelines: logo use, two colours, two fonts, how the company writes, and a page of things never to do, with a way to test it.
The GullySales team · Updated 17 Oct 2026 · 5 min read
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A brand guidelines document an SME will actually open has about ten pages: how the logo is used and not used, two colours with exact codes, two fonts and where each goes, how the company writes, three examples of the rules applied, and a page of things never to do. It should answer the questions a printer or salesperson asks at the moment of doing the job. If a rule cannot be applied in a minute, cut it.
The ten pages
| Page | What it holds | Who looks at it |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Name as spelt, tagline, version and date, and one contact for questions | Everyone |
| 2 | The logo: full colour, single colour, reversed, square | Printer, signboard maker |
| 3 | Clear space and smallest size | Designers, printers |
| 4 | Logo misuse: stretched, recoloured, on busy photographs | Staff, dealers |
| 5 | Two colours with names and codes for print and screen | Printer, web helper |
| 6 | Two fonts, and where each is used; a safe fallback for Word and email | Office staff |
| 7 | How we write: sentence length, how we address buyers, words we use and avoid | Sales, social media |
| 8 | Applied examples: a visiting card, an invoice header, a WhatsApp profile | Anyone in doubt |
| 9 | Things we never do | Everyone |
| 10 | Where the files are, and how to ask for new ones | Everyone |
Page by page: what makes each one earn its place
The logo pages. Show each version large, and say in a line when to use which: reversed for dark backgrounds, single colour for stamps and embroidery. Give the file names, not just the pictures.
The colours. Two are usually enough: one main, one support, plus a black or grey for text. List each with its name and codes. A printer needs a print reference and a screen code, and they differ. Say what happens on a cheap print run: "if only one colour is available, use the dark blue".
The fonts. Pick two, one for headings and one for text, and name a plain fallback such as Arial for the documents that open on a client's old computer. If your name must appear in Hindi, Kannada or Tamil, name the script font too.
How we write. This is the page small firms tend to leave out, and the one that stops three salespeople sounding like three companies. Give five rules: how you greet a buyer, whether you write "you" or "sir", how long a message should be, which words you avoid, and how you sign off. Include two real examples, one right and one wrong. A worked line for a trading firm might read: "Greet by first name, write "you", keep a WhatsApp reply under four lines, never write "as per our last discussion", sign off with your name and the shop number." When several writers must match, that page can grow into a separate brand voice and tone guide.
Things we never do. Keep it to six lines at most. Examples: never put the logo on a photograph with a busy background; never use a competitor's colour pairing; never print a price on a banner without a date.
What to leave out
- The history of the firm and its mission statement. They belong in the company profile.
- Every possible logo placement. Show three.
- Colour theory and font lessons.
- Rules nobody enforces. A rule you will not check is worse than none.
- Long lists of banned words. Five is enough.
If you are tempted to add a page, remove one first.
A Kanpur bag maker and a stretched logo
An invented example. A school-bag manufacturer in Kanpur with six staff pays a design studio ₹45,000 for sixty pages of guidelines, and nobody opens them. A salesperson used a screenshot of the logo taken from WhatsApp. The printer, asked for visiting cards, used an old file with a different green. The embroiderer found the fine lines in the logo broke up on fabric, and a dealer in Lucknow stretched the mark to fit a board.
The mistake was writing for a design team when the users were a printer, an embroiderer, a salesperson and a dealer. The owner rebuilds it as ten pages that open on the logo folder. They name two greens properly, include a thicker embroidery version of the mark, and give one rule for stretching: never change the width alone. A page headed "send this to your printer" went with it, and a half-page for dealers. After that the cards match and the dealer's new board uses the right file, because the dealer was sent the file and the rule together. Two things still go wrong: the old green survives on a batch of printed bags already in stock, and one salesperson keeps using a personal WhatsApp banner until the owner asks for it to stop.
Who writes it, and when
The person who answers the printer's calls should write the first draft, because they know which questions come up. Give them the logo folder and an afternoon. A designer can tidy the pages afterwards, but should not invent rules the firm will not follow. If you cannot yet say which version of the logo is the master, stop and settle that first, since a rule sheet built on an unsettled logo has to be rewritten.
Test it before you circulate it
Hand the draft to someone who has not seen your branding, such as a new hire or a friend's printer. Ask them to do three jobs using only the document: produce a visiting card layout, write a reply to an enquiry and set up a WhatsApp profile. Note every question they ask. Each question is a missing line.
Then send the PDF with the logo folder to everyone who makes anything, and keep a list of recipients. When you change something, send the new version, say what changed and ask them to delete the old one.
Settle the choices first
Guidelines record decisions; they do not make them. If your logo, colours and voice are not yet settled, settle them before anyone writes page one, because brand guidelines built on unsettled choices have to be redone. Treat the document as a reference for suppliers, not a rulebook to wave at them.
Your first task this week is small: put every version of your logo into one folder, mark the one master, and send that folder, with nothing else, to the next printer who asks. The questions the printer comes back with are your first draft of pages 2 to 5. Once the files are in order, the identity work that decides what goes into the rules belongs with the rest of your marketing, and if your current files need turning into something short enough to use, tell us what you need.
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