The most common brand guidelines document in the world is a 60-page PDF that lives on the second page of a shared drive, gets opened twice in its first month, and then never again. Nobody references it. Nobody updates it. The brand drifts anyway.
The reason these documents fail isn't that they're too long. It's that they're trying to be both reference documents and brand bibles. The reference parts are useful. And buried under philosophy parts nobody reads.
For most founders, the right answer is a one-page brand guidelines document. Not a one-page summary of a longer doc. A one-page document, full stop. Here's what goes on it, what doesn't, and a template you can copy.
Why one page
Three reasons to keep brand guidelines to one page:
1. People actually open it. A single page that takes 90 seconds to scan gets referenced. A 60-page PDF does not. The whole point of brand guidelines is to be the reference your team and contractors use. If they don't open it, it doesn't matter what's inside.
2. It forces editorial discipline. When you have unlimited pages, every detail seems worth documenting. With one page, you have to choose what actually matters. The constraint produces a sharper, more useful document.
3. You can update it. A one-page doc can be revised in 20 minutes. A 60-page doc requires a project. The first one stays current; the second one ossifies and becomes obsolete.
What goes on the page (and in what order)
Here's the order I use. It's tested across multiple brands. Top of page gets the things people search for most often; bottom gets the things they look up occasionally.
Section 1: Brand name + tagline. The official spelling, the official tagline, and any common misspellings to flag. Two lines max. This is the most-searched-for item in any brand doc, "what's our tagline again?". So it goes at the top.
Section 2: Logo files. Direct links to the SVG, PNG, and PDF files of the logo. Not the logo images themselves. Links. People who need the logo don't need to see it; they need to download it. A small thumbnail with each link is fine.
Section 3: Colors. Hex codes for every brand color. RGB and CMYK only if you actually use them. Each color labeled with its purpose ("primary text", "accent", "background"). Skip the swatches if you're tight on space. The hex code is what people need.
Example layout:
Coral (accent): #FF5B3A / #C73D1F (text on light) / #FFA28A (text on dark)
Ink (primary): #0A0A0B
Paper (background): #FFFFFF
Bone (surface): #F6F5F1Section 4: Typography. Font names and where to access them. If you use Google Fonts, the link. If Adobe Fonts, the kit ID. If a paid font, the license you've purchased. Plus the heading + body weight rules.
Example:
Display: Plus Jakarta Sans (800 weight) Google Fonts
Body: Plus Jakarta Sans (400/500/600) Same family
Accent: Cormorant Garamond Italic Google Fonts, sparinglySection 5: Voice (three lines). Three adjectives describing your brand voice, plus two words you never use. Refer to a longer voice doc for the detail, but the three adjectives are the daily reminder. Example: "Direct. Plain-spoken. Honest. Don't say: leverage, synergy."
Section 6: Sizing rules. Two or three rules about how the logo and brand assets should scale. The most common ones to document:
- Minimum logo size (the smallest pixel size where the logo still works)
- Minimum padding around the logo (how much clear space)
- What happens at favicon size (which simplified version is used)
Section 7: Don't-do list. Three to five things people commonly do wrong with the brand. Examples: "Don't stretch the logo. Don't change the color of the coral dot. Don't use the wordmark on backgrounds darker than #888. Don't add effects (glows, shadows, gradients) to the mark."
This is the second most-referenced section after the logo files. People generally know what they should do; they're checking what to avoid.
What to deliberately leave off
Common items on brand guidelines docs that you should leave off the one-pager (and put in a longer secondary doc only if you really need them):
- Brand history / origin story. Belongs on the About page, not in brand guidelines. Nobody needs to know the founder's story to use the logo correctly.
- Brand values. If they're not actively informing visual decisions, they belong in your operating principles doc, not brand guidelines.
- Mood board. Use it once, archive it, don't put it in the daily reference doc.
- Photography style guidelines. Worth its own doc if you have a photo program, but most early brands don't.
- Long-form voice examples. Worth a separate voice doc. The one-pager just gets the three adjectives + don't-say list.
- Co-branding rules. Until you have actual co-branding partnerships, you don't need this.
None of this is wrong. It's just not on the one-pager. If you need a 60-page bible later, build it. But the one-pager is the daily reference, and adding philosophy to it makes it the kind of document that doesn't get opened.
Where to put the one-pager
The doc only works if it's findable. Three places:
- Pinned in your team Slack / Discord. The single most likely place someone will look when they need brand info.
- At the top of your shared drive. Brand folder, "READ FIRST.pdf" or "brand-quick-reference.pdf".
- Linked from your homepage's footer. Optional, but useful for partners and press:
vellem.io/brand.
Update it every quarter. If something on it changes (new color, new font, new rule), update the doc the same day. The whole system depends on people trusting the document to be current.
The template
Here's the literal structure, copy-able. Replace each <...> with your specifics:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
<BRAND NAME>. Brand Quick Reference
Last updated: <DATE>
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
NAME & TAGLINE
<Brand Name> (pronounced <phonetic>)
Tagline: "<tagline>"
LOGO FILES
→ logo.svg (web, primary)
→ logo.png (email signatures, slack)
→ logo.pdf (print)
→ favicon.svg (16-64px contexts)
COLORS
Primary: #XXXXXX / Text-on-light: #XXXXXX / Text-on-dark: #XXXXXX
Ink: #XXXXXX (body text)
Paper: #XXXXXX (background)
Surface: #XXXXXX (cards, panels)
TYPOGRAPHY
Display: <Font Name> (weight: <X>) <source link>
Body: <Font Name> (weights: <X>) same family
Accent: <Font Name> italic use sparingly
VOICE
Three adjectives: <X>. <Y>. <Z>.
Don't say: <word1>, <word2>, <word3>.
SIZING
Logo min size: 24px wide
Padding around logo: 1× cap height on all sides
Favicon: use simplified mark, not full wordmark
DON'T DO
1. Don't stretch the logo
2. Don't change the coral dot color
3. Don't use the wordmark on backgrounds <list>
4. Don't add effects (shadows, glows, gradients)
5. <your specific gotcha>
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━That's the entire brand guidelines doc most early-stage brands need. When the business is bigger, add a second doc. Until then, keep it tight and watch what happens: the brand stays consistent because the reference is actually used.
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