How to build brand guidelines and play brand police.

Having a great brand identity system is only the beginning.  It's the launchpad, not the destination.

Once that is in place, two things must happen.

• Someone has to teach those using the brand how to use it correctly.
• Someone has to police the usage and course correct when needed.

When it comes to teaching users to apply the brand correctly, standards are often created.  These standards historically are done in print or PDF form, but creating a website is more usable and sustainable moving forward.  Brand New recently reported on Stanford's updating of their main wordmark, which included, what they call their online identity toolkit. It's a great example of how this can be used as a resource and training guide.

Then someone needs to be designated as the brand police.  This could be someone internal or an outside resource, but what is more important is that this person be empowered to make sure the brand is respected in ALL aspects.

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