Every business we work with in Joplin, Springfield, Tulsa, and Northwest Arkansas eventually hits the same moment: a new hire designs a flyer with the wrong shade of blue, or a print vendor stretches the logo to fit a banner. Brand guidelines exist to prevent that — a single reference document that shows exactly how your colors, type, logo, and voice should be used, so your brand stays consistent no matter who's touching it.
Building a guideline document starts with an audit of your existing brand assets — logo files, colors, fonts, and any past marketing materials. From there we move into documentation, writing clear rules and examples for every element of the brand. Next comes application examples, showing the rules in action across real materials, and finally delivery of a polished, easy-to-reference document.
Guidelines aren't about restricting creativity. They're about making sure everyone is being creative inside the same brand.
This service makes the most sense once you already have a logo and visual identity in place — whether that came from us or elsewhere — and now need to keep it consistent as your team, vendor list, or property portfolio across the four-state region grows.
A good guidelines document also saves real time and money. Instead of a new designer or vendor guessing at your brand — and inevitably getting something wrong — they open one document with every answer already provided, which means fewer revision rounds and fewer inconsistent materials circulating under your name.
If you work with more than one designer, printer, or team member, guidelines are worth having even at a small scale — the document scales down to a simple one-page reference just as easily as it scales up to a full manual.
Can you build guidelines around a logo you didn't design?Yes. We regularly build guideline documents around existing logos and brand assets, whether they were designed in-house or by another agency.
How long does a brand guidelines project take?Most guideline documents are completed in one to two weeks, depending on how much of the underlying brand system already exists and how many application examples are needed.