Most results for "brand guidelines template" are galleries of pretty layouts. They look great, but they don't tell you what to write on each page. This post does the opposite. Below is a complete brand guidelines template written out as an outline, section by section, with notes on what belongs in each part and how a small business can fill it in without a design team.
To be upfront: there is no file to download here. The template is the outline on this page. Copy it into Google Docs, Word, Notion, Canva or Adobe InDesign, swap in your own details, and you'll have a working brand guide by the end of an afternoon.
What are brand guidelines?
Brand guidelines are the rules and standards for how your brand looks and sounds. They record your logo usage, color palette, typography, imagery and voice, along with the reasons behind those choices, so anyone who makes something for your business gets it right without asking you first.
You'll hear a few other names for the same document: brand book, brand manual, brand style guide, or brand identity guidelines. In practice they overlap. If there's a difference, it's scope. A style guide sometimes covers only visual identity or only writing style, while a full brand book also covers your brand story, values and positioning. For a small business, one document that covers both visual and verbal rules is plenty.
Guidelines are also different from a brand kit. A kit is the set of files (logo versions, color codes, fonts). The guidelines are the instructions for using them. Our post on what a brand kit is and what goes in one covers the files side in detail.
Why brand guidelines matter for a small business
Small businesses rarely have one person producing every touchpoint. The owner makes a social media post, a printer sets up business cards, a nephew builds the website, a sign shop cuts the storefront vinyl. Without written rules, each of them guesses. The logo gets stretched, the blue drifts a shade every time, and three different fonts show up on one flyer.
A short, clear guide fixes that. It gives you a consistent brand across every place customers meet you, which helps you build trust and look established. It also saves time: you stop re-explaining your colors to every new vendor and just send the PDF.
The brand guidelines template: copy this outline
Use these nine sections in order. Each one lists what to include and a note on how much detail a small business actually needs. Skip anything that doesn't apply to you yet; a two-page guide you use beats a forty-page one nobody opens.
1. Cover, contents and how to use this guide
- Your brand name, the logo, and the version date.
- A one-line purpose: "How to present [Business Name] in print, on screen and in writing."
- Who to contact with questions, and where the files live.
2. Brand foundation
- Brand story: two or three sentences on why the business exists and who it serves.
- Brand values: three to five values, each with one sentence on what it looks like in practice.
- Brand positioning: who your target audience is, what you offer them, and how you differ from the alternatives.
- Brand personality: three adjectives that describe how the brand should feel (for example: warm, precise, unhurried), plus one it should never feel like.
This section is the "why" behind every visual rule that follows. If you haven't worked this out yet, our small business branding guide walks through it step by step.
3. Logo usage
- The primary logo, plus any secondary versions (stacked, horizontal, icon-only).
- Color variations: full color, one color, reversed (light on dark).
- Clear space: the minimum empty area around the logo, usually measured using a part of the mark itself.
- Minimum size for print and for screens.
- Don'ts, shown as examples: no stretching, recoloring, rotating, adding shadows or placing it on busy photos.
- Which file format to use where. Vector files (SVG, EPS, PDF) for print and signage, PNG for screens. Our logo file formats table lays out which file goes where.
4. Color palette
- Primary colors (one to three) and secondary or accent colors.
- For each color: a name, hex codes for web, RGB for screens, CMYK for print, and a Pantone match if you print spot colors.
- Rough proportions, such as "dark background most of the time, gold as an accent only."
- Approved color combinations for text, with contrast in mind.
On that last point, check text contrast before you approve a pairing. The W3C's WCAG contrast guidance asks for a ratio of at least 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text. Free contrast checkers will tell you the ratio for any two hex codes in seconds.
5. Typography
- Your typefaces and their roles: a display or headline font, and a body font for paragraphs.
- Weights and sizes for headings, body text and captions.
- Line spacing and alignment rules.
- Fallback fonts for email and Microsoft Office, where your brand font may not be installed.
- Where to get the fonts and what the license allows.
6. Imagery and design elements
- Photography style: lighting, subjects, mood, and what to avoid (stock photos of handshakes, for many brands).
- Illustration or icon style, if you use them, and where those design elements come from.
- Patterns, textures, shapes or a layout grid you reuse.
- Two or three "on-brand" and "off-brand" examples side by side.
7. Voice and tone
- Your brand voice in a few words, tied back to the personality from section 2.
- How tone shifts by situation: a social post, a quote, a complaint reply.
- Words and phrases you use, and ones you avoid.
- Formatting basics: how you write your brand name, phone numbers, dates and prices.
8. Applications and touchpoints
- Short examples of the rules in use: business card, email signature, social media post, website header, invoice, signage, packaging.
- Any templates you already have, with a link to the editable version.
9. File library and contacts
- A link to a shared folder with every logo file, font and template.
- Who approves new materials, and how to ask for a new asset.
- A short change log so people know which version is current.
How to fill in the template as a small business
You don't need to finish everything in one sitting. Work in this order and the hard decisions get easier as you go.
- Gather what you already have. Collect every logo file, past flyers, your website and social profiles. Note what's consistent and what isn't.
- Write the foundation first. Fill in section 2 before touching colors or fonts. It's much easier to choose a typeface once you know the brand should feel "calm and expert" rather than "loud and playful."
- Lock the logo rules. Make sure you have proper vector files and at least a light and dark version. If you only have a blurry JPEG, sort that out before anything else.
- Pick and document colors. Pull the exact hex codes from your logo file, then convert them to RGB and CMYK. Test text combinations for contrast.
- Choose two typefaces, not five. One for headlines, one for text. Write down the sizes you actually use.
- Write voice rules from real examples. Take three emails or posts you're proud of and note what makes them sound like you.
- Add applications. Mock up a business card and a social post using only the rules on the page. If you get stuck, a rule is missing.
- Export a PDF and share it. Keep the editable version for yourself and send the PDF to anyone who designs or prints for you.
A worked example: our own palette and type
Here's how the color and typography sections read when filled in, using LunarVision's own identity. You can see the palette in use in the studio's identity section on our homepage.
| Name | Hex | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Midnight | #0B0E1C | Primary background and dark text |
| Lunar Gold | #E9C46A | Primary accent, headlines and buttons on dark |
| Moonlight | #F7E3A6 | Soft highlight and secondary accent |
| Bronze | #B5872C | Supporting accent, borders and details |
| Starlight | #EEF0F8 | Light background and body text on dark |
Typography: Archivo Black for display type, Cormorant Garamond for headlines, and Manrope for body text.
The contrast rule shows why the "approved combinations" line matters. Running the WCAG formula on our own pairs, Lunar Gold on Midnight comes out around 11.5:1 and Starlight on Midnight around 16.9:1, so both are safe for text. Bronze on Starlight is only about 2.9:1, so a good guide would say "Bronze for borders and details on light backgrounds, not for body text." That one sentence prevents a whole category of hard-to-read flyers.
Brand guidelines best practices
- Show, don't just tell. A picture of a stretched logo marked "don't" works better than a paragraph about proportions.
- Keep it short. A small business rarely needs more than a handful of pages. Cut anything nobody will act on.
- Explain the why. One line of reasoning per rule makes people more likely to follow it.
- Make it easy to find. Pin the PDF in your shared drive and send the link to every new vendor or hire.
- Name an owner. One person approves new materials. That's how you enforce brand guidelines without turning it into a committee.
Should brand guidelines be public or internal?
Most small businesses keep the full guide internal and share it with vendors, staff and partners as needed. If press, resellers or event partners regularly use your logo, a public one-page version with logo usage and colors is a handy addition.
How often should you update them?
Review the guide whenever something real changes: a new logo, a new service line, a new channel, or a rule people keep breaking because it doesn't work. Otherwise, a quick read-through once a year keeps it honest. Update the version date and change log each time.
Where free brand guidelines templates fit in
Canva, Notion, Pitch, Miro and Behance all offer brand guidelines templates, many of them free and professionally designed. They're useful as a layout once you know what to say. The catch is that a ready-to-use layout can't make your decisions for you. Plenty of people end up with a beautiful document full of placeholder text.
The practical approach: fill in the outline above as plain text first, then drop the content into whichever editable layout you like, whether that's a Canva doc, a Notion page, Word or an Adobe file. The structure and decisions are the hard part. The layout is the easy part.
Brand guidelines template FAQs
Is this brand guidelines template free?
Yes. The full outline is on this page and you can copy it into any tool. There's no download, sign-up or email gate.
What's the minimum a brand guide needs?
If you only do one page, include logo usage (with one or two don'ts), your color palette with hex codes, and your two typefaces. Add voice and tone next.
Can I make brand guidelines in Word, Google Docs or PowerPoint?
Yes. Any tool that exports to PDF works. Use your brand fonts if they're installed, and list fallback fonts for people who don't have them.
Should a designer make my brand guidelines?
You can write a solid first version yourself using this template. A designer helps most when your logo, colors or type aren't settled yet, because the guide can only document decisions that already exist.
If you'd rather have the identity and the guidelines built together, request a quote for your brand identity project and tell us what you're working with. Logo design and brand identity systems are quoted to your brief.