//
Branding
23 Jul 2026
5 min
READ
BY
Prisma Studio
Most guidelines end up as a PDF nobody opens. How we write rules short enough to remember and clear enough to follow. Here is the structure we use, and why it keeps teams on brand without a style police.
[ writing brand guidelines people actually use ]
Most guidelines end up as a PDF nobody opens. How we write rules short enough to remember and clear enough to follow. The goal is not a beautiful document; it is a team that makes the same good decision without asking.
01 — Start with the decisions, not the logo
Every guideline should answer a question someone actually asks: which colour for a button, how big a headline can get, when to use photography. If a page does not answer a real question, it does not belong in the document.
We collect those questions in the first week of every project, then build the guidelines around them instead of around the assets.
“A rule nobody can remember is just a suggestion with a page number.”
— PRISMA STUDIO
02 — Keep every rule to one line
Short rules survive. Long rules get skimmed, misread and quietly ignored. In practice that means:
One sentence per rule, with one example next to it
Do and don't pairs instead of paragraphs of explanation
Tokens and templates linked straight from the page
A single owner who keeps the document current
03 — Ship it where people work
A guideline that lives in a shared drive is already out of date. We put the rules inside the tools the team already opens every day: the design library, the website builder and the content templates.
When the right choice is also the easiest one, the brand stays consistent long after the launch — without anyone having to police it.
[
Branding, Guidelines, Systems
]
