We know that investing in a brand identity for your business is a big deal. And we also know that there’s no reason for you to understand the process or know what you’ll be receiving if you’ve not been through this process before.

Whether you're looking to start working with a designer, or are in the process of creating a brand identity, here's a helpful guide to what comes in a brand package and what you should be able to expect from your designer, based on the items we include in our own Brand Identity packages.

A Brand Identity package includes…

The brand identity packages we create are delivered as a collection of files and documents. These files are ‘packaged’ together into folders so that it’s easy for our clients to navigate and find the files they need. We then share that as a Dropbox or Google Drive link for our client to save on their own computer.

It looks a little like this:

As you can see the files and documents are grouped into:

Brand Guides
Logos
Fonts
Collateral
Logo Information

Some packages might also include other files and folders if a company has illustrations, specialty graphics or other elements within the identity. So! Let’s delve into each of these folders and the items within them.

1. Brand Guides

Every brand identity package includes 2 brand guides: a Brand Guidelines document and a Style Tile.

BRAND GUIDELINES

A Brand Guidelines document is a large, comprehensive guide to a brand identity. It includes the Brand Strategy work done at the beginning of the identity process, as well as a breakdown of all the visuals and how best to use them. It shows the specifics of the logo, the colour palette, the font system, any icons, patters or illustrations and includes guidelines on selecting photos, using the logo in various designs and more!

Scroll through this gallery to see a real life example from our client, Decade Consulting.

STYLE TILE

A Style Tile on the other hand is a 1-page document that shows the logos, colours and fonts of an identity. We include these because it’s much quicker to glance at one of these to find a brand’s font name or colour codes than it is to find it within a 30 page document, and we want to make things like that easier and simpler for our clients! We ourselves use these a lot when working on client designs, so we know how handy they are when you’re actively working with a brand!

2. Logos

The logo folder is probably the biggest, and most frequently used folder – for obvious reasons! Each logo type is housed in this folder, with both vector and raster files prepped for screen and print uses. (Learn more about these file types here.)

A brand might include 1-4 specific logos, as well as a favicon (the little icon you see in the tab of a browser). We also keep any logo based graphics and icons in this folder, along with social media profile images of the logos prepped for each platform the businesses has a profile for.

Each of those logo types has files prepped for both print and for screen uses (i.e files prepped in both RGB and CMYK colour modes), in both raster (JPEG or PNG) and vector file types. Logo files are always created in black and white for every business, and any of the suitable brand colours.

PNG files are provided in two resolution sizes too so that there are options for different needs and screens.

If all of this jargon is a bit confusing, don’t worry! At the end of the day just rest assured that every brand identity comes with every single file that could possible be needed – but most clients will only use a few of them regularly.

3. Fonts

Legally we can’t share actual font files with clients, because they are a licensed material. So! what we do is provide links to download or purchase them. These links are provided in a universal text doc that can be opened on any computer.

Worth noting: We always aim to provide fonts that available from Adobe Fonts (free as part of a Creative Cloud subscription), Google Fonts, or are available for purchase under $250. We also often look for fonts that can be downloaded for free, or purchased from other licensing sites for under $50. Sometimes, on specific website platforms, we are limited and unable to access Adobe or Google fonts. In those cases we’ll always research the options before selecting fonts for a brand. Plus, we always run the fonts by our clients ahead of time so they can review and approve them.

4. Collateral

This folder might include business card files, postcards, or any other collateral (printed assets) that might be included in the brand identity. Depending on the item, we typically provide these as PDF files, but sometimes also include PNG’s or other files that our clients printer has requested. We also liaise with the printers (and make recommendations!) for our clients so that they can skip the confusing conversations and having to learn our lingo. Most often we work with Moo, and can offer our clients a little discount, but locally we recommend Jukebox Printing quite often also.

5. Logo Information

Finally, because we know that all of the files included in a brand identity (most specifically the logo files) can be confusing and overwhelming, we also include a Logo Information document that details the different file types and acts a resource for our clients to refer to whenever they need a refresher.

And that’s about it! Lots of files, lots of documents and lots of information. Curious to learn more about our branding process? Send an email to hello@saltdesignco.studio to set up an inquiry call with us!

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