What are brand guidelines?
Brand guidelines are a set of rules that explain how a brand presents itself to clients/customers. This is usually portrayed through the use of logos, wordmarks, colours, typography, photohraphy and more. Other than just being a set of rules, it can also be a useful guide for consistency for the brand. It can be used as a good reference tool to look back on to make sure than brand is staying consistent.
This ties into why having brand guidelines are important. Not only is it a priority to keep the brand consistent across products but also it is a way to build trust with clients/customers because the more the brand is kept the same, the more it will become recognised among many people who can rely on the brand.
I have used Brandpad as a way to make my brand guidelines which can be viewed by the link above.
My brand guidelines include my monogram, logo, typeface, colours used, tone of voice and a design example.