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We’ve covered Brand Guidelines before on the Transmit blog so it gives us great pleasure to introduce to you: The brand guidelines for Microsoft’s Bing search engine. The image on the right is from the essential do’s and don’ts part of the guidelines which show various ways of how not to use the logo.

Recently, Jay Leno ran a gag called “Bing photo search”, presumably a placement paid for by Microsoft in order to promote the search engine which still lags far behind Google in market share.

The brand guidelines don’t mention Google or Safari, but Jay Leno’s show featured both fairly prominently in the spoof “search results” from Bing.

As shown above, the browser that displayed the results on Jay’s show was Apple’s Safari and the default search engine selected for said browser was Google – not Bing. You just can’t buy that kind of advertisement.

Apparently, the people of Finland are great believers in the healing powers of the Sauna. According to a Finnish proverb; if liquor, tar or sauna doesn’t cure you, it’s probably fatal.

When your computer catches a virus however, no amount of liquor, tar or even sauna will help (not the computer at least). That’s where Finnish computer security firm F-Secure comes in.

F-Secure is one of the most respected names in the field of computer security, Twitter being an example of one high profile client.

So we were intrigued when we learned from one of our favorite blogs, Brand New, that F-Secure had overhauled their brand. Those who share our interest in brand guidelines should check out the F-Secure guidelines (pdf).

What sold us the new identity was seeing the new logo on software boxes, below.

We were not averse to the old “super-hero” logo, but the new version makes the product feel very professional and, well, secure.

In 1977, during the deepest recession New York had seen in decades, the state launched what would turn out be one of the most successful “Place Branding” campaigns in history.

The campaign comissioned Milton Glaser, a graphic designer, to design a logo and he came up with the now iconic I❤NY image above. More than thirty years later the logo is still being used and is recognized around the world.

In 2008 a new I❤NY campaign was launched, run by legendary ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi. The relaunch includes different themes for the logo (see below, click for a larger version), one version for every season and so on.

The brand guidelines for the relaunch are available online and make for a very interesting read. Have a look and see examples on how not to use the brand, read about the brand’s history and learn the lyrics to the theme tune. It’s all there.

When it comes to the roll-out of such a campaign, a product like Brand Capital would help give access to all of the brand’s digital assets to whoever needs them. The brand guidelines can also be built into a user’s account in Brand Capital so that downloading a shopping-themed logo or a jingle for an answering machine becomes an easy, understandable, three-click process.

Last year, while doing research and competitive analysis for online versions of brand guidelines, I came across the NHS Brand Guidelines site and I must say it is still one of my favorites.

It’s intuitive, easy to use and tackles the issue of representing guidelines for all the different sub-brands by reusing a lot of the content. For instance to logo guidelines are the same across all the different types of organisations while signage differs between National Organisations and treatment centres.

Reading through the copy, you get this strong message that it’s written by people who have been around the branding block a couple of times. There are clear, to the point guidelines. Dos and don’ts like the following:

Do:

• make sure you use the NHS logo consistently and correctly;
• only use original digital graphic files.

Don’t:

• alter the NHS logo in any way;
• embed the NHS logo in a line of text;
• use the NHS logo more than once on single sheet, unless on a graphic display.

… and the second link under tools and resources is this baby. The most popular destination of any brand site.

The only thing I would add to that site is a good file repository and download basket.

Our aim with Brand Capital is to supply you with the application, tools and guidelines to build something as intuitive as the NHS guidelines for your company.

Sign up now and get notified when we launch.

In a previous blog post, Agnar discussed celebrity brand ambassadors. Another kind of brand ambassador however is the grassroots volunteer: The passionate user who constantly sings praises for a brand they love.

When Steve Jobs founded Next Computers, before rejoining Apple, he had the branding legend Paul Rand (who designed the IBM logo among others) design the Next brand and provide the company with its brand guidelines. The brand identity cost $100,000 and was delivered complete with a 100-page guideline brochure. There is little doubt that the brand guidelines for today’s Apple are even meatier.

One application of the Apple brand we doubt is covered in the brand guidelines however, is shaving the logo on the back of a brand ambassador’s head. Or applying the brand as a tattoo.

You know what I’m going to say next, don’t you? Although tattoos and hairdos will probably not be set as default Brand Capital “toolboxes” as we’re calling them, Brand Capital is easy to customize. With Brand Capital, you can make sure that brand ambassadors, celebrity or otherwise, are complying with the brand guidelines when they decide their loyalty is undying and they invest in a tattoo – with your logo.

I have flicked through a staggering number of very inspiring and well made brand guidelines in my time. But last night my friend Brian Suda showed me one that tops them all.

Christopher Doyle created his personal Identity guidelines last year, long before peronal branding entered the hype cycle.

Not only is it funny and a brilliantly executed idea. It’s also of great quality as a brand guideline template. Your company should put it self in Christopher shoes (literally) and think about how to implement each chapter.

Color palette

Clearance space

Incorrect use

You can download the PDF here