Why You Should Create Brand Guidelines Before Designing Anything
Before you dive into designing your website, printing business cards or planning your next Instagram campaign, there’s one crucial step that many businesses overlook — creating brand guidelines.
Brand guidelines act as the blueprint for how your business presents itself. A comprehensive guide that outlines how your business looks, sounds and feels across every platform. This includes your logo, typography, color palette, brand voice, photography style and more. A strong set of guidelines ensures brand consistency across all platforms.
They serve one simple but essential purpose: to create consistency! With a strong set of brand guidelines in place, anything your business puts out, whether it is a website or a flyer, everything looks and feels cohesive, intentional, and unmistakably you. Without them, even the best creative work can feel scattered, inconsistent or forgettable.
According to the Marq Brand Consistency Benchmark Report, companies with clear brand guidelines report 33% faster content creation and fewer design revisions.
In this blog, we’ll explore why brand guidelines should come before any digital or print project, how they protect your brand’s integrity, and what a successful example looks like in action.
Design With Direction
Without a clear understanding of the brand image, there’s no productive way to guide any creative process. For example, imagine designing a flyer and feeling good about it, until halfway through you notice the colors don’t match your website or social posts. Now you have to backtrack, making endless revisions, wasting both time and money.
Brand guidelines prevent that mess. They provide a clear and consistent direction for your brand’s content creation and overall image. With that shared foundation in place, projects move faster, revisions drop significantly and your output feels polished every time.
Inconsistency Hurts Your Brand
Consistency is key! If your branding appears different on your website, social media, business cards, etc. you confuse your audience — and confused customers rarely convert. You want to build recognition whether someone is looking at your packaging or digital ads.
Consistency builds recognition.
Recognition builds trust.
Trust is what turns followers into loyal customers.
Whether someone is browsing your Instagram, scanning a flyer or visiting your website, they should experience the same brand, visually and emotionally. That only happens when your brand guidelines come first.
CCC Moda Got It Right
The power of having well-crafted brand guidelines can be seen with CCC Moda. A personal styling platform founded by Anelise, with a focus on self-expression through fashion. Built around the belief that everyone has a signature style, CCC Moda helps clients express their individuality through one-on-one styling, curated travel wardrobes, and event-ready looks.
PIL helped CCC Moda to create their brand guidelines, laying the groundwork for a clean, consistent and elevated brand identity. Thier brand guidelines have a cohesive design which is showcased across all platforms. A refined visual image built around soft-neutral tones, timeless typography and intentional use of space and tone that reflects the brand’s elegance and modernity.
Once the guidelines were in place, CCC Moda experienced real growth — not just visually, but analytically:
- 15% increase in social media engagement from the previous quarter
- 83,000 impressions, with 99% coming from non-followers
These are the result of cohesive, consistent branding that captures attention and builds credibility.
Build the Brand, Then Create the Content
Before any design work begins, your brand needs direction. Without brand guidelines, you risk wasting time on revisions, sending mixed signals to your audience and producing less valuable content. But when you create brand guidelines first, you unlock efficiency, consistency and growth. Whether you’re just getting started or refreshing your identity, think of your brand guidelines as a foundation the entirety of your business is built on.
Don’t skip this step. Start with clarity and build something unforgettable.
Ready to elevate your brand like CCC Moda?
Start with a strong foundation. At PIL Creative Group, we craft brand guidelines that go beyond aesthetics—they drive engagement, build recognition, and set the stage for long-term growth.
Contact us now to get started!
