Today brands are shaped by an insurmountable amount of people, experiences and platforms. Continually adapting to market needs is risky, costly and can expose flaws in a brand’s visual identity. Executing a consistent visual identity and brand message is increasingly more important. Therefore, ensuring guidelines are in place to correctly implement the brand enables marketing teams to govern the brand and meet the ‘immediate’ needs of an evolving marketplace. 

Brands that DO NOT embrace their guidelines [no matter how simple they might be] are becoming weaker from lack of visual consistency. Strong layout, colour palette and visual tools are the very things people instinctively recognise and trust.   

For example, brands that add a new typeface [or colour] to their comms without considering the effect on the graphic design will appear less familiar, resulting in a less confident brand message as this continues over time. 

So adapting to change is good, but visually the change needs to ‘fit-in’ with the brand communications. Guidelines can help you make this change and influence a brand evolution over time.