Browsing identity style guides helps me learn what to include for my clients, so I collated a number of samples for reference. I hope you find the resource helpful, too.
- Audi CI
- Belfast brand identity guidelines
- Berkeley brand identity
- Boston University brand identity standards
- Boy Scouts of America brand identity guide (PDF)
- Brandpad guidelines and assets
- British Airways brand guidelines (PDF)
- British Rail corporate identity manual
- Canadian National Railway Company visual identity guidelines (PDF download)
- Carnegie Mellon brand standards
- Channel 4 identity style guide
- Christopher Doyle identity guidelines (PDF)
- Cisco logo usage and guidelines
- Dropbox logos and branding
- Duke University brand manual
- Facebook brand assets (PDF)
- Google design
- Google visual assets guidelines
- GOV.UK elements
- Haas School of Business style guide
- Heineken visual identity
- IEEE brand identity guidelines
- Liberty University brand identity policy
- Mailchimp brand assets
- MasterCard brand center
- Microsoft trademark and brand guidelines
- Mississauga’s Brand Story
- Mozilla Firefox brand
- NASA graphics standards manual (mid 1970s)
- NHS identity guidelines
- Ohio University brand
- Pacific University brand standards (PDF)
- Pizza Hut brand standards manual
- Princeton University logo and graphic identity
- Queen’s University Belfast brand guidelines
- Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College style guide
- Santa Claus brand book
- Sapo (PDF, in Portuguese)
- Skype trademark and brand guidelines
- Sony USA brand identity guidelines
- The Beano Comic brand guidelines
- The University of Texas brand guidelines
- Twitter brand toolkit
- Ubuntu brand guidelines
- University of Arkansas style guides and logos
- University of California brand guidelines
- University of Louisville brand
- University of Wisconsin-Madison brand and visual identity
- US web design system
- Vimeo brand guidelines
- Virginia Tech brand
- WordPress graphics and logos
- Yale University identity
- Yelp design cookbook
More identity style guides
The branding style guides documents archive
Corporate Identity Portal
Website Style Guide Resources
And somewhat related in the archives is the NeXT logo presentation, by Paul Rand.
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Mikko,
Hi, thanks for the awesome post!
Android has pretty decent brand&visual guidelines too:
http://developer.android.com/design/index.html
http://developer.android.com/distribute/googleplay/promote/brand.html
andrei,
This list is great!
Here’s a short but crisp one, for a small but growing branding agency:
http://fabricadedesign.ro/guide/FDD_Brand_Guidelines.pdf
Marie,
Great! Thanks for sharing.
Even more design manuals.
Todrick,
What a great list of examples. Thanks so much for sharing.
Jeremy,
Christopher Doyle – good call!
Niall,
Thanks for this, an excellent resource.
Would the Paul Rand book for NeXT be considered a “Brand Style Guide”?
Sean,
This is a fantastic collection of guides. Definitely bookmarking it. Thanks.
Stefan,
Thanks a lot.
Here are even more: http://www.ci-portal.de/styleguides/
Alina Wheeler,
What an extraordinary reference. Thank you. What a smart way to protect and preserve an organization’s valuable asset.
Josephine Jost-Crous,
Thank you for sharing, some very useful references!
number1,
MasterCard – http://www.mastercardbrandcenter.com/us/index.shtml
David Airey,
I’m glad this is of some use, and thanks very much for the extra links. Updated.
Emilie,
Amazing! Thank you so much, always looking for examples to show to students, this is great!
Sean,
I know I have posted above. But I was wondering if anyone here charges additionally for the style guide. I would include it on larger projects that are fully funded but not for smaller ones. Would be good to hear others on this.
Jon,
Thanks for this David – I can see a couple of weeks of heavy reading coming up!
@Sean – I always charge for style guides; separately for large jobs, inclusively for small ones.
Josephine Jost-Crous,
Below a couple more:
Apple:
http://images.apple.com/legal/certification/docs/logo_guidelines.pdf
NASA:
http://imjustcreative.com/nasa-brand-identity-guidlines-circa-1976/2011/08/02/
Adam,
Wow amazing list, nice collection David.
Hunter,
David: This is good stuff… thanks. It’s definitely a great resource to share with our students.
Lorevic,
Anyone know the agencies/designers behind these beautiful, functional pieces of artwork? May have a project that needs some good loving. Skeptical that these were all done internally, but I’ve been known to be wrong before. Thanks!
Milind,
The Microsoft branding guidelines are for the old logo.
Ethan,
University of California: http://brand.universityofcalifornia.edu/
Christopher Dowding,
Thank you ever so much sir, such an excellent resource this is… & your website.
Andy,
University of Colorado Boulder branding
http://brand.colorado.edu
Thanks for the list!!
lori,
Wow! What an awesome resource – thanks so much!
paulklein,
I’m in the process of establishing a style guide for the City of Reno. This was a great blog post to come across for reference. Thank you!
Samantha Peck,
I wish I came across this while working on a brand book for a class I just finished up. Great collection of brand books, thanks!
TonyG,
Lowes corporate identity…
http://issuu.com/gabychev/docs/lowes_corporateidentity
Orit.Sha,
Such a treasure! Thank you very much.
Row,
You have no idea how useful this list is. Thank you!
Teia,
I love you for providing this!
Anne,
Now I really have an idea about how brand identity styles are presented before the final branding. Cool!
Andy,
I have always been interested in brand standards and style guides. At what level of a brand do you think this is necessary to include with a logo design? All cases? I feel like the company paying for the branding has to want it. If you give them rights to the logo/branding they can really do whatever they want with it once it is out of your hands, right? David, do you include brand style guides with all the brands you develop?
David Airey,
I don’t, Andy. I’ll offer some examples of how a design can be used in context, but hardly any of my projects need a guide the size of some of these. Generally, the bigger the company, the greater the need, because more people will want a say in how the design is implemented.
Stuart,
Really interesting and useful resource to refer to in many ways. As a small and growing business made me think more about our own branding and in house style guides and how we should do it!
Jordi,
One that’s a personal pet-peeve: Twitter. I see it wrong in many places, even in places you would assume they’d know what they are doing. On the other hand, what the site Twitter has about their guidelines is quite thorough and complete.
https://about.twitter.com/press/brand-assets
Ronald Dowdy,
These style guides are so useful.
It is great to have access to these to use as a guideline to create a pro style guide.
Nikki Bodnar,
Does anyone have any examples of brand books for non-profit organizations? Im looking for BCRF, MMRF, Susan B Komen, American Diabetes Association. Basically the larger charities that are more complex.
Damaris Alfonso,
What a boon this list is; I’m about to create my first branding guidelines/press book for a logo I created for a radio station. It will be great to see how so many other designers and brands have handled showing the dos and don’ts. Thanks!
Henrik,
Cool collection of styleguides.
Future request: Would it be possible to add a sorting for “Recently Added” in the list?
Here’s a contribution from the identity kings in my country, Kontrapunkt: http://www.nib.int/designmanual
Cheers!
Abby,
If I’m looking for a specific fashion brand’s brand standards/style guide, would you be able to locate it?
Dawn,
Does anyone have a style guide they have created that I could use as a template to get me started?
Abdul Aleem,
Love this site, thanks David… highly appreciated.
danny7,
A few pages of the NeXT guide. I tried to find a full PDF but this is all I got. Enjoy.
http://www.appliedaesthetics.org/ART132-01/19/NEXT.pdf
Travis Gertz,
Louder Than Ten
http://manual.louderthanten.com
Rich,
Thanks for the information! It’s a one stop shop with a great peak into the professional world of guidelines and logos. These lists really help to give me a head start and are an excellent learning source. I am currently a design student looking for great design blogs to learn from and to gain more knowledge.
Vinh,
Nice list. I’d like to see more brands from the NGO and BCC (Behaviour Change Communication) world. Anyone?
Tomek,
Thanks again!
Here’s something inspiring, too. More than only branding: http://www.google.com/design/
dave,
Looking for a brand guide for Target’s Up&Up brands. Anyone?
Melissa Peace,
I used this post back in 2013 and 2014 and it was great. Then you had the UVA brand identity guide. Do you still have that link? Thanks!
ADHI,
Hi guys, would any of you know where I can find a pdf of the ESPN brand identity guidelines?
Vanesas,
Thank you so much! Great references.
Ken,
What a fantastic learning resource and source of inspiration. Big thank you.
Ryan,
Amazing resource guys, so handy to help us develop our own guidelines. There seems to be a real trend for online guides these days but the PDF/ print ones always seem nicer.
Chris,
I like the one Brandpad made for themselves: https://brandpad.io/brandpad (as far as I know, using their own brand guidelines system when making it).
Steven Skaggs,
Love this set of resources. I’m a prof at U of Louisville (No. 71 above). Rather embarrassing that a sports marketing firm designed our visual standards and simply used the sports mascot (a toothed bird) for the entire university. Without the sports mascot emblem, there is little unique, memorable or distinctive in the typography. I use this in my visual identity classes as a “counter-example” of good design thinking!
Lee @ Designed By Good People,
What a brilliant resource.
The Real Nirv,
Excellent resource, bookmarked and backed up to the waybackmachine! Kudos.
James Harding,
Really useful list of brands. Thank you.
David Kolesom,
Thanks. Thanks. Thanks!
Solomon,
You just made my day. God bless you!
Rachel,
Still working on it, but loving the process: https://hellorachel.ca/style-library
James Holloway,
This collection is a goldmine, especially the NASA Graphics Standards Manual — seeing how rigorously they defined spacing and logo misuse back in the 70s makes you realize most modern “brand guidelines” are way too loose. I actually went through a similar exercise applying identity principles to my photobooth business, since consistency across the machine’s faceplate, booth design, and social media output matters a lot for repeat bookings. The Corporate Identity Portal recommendation is new to me, will definitely dig into that archive.