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.

  1. Audi CI
  2. Belfast brand identity guidelines
  3. Berkeley brand identity
  4. Boston University brand identity standards
  5. Boy Scouts of America brand identity guide (PDF)
  6. Brandpad guidelines and assets
  7. British Airways brand guidelines (PDF)
  8. British Rail corporate identity manual
  9. Canadian National Railway Company visual identity guidelines (PDF download)
  10. Carnegie Mellon brand standards
  11. Channel 4 identity style guide
  12. Christopher Doyle identity guidelines (PDF)
  13. Cisco logo usage and guidelines
  14. Dropbox logos and branding
  15. Duke University brand manual
  16. Facebook brand assets (PDF)
  17. Google design
  18. Google visual assets guidelines
  19. GOV.UK elements
  20. Haas School of Business style guide
  21. Heineken visual identity
  22. IEEE brand identity guidelines
  23. Liberty University brand identity policy
  24. Mailchimp brand assets
  25. MasterCard brand center
  26. Microsoft trademark and brand guidelines
  27. Mississauga’s Brand Story
  28. Mozilla Firefox brand
  29. NASA graphics standards manual (mid 1970s)
  30. NHS identity guidelines
  31. Ohio University brand
  32. Pacific University brand standards (PDF)
  33. Pizza Hut brand standards manual
  34. Princeton University logo and graphic identity
  35. Queen’s University Belfast brand guidelines
  36. Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College style guide
  37. Santa Claus brand book
  38. Sapo (PDF, in Portuguese)
  39. Skype trademark and brand guidelines
  40. Sony USA brand identity guidelines
  41. The Beano Comic brand guidelines
  42. The University of Texas brand guidelines
  43. Twitter brand toolkit
  44. Ubuntu brand guidelines
  45. University of Arkansas style guides and logos
  46. University of California brand guidelines
  47. University of Louisville brand
  48. University of Wisconsin-Madison brand and visual identity
  49. US web design system
  50. Vimeo brand guidelines
  51. Virginia Tech brand
  52. WordPress graphics and logos
  53. Yale University identity
  54. 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.

Comments

What an extraordinary reference. Thank you. What a smart way to protect and preserve an organization’s valuable asset.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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?

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.

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!

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.

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!

If I’m looking for a specific fashion brand’s brand standards/style guide, would you be able to locate it?

Does anyone have a style guide they have created that I could use as a template to get me started?

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.

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!

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.

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!

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