Brand Guidelines Examples: 20 Great Brand Books From Tech Companies

What makes good brand guidelines examples worth copying?

The best brand guidelines examples make one thing obvious: what to do, shown next to what not to do. Length and polish matter far less than that. Most of the famous brand books below were written for companies with thousands of employees, so a startup shouldn't copy any of them whole. Instead, we've picked the one section from each that a five-to-50-person team can borrow.

If you're starting from nothing, read our brand guidelines template first, which sets out the five core sections every guide needs. Then use this list as a source of ideas for each section. We've grouped the 20 examples by the section they do best, and the summary table at the end lists them all.

A note on facts: we describe publicly visible guides and patterns only. Brand sites change, sections move, and some guides sit behind partner logins, so check each company's current brand or newsroom page before you rely on a detail.

Which brand book examples have the best logo rules?

Netflix, Spotify, Slack, Discord and Stripe show how to write logo rules that outsiders can follow. What they share is that they're written for people outside the company: press, partners and developers who have never seen the brand book and won't read more than a page.

1. Netflix: separates when to use the full wordmark and when to use the N symbol, with clear misuse examples. Steal the 'which version where' rule.
2. Spotify: its partner and developer guidelines cover logo color options, minimum sizes and attribution when you display Spotify content. Steal the minimum-size rule.
3. Slack: spells out how partners should refer to Slack and show its logo next to their own. Steal the co-branding rule, which most startups need the moment they launch an integration.
4. Discord: a short branding page with downloadable logo kits and its signature Blurple color. Steal the download-first layout.
5. Stripe: a compact brand-assets page in its newsroom with logo files and a few usage rules. Steal the brevity; it's close to what a startup's press page should be.

Notice that none of these leads with brand philosophy. They lead with the files. For a startup, that's the right priority on any page outsiders will see, which is why our startup press kit checklist starts with downloads, not mission statements.

Which brand style guide examples handle color and typography best?

IBM, GitHub, Uber and Duolingo show color and type as systems rather than swatches. Each treats typography in particular as part of the identity, not a font choice made at the end.

1. IBM: the IBM Design Language and its open-source IBM Plex type family. Steal the idea of explaining why the typeface fits the brand, in two sentences.
2. GitHub: its brand toolkit covers logo, color and the open-source Mona Sans and Hubot Sans typefaces. Steal the way it pairs a product-friendly sans with a more expressive companion.
3. Uber: brand.uber.com covers logo, color, its custom Uber Move typeface, composition, iconography, photography and motion. Steal the composition guidance, which shows how elements sit together, not just what they are.
4. Duolingo: a bright, character-led identity documented publicly, with color and its cast of characters given clear rules. Steal the color usage guidance: a loud palette needs firmer rules than a quiet one.

What are the best examples of voice and tone guidelines?

Mailchimp, Monzo, Shopify Polaris and Atlassian are the standard references for writing voice guidelines that people use. They all work the same way: they show sentences, not adjectives. Any company can claim to be 'friendly and clear'. These guides show what friendly and clear sound like in an error message.

1. Mailchimp: its public content style guide is probably the most cited voice guide in tech, covering voice, tone by situation, grammar and word choice. Steal the 'voice stays the same, tone changes with context' idea.
2. Monzo: the bank published its tone of voice approach openly, with plain-English rewrites of typical banking language. Steal the before/after rewrite format.
3. Shopify Polaris: Shopify's design system includes content guidelines on voice, grammar and naming. Steal the product-writing rules: buttons, empty states and errors.
4. Atlassian: atlassian.design includes brand foundations and a voice and tone section with do and don't pairs. Steal the pairs.

Voice is the section startups most often skip, and the one a copywriter notices first. If you only borrow one idea from this article, make it Monzo's rewrites: take five sentences from your own website and show the 'before' and 'after'. That page will do more than a list of personality traits. It also gives you a head start on brand positioning, because you'll find out quickly which claims you can make plainly.

Which brand guidelines show illustration and imagery well?

Dropbox's brand site is the clearest example of imagery guidance for a tech company, with illustration, photography and motion each treated as part of the identity. It's worth studying because illustration is where startup brands most often drift into generic stock art.

1. Dropbox: brand.dropbox.com covers color, typography, illustration, photography, motion and voice. Steal the way illustration gets rules about style and subject, not just examples.

Uber and Duolingo, above, also show imagery rules worth reading: Uber for photography and composition, Duolingo for characters. If illustration matters to your brand, our guide to building a brand illustration style explains how to write those rules so a second illustrator can match the first.

Which brand guidelines examples are written for partners and developers?

Apple, Spotify and Twitch write guidelines for people who aren't their employees, and those guides are the best model for any startup that will be featured by press, partners or customers. They assume no context and very little patience.

1. Apple: its App Store marketing guidelines govern the 'Download on the App Store' badge and how apps reference Apple. Steal the precision: exact clear space, approved languages, no exceptions.
2. Twitch: its brand site gives creators and partners the logo, the Glitch symbol and usage rules. Steal the audience split: one set of rules for creators, another for press and partners.

Spotify, already listed under logos, belongs here too. The pattern across all three is that the partner page sits apart from the internal brand book, is shorter, and leads with downloads. Our guide to online brand guidelines shows how to host a public page like this on your own site.

Where do brand guidelines end and design systems begin?

Google Material Design, Microsoft Fluent and the Salesforce Lightning Design System show the point where brand rules turn into product rules. They're design systems, not brand books, but every startup with a product eventually needs to see the difference.

1. Google Material Design: covers color roles, a type scale, components and theming, so many products can look related without looking identical. Steal the idea of color roles (primary, surface, error) instead of a list of swatches.
2. Microsoft Fluent: a design system for Microsoft's products, with tokens, components and accessibility guidance. Steal the accessibility notes attached to each component.
3. Salesforce Lightning Design System: an early, influential system built around design tokens. Steal the habit of naming values once and reusing them everywhere.

These are the reason a brand book alone won't run your product UI. We go deeper in brand guidelines vs design system.

Which brand book example shows the brand being made?

Mozilla's open-design rebrand is the rare example that documented the process, not just the result. During its open-design rebrand, Mozilla published its shortlisted design directions and invited public comment before settling on the final identity, which included its Zilla Slab typeface.

1. Mozilla: steal the rationale. A short page explaining why the brand looks the way it does helps new hires and agencies make decisions the guide doesn't cover.

That's twenty. Here they are in one place, with the section to take from each.