3 reasons I hate creating brand guidelines

Brand guidelines are essential.

I still deliver them on every project. They’re a core part of brand identity design.

But the real problem is the process of creating them.

I realised this working on multiple projects consectively. At one point, I was working on several client projects at the same time. The design work itself was fine.

But every time it came to creating the brand guidelines, it became repetitive, time-consuming, and honestly the part I started to dread the most.

Over time, that constant cycle started to wear me down. Not because I didn’t enjoy design, but because of how much time and energy was being spent on something that may not even be used by the client...

Here are 3 reasons why I hate creating brand guidelines, but the solution I created to overcome this.

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1. Brand guidelines take way too long to create

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Brand guidelines aren’t difficult to create.

They’re just long.

You’re repeating the same process across multiple pages. Layouts, spacing, typography, colour usage, logo applications, imagery, tone of voice.

This is mind numbing, and feels like admin work.

It’s not the thinking that takes the time. It’s the execution.

And no matter how experienced you are, this delvierable is compolsury. You still have to build the document, structure it, format it, and make sure everything is consistent.

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2. Templates don’t actually save time

Most designers try to solve this with templates.

There are many popular digital market places such as Creative Market, Envato and Yellow images.

You buy one, open it in Illustrator, and start replacing everything.

Fonts. Colours. Logos. Layouts. Pages. Sections.

But the reality is, by the time you’re done, you’ve essentially rebuilt the entire document.

Templates look like a shortcut, but they don’t save as much time as you think.

They just shift the work.

And every project is different, so you’re constantly adjusting, adding, removing, and restructuring anyway.

If your going to use static brand guidelines templates, I would recommend using these professional free templates I created for real client projects.

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3. Clients barely read brand guides

As a designer, im sure you know this already...

You can spend hours building a comprehensive, detailed set of brand guidelines, making sure everything is structured properly and presented clearly.

And in many cases, clients barely read them.

They might reference a few sections when they need to, but most of the document sits there unused.

That doesn’t mean they aren’t important. They are.

But there’s a clear gap between how much time goes into creating them and how much they’re actually used day-to-day.

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They’re still required

I see brand guidelines to be abit like insurance.

You need them. They’re important to have.

But most of the time, you’re not actively using them until something goes wrong or consistency fails.

They’re a safety system.

The problem is that this safety system is one of the most time-consuming parts of the entire project.

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Why this matters

If you’re a freelancer or running a studio, this becomes a business problem.

Time is directly tied to how much you can earn and how efficiently you can work.

The more time you spend on repetitive, manual tasks, the less time you have for higher-leverage work. And overall, will negitively impact your revenue.

Even if you enjoy creating brand guidelines, you still have to consider the trade-off.

Every hour spent rebuilding a document is an hour that could have been used more effectively somewhere else.

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A better approach

The issue isn’t that brand guidelines exist - It’s how they’re created.

Right now, the process is still manual. Whether you start from scratch or use a template, you’re still doing a lot of repetitive work.

What’s missing is a more efficient way to create them.

Something that takes far less time, but yet retains the attention to detail as if each page was made by hand.

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How Guideit solves this

That’s what led me to build Guideit Brand Guidelines Generator.

Not just another template, but a system of automated templates designed for real projects.

Instead of buying a new template every time, Guideit has its own library built in.

You can generate different types of brand guidelines depending on what you need. A single-page document, a 40-page guide, or a full 100-page system.

The structure is already there. The layouts are handled. You’re not rebuilding everything from scratch.

You’re working from a system that adapts to the project.

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The direction going forward

I continue to work on Guideit improving its features and making it more flexible for multiple different types of designers.

As I build Akrivi Studio, Guideit will have a growing library of new templates added inside.

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