How to Create Brand Guidelines (FREE Template Included)

You’ve just finished designing an awesome brand identity.

Now comes the part most designers dislike: creating brand guidelines.

In this video, I’ll show you a simple, structured way to create brand guidelines in Adobe Illustrator, using free templates to save hours of manual work. Make sure you stick around until the end.

I’ve also made a separate video on what to include in brand guidelines, which you can find linked in the description.

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What This Brand Guidelines Will Include

Before starting, I create a clear structure.

This brand guidelines will include six key elements, organised into pages and sections.

With that list ready, let’s begin.

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Setting Up the Document in Illustrator

I start by creating a new document at 1920 × 1080, which is a standard screen size and works well for digital brand guidelines.

Next, I create a margin system.

This foundational layout will stay consistent across all pages.

I place shapes in the top-left and bottom-right corners, align everything to the center, and then convert them into guides. These guides can be duplicated across all artboards to keep spacing consistent.

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Defining Typography Sizes Using the Golden Ratio

Next, I define the typography system.

Typically, this includes:

• Header
• Subheader
• Body text
• Microtext

For a 1920 × 1080 layout, I set the header font size to 200pt.

To keep everything visually consistent, I scale the remaining text sizes using the golden ratio (1.618):

• Subheader = Header ÷ 1.618
• Body text = Subheader ÷ 1.618
• Microtext = Body ÷ 1.618

This approach creates a clean and balanced type hierarchy across the entire document.

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Duplicating Pages and Maintaining Consistency

With the base layout ready, I duplicate the artboards and begin creating cover pages for each section.

To keep spacing and alignment consistent, I copy a page with the most microtext and paste it in front on other pages. This ensures:

• Text placement stays consistent
• Microtext alignment is uniform
• Errors can be fixed once and applied everywhere

This step saves a lot of time later.

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Building Out the Brand Guidelines Sections

Now the brand guidelines start coming together.

I add:

• Brand colors
• Logo placeholders
• Page numbers
  

Illustrator doesn’t support automatic page numbering, so I’ve included a script in the description to handle this.

At this point, about half of the brand guidelines are complete.

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Final Brand Guidelines Structure

I then finish the remaining sections from the original list and refine the layout.

The final brand guidelines include:

• Brand overview
• Logo usage
• Logo misuse
• Colors
• Typography
• Visual elements
• Corporate assets
• Applications
• Photography
  

All six core elements are clearly organised and easy to follow.

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Free Brand Guidelines Templates‍

The completed brand guidelines have been cleaned up and simplified.

You can download these templates as:

• Adobe Illustrator files
• Adobe InDesign files

I’ve also created an urban-style variation, ideal for brands using condensed fonts. This version is also available in both Illustrator and InDesign.

All download links are in the description.

Thanks for watching.

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This transcript is designed to help designers create professional brand guidelines faster and with less manual work.

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Create brand guidelines faster with Akrivi Studio

With Akrivi Studio, you can generate professional brand guidelines in seconds using Akrivi Guideit, the automated brand guidelines generator for Adobe Illustrator.

Upload your logo, fonts, and colors, choose a template, and click generate.

Try Akrivi GuideIt for FREE and automate your brand identity workflow.