What is the Purpose of a Graphic Charter?

Brand image consistency is one of its strengths. Being recognizable among all through its logo, colors, and imagery often involves developing a graphic charter. It is useful for print as well as for the web. A graphic charter varies in length and acts as a true guardian of your corporate communication. A graphic charter is, of course, designed to evolve. Here are the constituent elements of a typical graphic charter.

How to Successfully Create your Brand’s Graphic Charter?

Every company has its own graphic charter! It can be general or specific to certain projects. In summary, here are the main constituent elements of a standard graphic charter.

1/ Definition of the rules for using the brand’s logo and typography

The first part of the graphic charter serves to lay the groundwork for the use of your company’s logo and typography. To do this, you need to:

• Represent the logo, with and without its baseline
• Define the rules for positioning the logo on letterhead or in an advertisement
• Represent the different versions of the logo, indicating how to manage the logo on a white background or a colored background: use of the logo in black, white, or four-color process.
• Clearly indicate the logo’s dimensions in mm, the margins to be respected around the logo, between the logo and the baseline, etc.
• Illustrate some incorrect uses of the logo
• Providing guidelines for using the logo on promotional items, vehicles, etc., can prove useful
• Define the font(s) and its/their usage rules: type, size, right or left alignment, etc.

2/ Define the corporate color charter

Brand recognition is achieved through the logo and imagery, but also through the colors associated with your brand. Some brands choose to limit themselves to one main color and a few secondary colors. For your graphic charter to be complete, you will in any case need to define a primary and secondary color charter: approximately 4 primary colors and up to 6 secondary colors, indicating possible color combinations.

3/ Establish the layout rules for an advertisement?

For advertisements, it is also advisable to define basic rules by clearly indicating how to construct an advertisement. Remember to specify the image’s percentage of page occupation, the different ad formats (full page, half page, 1/4 page, horizontal, vertical, etc.), the text volume, the positioning of the advertising slogan, the positioning of the address block, the website, etc.

4/ Consider the elements that complement a graphic charter?

Various indications and/or recommendations can complement the document. Indeed, it can be useful to define an image charter to strengthen your visual identity and, consequently, the strength and consistency of your brand. Similarly, an icon charter can serve as a reference to enhance PowerPoint presentations, for example. In this regard, a few examples of PowerPoint slide layouts often prove useful. Lastly, in the case of illustrations, it is also important to define a graphic style consistent with the overall communication.

And to extend brand consistency from offline to online, we also advise you to integrate the fundamental guidelines for digital communication. These include guidelines similar to the offline version but adapted for the web: rules for logo usage, typography adapted for web support if necessary, size of titles, subtitles, and taglines, and the type of visuals to use. All these elements should be considered or reconsidered, especially when you undertake the redesign of your website .