Brand Guidelines for Small Business

By Melon Cut ·

You run a small business, so you wear every hat. Monday you are the owner, Tuesday the person who answers messages, Friday the one who makes the Instagram post at eleven at night. Brand guidelines for a small business exist for that Friday person. They stop you from redesigning the look of the business every time you open a blank post.

Small does not mean skipped

A common thought is that guidelines are for big companies with design departments. In practice the opposite is true. A large company has someone to catch inconsistency. You do not. A one-page set of rules is your safety net.

The short version that works

For a small business, five things are usually enough:

  • One logo file for light backgrounds and one for dark.
  • Two or three colors, with codes.
  • One or two fonts.
  • Three words for how you talk.
  • A sentence on who you serve.

Everything else can wait until you actually need it.

A bakery, a plumber and a bookshop

The same five things look different for each business, which is the point.

The bakery might choose warm cream and a deep brown, a rounded friendly font, and a voice that says "fresh this morning". Its imagery rule: close-up, daylight, flour on the counter.

The plumber might choose a strong blue and white, a plain sans-serif that reads on a van door, and a voice that is calm and exact. Its imagery rule: real jobs, tidy tools, no stock handshakes.

The bookshop might choose ink black with one accent color, a serif font, and a voice that is dry and curious. Its imagery rule: shelves, hands holding books, soft lamp light.

Handling the "who does this" problem

Small businesses often have a cousin, a freelancer or a part-timer touching the social pages. Give each of them the same link to the guidelines. That is cheaper than correcting their posts afterward. For the designer side, see Share Brand Guidelines with a Designer.

What to skip for now

Do not write a forty-page document. Skip sub-brand rules until you have a sub-brand, skip a section on animation, and skip print specifications until you print. You can add a section when a real question comes up twice.

Prompts to help you decide

I run a small dry cleaning shop in a residential area. Suggest two color pairs and two font styles that feel trustworthy and clean, and explain each choice in one sentence.

Write three words that describe the voice of a family-owned bike repair shop, with one example sentence for each.

Treat the answers as options and choose the ones that match the shop you really run.

In Melon Cut

Melon Cut Guidelines gives your business a full editor for logos, colors, fonts and voice. Every brand starts on Free: private, opened only from its own link. Then in Melon Cut Design, type @ and your brand name in a prompt, and the picture follows your rules. The use cases at meloncut.com/use-cases show more examples. If you are just starting out, read Brand Guidelines for a New Business.

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