Brand guidelines can do much more than protect a logo. They can give people something to belong to.
One of the biggest culture shifts I’ve ever been part of started with a photo shoot.
For a long time, innovation at our firm was represented the way it usually is: one abstract visual standing in for the whole idea. Polished, safe, and a little anonymous. So we tried something different. We scheduled custom shoots and captured our own people doing the actual work. Writing on sticky notes. Talking with clients. Interviewing them. Working through problems together in real time. Real people, in the middle of real collaboration.
It changed more than the pictures. For the first time, we could see ourselves in our own brand. Not a symbol of innovation, but the actual people doing it, people we knew and worked beside every day. That built something I hadn’t expected: pride. And our brand guidelines and design system quietly changed along with it. Innovation was no longer an abstract image. It was us.
We set out to update our visuals. We ended up with a tighter culture.
Here’s what that shoot proved: people belong to what they can see themselves in. Every brand decides what gets shown, and whatever gets shown tells people what matters. An abstract symbol says the idea matters most. Real people doing real work says you do. Most companies treat their brand guidelines as the rules, so people don’t put the logo in the wrong color. Fair enough. But done well, they’re something much bigger. They’re an onboarding document disguised as a design spec. They’re where a company decides who gets to be seen. And the design system is where that decision comes to life: the photo library, the templates, the everyday tools people actually reach for. When those are full of your own people, showing them becomes the easy choice, not the special one.
That matters more than it might sound. People don’t do their best work when they don’t feel like they belong to something. You can hire brilliant people, pay them well, hand them the right tools, and still get flat, careful, disconnected work, because no one gave them a reason to feel part of a whole. Belonging isn’t sentimental. It’s one of the most practical things a company can build, and identity is how you build it.
It’s why I believe design can change a culture. When the story, the language, the images, the spaces, and the way people are welcomed all point in the same direction, everyone has the same flag to stand under. People stop asking whether they have to follow the brand and start acting like it’s theirs. They defend it instead of merely complying with it. The work gets braver. The culture holds.
That’s why the non-designers matter most. A designer needs brand guidelines the way any craftsperson needs a spec. But the marketer, the salesperson, the new hire on their first day? They don’t care about kerning, and they shouldn’t have to. The question I’m really trying to answer when I build brand guidelines is: how do I get this person to care? To feel like this brand belongs to them, and they belong to it?
A good place to start: before a single color swatch, write the page that answers why, in plain words a salesperson would actually repeat. Put it first. Look at your images, too, and ask whether your people can see themselves in them. Then check your design system. If the easiest image to grab is still stock photography, that’s what people will use. Finally, ask three people outside the design team what the brand stands for. If they talk about what you believe, you’ve built something people can belong to. If they talk about fonts, you’ve got a solid rulebook, and the best part is still ahead.
Get that right, and brand guidelines stop being a rulebook and become an invitation. Not to follow a brand, but to see yourself in one.
