The Type A Marketer in me is a huge nerd for brand asset pages.
What is a brand asset page? This is a page that outline a company’s logo, color palette and word mark. Brand Asset pages are offered by companies that receive press attention and want to ensure their design elements are portrayed correctly. (Sometimes these can fall into a Media Kit.)
There are several reasons these pages are ingenious:
- High resolution logos in MULTIPLE formats guarantees designers are using the most to-date logo without pixilation. This is just plain smart. If you are lucky, your company will be so popular that people will have a reason to use your logo all over the internet. Should you try and stop it? Good luck! Smart companies recognize that a .PNG will get into Google Images one way or another, so they might as well be the gatekeepers for where to get it.
- Consistent branding is key to sticking in a consumer's brain. There is a reason you recognize Tiffany Blue!
- You can be the definitive guide on how others should shorten, square and desaturate your logo. Logos are never one-design fits all. When you need a tiny 16 pixels by 16 pixels favicon you can bet your whole logo won’t make it in. What does become the most refined version of the design? Setting guidelines publicly allows your company to have style guide for others to follow.
- Even when writing a name there is room for error as more companies adopt nonsensical names. Explain how people should space, capitalize and even pronounce your name if it is particularly unique. MailChimp's name is a perfect example!
But that’s enough explaining. You’re here to see the design ASMR!
MailChimp’s Brand Assets Page
For starters, this page includes this section:
“A curated selection of our brand colors.. Download the entire palette as an ASE file.”
Be still my heart!
MailChimp’s lovable mascot, Freddie the chimp, has evolved significantly since the earlier years of their company. Their brand page shows the six outdated versions of Freddie along with the most recent design.
They also offer guidelines on how their logo should be employed based off of the tone of the communication. This is fascinating and something I never stopped to consider!
“What should I use?
Freddie is fun, but sometimes our communication is serious. If you’re using branding on a serious message, please use the MailChimp script logo.
You know about MailChimp. Some folks don’t. If you’re talking to an audience that’s unfamiliar with us, where “MailChimp” isn’t written or said, use our script logo.
If the audience you’re speaking to is familiar with with MailChimp, feel free to use Freddie to represent the brand.”
Shopify’s Brand Assets Page
Color and company identity go hand in hand. Here is a time where “close enough” just doesn’t cut it. Feel free to watch this Parks & Rec video before continuing on.
Shopify goes so far as to name their two main colors: Shopify Green and Shopify Slate. They include the web color code, RGB, CMYK and Pantone codes so you can achieve the perfect match.
So satisfying!
Another interesting section is an overview on spacing their logo. To better illustrate their point, they space around the words based on a proportionate size of their glyph.
I’m nodding my head in happiness as I speak. Brand asset pages are a smart idea for any company with a serious online presence.
// I Want to Know
Is there a brand asset page you love? Share it in the comments!