Now that you’ve got an idea of what a brand is and you’ve created an inspiration board, chosen your colors and selected your fonts, it’s time to put all of this information in one place for safe keeping. Remember “trapper keepers”? Please tell me some of you are young enough to remember those. Same idea. Think of it as a brand trapper.

types of brand organization /

BINDER / There are individuals who keep a physical binder of their brand information—from color numbers to fonts and images and beyond—all printed out and pretty. This is great for you, but is very hard to share with others especially in our virtual world. And I’m guessing you wouldn’t be willing to hand it over to someone after all the time you spend putting it together. If you do use a “paper” method, you may need to have a digital version as well.

BOARD / There are some who prefer to just have a brand board—similar to an inspiration board, but with only the items that are directly on point with your brand.

This serves as an “at-a-glance” big picture of what you want your brand to look like.

You can then use it as a guide to see if what you’re producing, posting, etc… is on point with your brand quickly. This could be digital or physical. (I really love referring to my digital brand board above and use it to provide others a feel for the Belong brand as well. You can learn how I, as a non-designer, created it in just minutes.)

KIT / Create a digital brand kit that resembles a digital media kit. It’s much more formal way of doing it, but for those who like things clean and precise, this might be the best option.

stay on point /

However, you want to do it, DO IT! Be sure that you keep all of your brand information somewhere that you can access it often as you’d be amazed at how off target you can get in a short period of time. It’s essential to have that baseline established so you have something with which to compare all future efforts with regards to your brand.

share it /

If you’re ever working with someone on a project for your business—whether a designer or consultant or even a VA--you can provide this information to them and it will be invaluable both in expediting the process or explaining your brand but in also demonstrating it. It can be hard to verbally describe a brand at times, and this serves as a short cut to the heart of it all.

I’d love to hear other ways that you find helpful in keeping your brand information together as well as staying on point with your brand. Tell me your tricks in the comments below.