A brand is more than what you sell. It's a blend of your business' values, aesthetic, and unique personality. Your brand is what connects you to customers—and keeps them coming back. Every time you present your business to the world, whether through a website landing page, product packaging, social media posts, or email marketing, it's an opportunity to reinforce your brand identity—or dilute it.

"It builds trust in your customers if they feel like you have a clear, consistent point of view," says Ky Allport, creative director at branding agency Outline. "It's really important to put thought into all of the small details that actually add up to a really compelling experience."

Brand guidelines—the set of rules for how a business presents itself to the public—help businesses define and maintain a consistent brand identity. These guidelines define everything from logos, typography, color palettes, and imagery to audience, voice, style, and grammar usage. "More than identifying what the pieces are, brand guidelines' job is to show you how to use those things," Allport says.

In fact, nearly every aspect of running a business can be made easier with these rules. This includes designing new campaigns, onboarding employees, and collaborating with external partners. Below, Shopify shares how to create a brand guide for your business.

1. Decide how you'll create your brand guide

Given the breadth of what's contained in brand guidelines, building them from scratch is no small undertaking.

"For a lot of people, it's getting all of their thoughts and ideas out, pointing at other brands they think are doing something good or bad, and using those data points to figure out what this brand's stakes in the ground are, and then putting some rules around that and organizing it," says Margaret Pilarski, Outline's head of strategy.

If this is where you thrive, you can create your guidelines in-house. And brand guide templates can make it even easier to organize your ideas. However, if you need help translating your ideas into tangible assets and clear directions, consider outsourcing the project to a branding agency.

"We had this foundation of knowing who we are and what we stood for and what we wanted to convey that we were then able to take to our design partner and actually brief them on creating our brand identity, our logo and colors and fonts, and then eventually the packaging," says Kat Kavner, cofounder of Heyday Canning, on an episode of Shopify Masters. Heyday partnered with Outline to create its 23-page brand guide.

2. Create a mood board

Whether you work with an agency or an in-house creative team, a mood board can be a helpful starting point for determining how you want your brand to look and sound. Your brand's mission statement and values can also help guide you toward what feels right.

Create a document where you can brainstorm ideas, including thoughts about your audience and brand voice, potential taglines and slogans, value propositions, and words to avoid. Your visual and written references will become the foundation for your brand identity.

"We always encourage our clients to really know who they're talking to," Allport says. "Be clear about that, because you're going to have a lot more success from your true brand champions than if you're trying to be everything for everyone."

Omsom, another of Outline's clients, specializes in Asian sauces and noodles, and defines its audience as first- and second-generation Asian Americans.

"I think we did something really powerful in that we really centered the first- and second-generation Asian American community at a time when many brands were overlooking this audience," says cofounder Vanessa Pham.

3. Hone in on your brand personality

Your brand personality informs how you will make decisions regarding your brand.

"The one thing that we're always looking for is, 'Does the brand have a distinct point of view?'" Allport says. "And then that point of view gets translated into both visual and verbal assets."

Kavner had a clear vision for her brand: "We want Heyday to feel like your friend that happens to be really good at cooking, that loves to invite you over for dinner, and is kind of cooking alongside you in the kitchen," she says. This voice not only informs Heyday's written copy, but also the visual elements that define the brand.

For Omsom, Outline designed a wordmark meant to evoke flames and take up physical space, mirroring a brand voice that's fiery and proud.

"We wanted to echo the brand's concept in its visuals and then reiterate that in the brand guidelines," says Pilarski.

4. Set usage guidelines

Based on your brand voice, set guidelines around how to use the elements of your brand identity—such as how much space to leave around your logo, which brand colors should never be used together, and approved font combinations.

The decisions you make regarding how to use your assets should be intentional.

The 41-page brand guide Outline created for Omsom highlights how seemingly small decisions all serve to express Omsom's brand story. Guidelines for clear space include: "The logomark should maintain tight clear space in order to consistently convey its maximalist personality."

For Heyday Sans, the custom typeface Outline created for Heyday Canning, the agency decided on two widths that can be mixed and matched.

"The idea behind the font was that it would have this variation in width, so it can get a little bit wider, it could get a little more condensed, and then you can stack it in this kind of playful way," Allport says.

When combined, the individual details of your guide ultimately create the foundation of a strong, unified brand. "You're creating a recognizable environment so that your shopper is confident and they feel like part of your community," says Pilarski.