Brandpad is an interactive brand guidelines solution that makes life easier for designers and their clients

A brand’s guidelines used to be just as important as any other part of their identity, be it their letterheads, business cards, or brochures. They existed as beautifully printed pieces of design, that now, through their reissues, can be found on the bookshelves of nearly every design studio around the world. Take Otl Aicher’s guidelines for the 1972 Munich Olympics as an example. Its superbly considered use of materials and easy-to-follow layouts make the complexity of the identity feel simple and digestible. Great brand guidelines should be just as useful to the client as the designer that created them; Otl Aicher and his team did the perfect job of just that. Nowadays, guidelines usually exist as PDF’s that are put together at the end of the design process, which are then filed away and rarely seen again. The problem with the PDF format is that it doesn’t easily allow for continuous updates; making amends takes time and assets have to be shared and re-shared in multiple file formats. Even after they’re done, they can take up precious studio time with post-project support and email back-and-forths. Enter Brandpad, an interactive brand guidelines solution for both designers and their clients. Designing, maintaining, and sharing the guidelines for one, some, or all of a designer’s branding work can all be done in one place, and it’s accessible to everyone involved. Brandpad brings back the ease and accessibility of the printed guidelines, but in a new digital format that can be continuously updated and automatically synced. Thousands of studios across the globe, including Ueno, IDEO, Matchstic, and Scandinavian Design Group, use it to standardise their delivery and make life easier for both themselves and clients after the project is finished.