The brand book

Member lesson

Dos and don'ts, and how to write them well

Lesson 6 of 18 in The brand book.

Lesson

Which logo mistakes belong on a misuse page is covered in "Logo misuse rules" in the Identity systems module. This lesson is about the dos and don'ts page as a piece of writing and layout, and about using the format well beyond the logo. Colour, type, photography and words all have rules with a boundary. A do set beside a don't shows that boundary faster than a paragraph can.

do thisstretchedrecolouredon a busyphotosay why, not just noa rule with a reason gets followed when you are not therestruck through, not crossed in red · some readers cannot see red
A logo rule shown correct once and wrong three times, without red or green.
An open guidelines book shows an emblem stretched, rotated and rainbow-filled on the left beside a yawning reader, and three almost-correct versions on the right studied by a reader with a magnifying glass.
One page shows absurd misuses that make a reader yawn; the other shows three near misses worth studying. Mistakes close to the right answer teach where the line is.
Member

The rest of this is for members.

You have read the opening of this lesson. The rest of it comes with a membership.

One membership covers all four courses and Brands.

  • All lessons in the four Learn courses
  • All brand breakdowns in the Brands section
  • All quizzes, flashcards and crosswords
  • An AI teacher on every lesson, for up to 60 questions a day
  • All course material published during the membership

Price

Membership is from $12 a month on the Yearly plan, which is charged at $144 once a year. Lifetime access is $59, paid once.Membership is from ₹200 a month on the Yearly plan, which is charged at ₹2,400 + GST once a year. Lifetime access is ₹3,999 + GST, paid once.

Check what stuck

Members only

You can't take this check yet.

Members answer these 3 questions and keep the ticket for this lesson. Every lesson has one.

  1. Question 1, locked

    A misuse spread shows the logo stretched to double width, rotated 45 degrees and filled with a gradient. What is wrong with the page?

    • Nobody was going to do any of it, so the spread teaches no boundary.
    • The examples sit too close to the correct version to read as wrong.
    • Crossed-out examples are counterproductive whatever they show.
    • There are too few of them, since twenty cases cover what six cannot.
  2. Question 2, locked

    Which of these words means this? “The spread of crossed-out examples. Useful when it is short and specific, noise when it is long.”

    • Brand book
    • Specimen
    • Misuse page
    • Guidelines
  3. Question 3, locked

    Which of these words means this? “A wrong example close enough to the right one that a reader learns the boundary.”

    • Brand book
    • Near miss
    • Specimen
    • Guidelines

Elsewhere in the library

Hear about new courses.

Leave an email and we will tell you when something new lands. We do not write often.