Brand, brand kits, brand guidelines, and toolkits. Are these the same thing?
Branding can be a confusing world, in part because many of the terms used to describe branding services are not well-defined. Different agencies may have different definitions for a single word, and that ambiguity makes it harder to understand service proposals, make comparisons between multiple offers, or even to determine exactly what you’re looking for.
This is especially confusing for nonprofit leaders who may be making their first foray into purchasing branding services during a demanding inflection point. It’s common for nonprofits to make their first major investment in branding as part of a significant organizational change: adding a service, reaching a new audience, or redefining their public perception.
Those moments can be stressful, and it doesn’t help that some of the terms you have to sort through are used interchangeably or lack a universally accepted definition.
While we can’t standardize language used across the industry, Ravenwood Design Group can offer our own clarifying interpretation.
Brand
Your brand is the system of how you show up as an organization. This covers everything from your name, to the language you use, to your visual presentation. You can think of it as your overarching identity. It’s what people think of when they think of your organization.
Who needs it?
Any organization who wants people to recognize their existence should have a brand.
Brand Kits
A brand kit is a collection of the assets that make up your brand.
This typically includes things like your logo, color palette, fonts, and any supporting elements in your visual language such as pattern, texture, or graphics.
A brand kit can also include lexical assets like your tone of voice or specific brand language.
Who needs it?
Brands who want to build trust with stakeholders should have a brand kit. A brand kit enables organizations to create consistent visual communication, because each communication piece is constructed using the same kit of parts.
They also enable teams with limited resources to communicate faster, because having a brand kit means that your assets are organized and readily available, typically through Canva or another communications software.
Brand Guidelines
A brand guideline is a document that contains the rules for using your brand kit.
This enables your brand to reach a higher level of consistency than a brand kit alone, because it codifies not only which assets make up your brand, but how they should be applied.
This can allow teams without a dedicated designer to achieve consistency, as well as making it easier to get on-brand work from external vendors.
Who needs it?
All organizations benefit from having brand guidelines, but there are some specific situations where they are especially useful:
When multiple people, departments, or vendors are creating visual communication
When you do not have a dedicated or senior-level design professional on staff
Toolkits
If a brand kit is the assets that make up your brand, and brand guidelines are the rules for how to use those assets, a toolkit is a more limited subset of the brand, often developed to enable consistent communication around a specific, short-term use. This could be for activations such as an event or campaign. A toolkit can include both visual and language-based assets.
Just like a brand kit, a toolkit is typically developed and assembled by a professional, and organized in a way that makes it easy to access and use. The purpose is to give decentralized groups a shared starting point, ultimately leading to more consistent communication.
Who needs it?
Toolkits are most useful to established brands with communication needs around a short-term engagement such as an event or campaign, especially when a moment calls for coordination across multiple practitioners (such as vendors, advocates, or partners).
Knowing the difference
As with many aspects of branding, definitions vary from agency to agency. The exact terminology is less important than understanding the purpose each tool serves:
Your brand is the overarching system.
Your brand kit contains the assets that make up that system.
Your brand guidelines explain how those assets should be used.
A toolkit is a limited-use brand subset, often assembled to support a short-term activation.
Understanding the distinctions can help you evaluate proposals, ask better questions, and invest in the resources that best support your organization's communication goals.