What is Governance?
Governance is what keeps a brand intact once other people start using it. Guidelines, asset libraries, component systems, usage rules and licensing guides. Not a ninety page document nobody opens, but a practical one with real examples of the things your team makes, answering the questions that come up every week. A brand people are afraid to touch quietly stops being used.
Governance is one of the disciplines under Branding.
Who needs Governance?
Your brand looks slightly different everywhere it shows up and you are the only person who notices. You are briefing freelancers and getting back work that needs redoing. Or you are about to license your property and a partner needs something to build from. If you are a team of one who makes everything yourself, this can wait until you are not.
What we make with Governance
What governance work covers.
Branding Guidelines
Your colors, type and rules written down, so anyone on your team can make something that looks right.
Key Art System
Hero art plus the crops and rules that keep year two looking like year one.
Book Cover Design & Series System
A cover that works at thumbnail size, plus a system so book seven still feels like book one.
Franchise Identity & Title Treatment
A mark and title treatment that hold up on a billboard and as a tiny streaming tile.
Flavor & SKU System
Keeps twelve flavors distinguishable at a glance and still obviously one brand.
Often paired with
Brand Design
Logos, marks, type and color, built to survive every size they will meet.
View discipline →Graphic Design
Key art, campaign assets and the artwork that carries a launch.
View discipline →Collateral
Packaging, decks, print and the physical things your brand arrives on.
View discipline →