When I delved into reviewing maryco’s work, I was pleasantly shocked by the level of detail in their style guidelines. We’ve all seen standard brand books where designers, out of despair, add slides with distorted logos such as "please, never do like that, thank you" and a set of rules like "grab a cool picture from Unsplash and it will be good." But that doesn’t work that way.

Every brand is dynamic, covered with different situations and events. It may seem like there are no universal rules, but that’s not true! It’s just essential to immerse yourself in the company itself, understand what comes from its essence, and anticipate possibilities. And! Write down the rules.

This is where brand book designers often enter the dark area. "You can’t predict everything; we don’t know what will happen in 5 years." But in reality, this is solved by well-thought-out rules and answers to specific questions.

It’s a complex, analytical, thoughtful job. But it’s necessary because in that case, the guide becomes more than a lifeless PDF with a set of standard "good-bad" rules; it becomes a real tool and assistant at work, a brand encyclopedia where you can find answers to all visual questions. That’s when the brand book starts working.

Maryco nailed it with these guides, and I didn’t believe it until I saw it with my own eyes. Now I want you to see it too.

It's not ethical to show guides for client projects, so we've compiled our own. Structural ecstasy! The link to the guideline. And studio portfolio.

Soon, I want to talk about the studio’s favourite and cool projects. If you need help rethinking guides and creating a new rule system for your brand, write to me on Telegram @kate_shash, and we’ll assist you.