Maior Brand Guide Implementation
Bringing a brand's style guide to life.
Overview
Maior had a a major problem. When they got their brand guide back from their designer, they realized they didn't know how to use it. The designs they got using the brand guide looked juvenile and unprofessional.
I helped guide them in a more professional and desirable direction. I reinterpreted their brand guide in a way that aligned with their brand goals and created documents that they were proud to send to their clients.
Roles
Graphic Design
Tools
Affinity Publisher
Duration
1 week, 2025
Team
Individual, freelance
The Brand Guide
Maior's existing brand guide was detailed, but left room for creative liberty. With no examples of how to use the red 4-pointed star, the red smudge gradient or cloud imagery, Maior's designers were creating designs that didn't hit the mark.
Maior's Versions
In some of Maior's versions, the 'north star' was used in an unapproved outline style. It was also tiled to create a pattern—making it lose it's connection to the metaphor of a singular guiding light. In other designs, an entirely new striped design emerges with no relation to the brand guide.
How might we use Maior's brand guide to embody their brand goals of 'fresh' and 'cutting edge'?
The Result
In addition to redesigning the documents with new layouts that improve legibility, I selected design elements from the brand guide sparingly to avoid confusion for the reader. A predictable layout helps even new readers know what to expect, and repeated design elements subtly signal to the reader where to find information in a new section.
Though the new designs are aesthetically pleasing, the design elements are chosen to be communication devices for the reader, rather than arbitrarily placed as decoration.
Takeaway
This project is an example of how a brand's identity can be abstract and intangible. Despite the brand guide having plenty of guidelines about how and when to use each color, font and icon, a design can still misrepresent the brand. Even when the brand guide is trying it's best to tell you exactly who the brand is, the brand ultimately lives through the interactions that people have with it in each different touch point. The real meaning of the brand changes and evolves each time a new design gets created, and each time that design gets seen by a user.