How to Build a Brand Kit Your Video Editors Will Actually Use

Most brand guidelines are built for print and websites. They cover logos, colours and fonts, then stop. Video needs more than that. Captions move, logos animate, music sets the mood and every platform crops differently. Without a video-specific brand kit, every editor fills the gaps with their own taste, and the client's content starts to look like it came from five different companies.

Here's what a video brand kit should contain.

The files

Put these in one folder per client, and keep it up to date:

• Logos: full logo, icon only, light and dark versions, as transparent PNG or SVG
• Fonts: the actual font files, or links to download them, with licence notes
• Colours: hex codes for primary, secondary and accent colours
• Animated logo or intro and outro, if the brand has them
• Lower-third template, if the client uses name titles

The goal is that an editor never has to screenshot a logo from a website.

Caption style

Captions are the most visible brand element in short-form video, and the one most often left undefined. Specify:

• Font, weight and size
• Text colour, highlight colour and any outline or shadow
• Position on screen
• How many words per line
• Whether keywords are highlighted, and how
• Whether emojis are used

Include a screenshot. One image removes most of the guesswork.

Motion rules

Brands have a motion personality, even if nobody has written it down. A luxury brand moves slowly and smoothly; a fitness brand might cut fast with punchy zooms. Describe:

• Pacing: average shot length, fast or calm
• Transitions: clean cuts only, or specific transitions
• Zooms and shakes: allowed, limited or banned
• Graphics: style of arrows, highlights, stickers or none

Sound

• Music genre and energy level, with two or three example tracks
• Where music can come from: specific libraries or "royalty-free only"
• Sound effects: yes or no, and which kind
• Voiceover style, if used
• Target loudness, so videos are consistent across a feed

Platform safe zones

Every platform covers part of the screen with buttons, captions and usernames. Note the safe zones for each platform the client posts on, so captions and logos never sit under a "like" button. A simple overlay template saves a lot of revisions.

Export settings

Define the outputs once:

• Aspect ratios: 9:16 for Reels, TikTok and Shorts; 4:5 or 1:1 for feed; 16:9 for YouTube
• Resolution and frame rate
• File naming convention
• Whether to deliver caption files (SRT) separately

Do's and don'ts

This is the section that saves the most time. Keep a running list of things the client has approved and rejected. "Never use red text." "No trending audio." "Always end on the product." Every rejection added here is a revision you'll never have to make again.

Examples

Finish with two or three published videos that represent the brand at its best, each with a note on why it works. Editors learn more from one good example than from three pages of rules.

Keep it alive

A brand kit is only useful if it's current. Assign one person to update it whenever a client changes direction or rejects something. Review it every quarter.

A quick checklist

• Logos in all versions
• Font files and colour codes
• Caption style with a screenshot
• Pacing and motion rules
• Music and sound rules
• Safe zones per platform
• Export sizes and file naming
• Do's and don'ts
• Two or three reference videos

When agencies start working with us, the brand kit is the first thing we build or refine for each client, because it's what lets several editors produce content that looks like one brand. See how that fits into our short-form editing service.