What is a "Graphic Standards Manual"?
Most of corporate America and a growing number of nonprofits are adopting the practice of developing and distributing throughout the organization, something called a "Graphic Standards Manual."
Logos
This is usually a booklet or binder that illustrates the correct use of the organization's logo in each of its iterations (color, black and white line art, and grayscale). The manual correctly identifies the names (or Pantone numbers) of each color used, and gives exacting instructions for how logos should be placed in reference to other graphic elements on a page; their dimensions in terms of percentage of the space to be used; and other "rules" for use.
Camera-ready images
Most manuals will also either include a disk with prepared logo images in color, black and white line art, and gray scale, and in several formats (gif, tiff, jpeg, bmp), or a page of camera-ready slicks suitable for scanning.
Fonts
The Graphic Standards Manual generally lists the approved organizational fonts and provides instruction for their use. For example, an organization may indicate that for all of its brochures, tip sheets or data sheets, the following font standards apply: Headers: Helvetica 18 bold, Sub-heads: Helvetica 14 bold, Body Copy: Times Roman 12, etc.
Tag lines and positioning statements
Another role of the Graphic Standards Manual is to simply list the organization's approved "tag lines" and "positioning statements," and to describe their correct usage. These should be used, for example, as the last paragraph in all outbound correspondence, or as the last paragraph in all press releases, or as the back-panel statement in all brochures, etc.
Creating your own graphic standards manual
We recommend that every organization develop and distribute a Graphic Standards Manual - - especially if volunteers are heavily involved in the production of marketing or other collateral materials. A Graphic Standards Manual should not be complicated -- and indeed can be as involved and in-depth, or as simple as you need it to be.
Some of these manuals span many page because the organization may have a large number of "sub-brand" logos (special events, etc.), or a large number of "situations" in which they anticipate their logos, fonts, etc. will be used. For most organizations, a small binder, of a few pages in length, is enough to do the trick.
Usefulness
Staff and volunteers can then include a copy of the Graphic Standards Manual (or applicable pages) with all print jobs taken to a printer. Volunteers no longer need to "re-invent" the organization's logo or spend time coming up with clever versions of it (indeed you do not want them doing this anyway).
Staff can check all of their out-going work against the manual for adherence to the organization's graphic standards. This keeps them from having their work returned for revision by whomever in your organization is responsible for "signing off" on all external communications materials before they become public.