Rise of digital brand guidelines

Ever spent 20 minutes digging through Slack, Notion, or your inbox looking for the latest version of the brand guidelines only to find a PDF called something like “Brand_Final_v6_USETHISONE.pdf”?

You’re not alone.

As brands evolve faster and teams become more distributed, static brand books just can’t keep up. They’re hard to update, harder to distribute, and often outdated the moment they’re sent. That’s why more and more companies, especially those building digital products are switching to digital brand books.

These modern brand platforms aren’t just prettier versions of a PDF. They’re living, accessible, collaborative tools that reflect how brands actually work today. In this article, we’ll explore why digital brand books are becoming the default, what makes them so powerful, and when it makes sense to make the switch.

Traditional brand books are dead

Traditional brand books, whether printed or in PDF form, were built for a different time. Back when brand identities were slower to evolve and primarily lived in print, a static document made sense. But in today’s fast-moving, multi-channel world, they’ve become more of a liability than a solution.

The first problem is that they go out of date, quickly. As brands evolve with new sub-brands, updated tone of voice, or shifts in colour palettes and imagery, the brand book doesn’t keep pace. Once exported and shared, a PDF is frozen in time. The moment a change is made, the question of “which version is the right one?” starts circulating again, leading to confusion and inconsistency.

Version control is another persistent issue. When files are passed around over email, Slack, or scattered across folders, it’s nearly impossible to guarantee everyone is referencing the same thing. That disconnect often results in mismatched designs, outdated logos, and fragmented brand expression across different teams or channels.

And then there’s the lack of interactivity. A static document can describe how a button should animate or how a brand voice should sound, but it can’t show it. There’s no way to demonstrate dynamic behaviour, responsive layouts, or motion guidelines making it more of a rulebook than a practical tool.

As organisations grow, especially across locations and time zones, sharing becomes a challenge of its own. PDFs aren’t searchable, flexible, or easily scalable. They’re hard to govern, and they don’t integrate with the tools modern teams rely on.

Finally, traditional brand books exist in a silo. They don’t connect to the systems product and engineering teams use. Think Figma, Storybook, or design token libraries. That gap creates misalignment between brand and product, leading to duplicated work or visual inconsistency that could have been avoided.

In short, the old model no longer fits the modern brand reality. And the more your company grows, the more those limitations start to show.

Brand book that lives

Switching to a digital brand book isn’t just a technical upgrade, it’s a shift in how your brand operates across teams, tools, and touchpoints. Instead of being a static document tucked away in a folder, your brand guidelines become an active, accessible system that evolves with your business.

One of the biggest advantages is the ability to make real-time updates. No more emailing new versions or worrying about who has the latest file. Everyone, from designers and marketers to partners and vendors, sees the most current guidelines instantly. This single source of truth eliminates confusion and keeps everyone aligned.

Accessibility is another key factor. With a digital brand book, your guidelines are available from any browser, anywhere in the world. Whether your team is remote, hybrid, or distributed across agencies, there’s no barrier to access. It's just a simple link.

Beyond convenience, digital brand books offer a more engaging, modular experience. Interactive elements like hover states, animations, and voice samples bring the brand to life, while downloadable assets and responsive layout demos provide practical, hands-on tools. It’s not just about telling people how the brand should look or sound, it’s about showing them.

Collaboration also becomes much easier. Many platforms include built-in commenting, version history, and user permissions, so feedback can happen in context, and governance doesn’t become a bottleneck. Teams can move fast without compromising consistency.

For companies with digital products, integration with design systems is a game changer. When your brand book syncs with tools like Figma, Storybook, or token libraries, it ensures that your visual identity is directly connected to the components your product teams use every day. That alignment reduces duplicated effort and keeps product and brand design in sync by default.

And finally, digital brand books provide something print and PDF never could: insight. Built-in analytics show which sections are used most, where users drop off, and what might need improvement, so you can evolve your guidelines based on real behavior, not guesswork.

Choose the right tool for you

The rise of digital brand books wouldn’t be possible without the platforms purpose-built to support them. These tools go far beyond simple documentation they’re designed to make branding scalable, collaborative, and embedded in your workflow.

Frontify

A powerhouse for enterprise brands, Frontify offers everything from brand guidelines and asset libraries to design system integrations. It’s especially useful for larger teams managing multiple brands or sub-brands.

Best for: Large organisations with complex brand architectures and multiple stakeholders.

Corebook

Corebook positions itself as the more beautiful, editorial-style platform for visual brand storytelling. It focuses on design-forward presentation and is ideal for creative agencies or brands that value how things look just as much as what they say.

Best for: Agencies, studios, or visually-driven brands that want a polished, client-facing experience.

Zeroheight

Zeroheight connects directly to Figma and other design tools, letting teams document UI components, brand elements, and design tokens with minimal manual work. Designers love it because it updates with the product design.

Best for: Product-focused teams who want brand and design systems to live in one place.

Supernova

While not solely a brand book platform, Supernova helps sync design tokens and themes from design tools to codebases. It’s a great companion for turning brand principles into living product elements.

Best for: Design-system-heavy teams that want to operationalise brand at the code level.

Figma

Figma recently introduced Figma Sites, along with a free and flexible Brand Guidelines template. It gives teams a fast, zero-cost way to set up living brand documentation directly connected to their design files. In fact, many teams have already been creating brand guidelines directly within Figma—either in the canvas itself or through shared pages so this new feature builds on existing behaviours with a more polished, shareable solution.

Best for: Teams already working in Figma looking for a no-fuss, collaborative way to publish guidelines

Framer

For our own studio, we’ve built a custom brand book framework in Framer used both for our internal design language and for clients. It’s flexible, fast to build on, and easy to maintain. We can tailor the experience to each brand’s needs, including dynamic components, real-time updates, and interactive modules.

Best for: Brands that want a bespoke, scalable, and beautifully executed brand book experience without relying on generic platforms.

When to go digital

Not every brand needs a digital brand book from day one. But as your company grows, there’s usually a moment when the old way (PDFs buried in shared drives or passed around over email) starts to fall apart.

Maybe your team is scaling quickly, adding new markets, partners, and freelancers. Suddenly, sharing and updating brand guidelines becomes a daily headache. Or perhaps version control has become a problem, with designers and developers referencing different documents and producing inconsistent results.

For product-led brands, especially those spread across multiple platforms, the limitations of static brand books become even more obvious. Visual identity doesn’t live in isolation anymore. It’s woven into UI components, design systems, and token libraries. You need a system that’s as dynamic as your product.

A rebrand can also be a turning point. When you’re refreshing your identity, the last thing you want is confusion. A digital brand book helps you roll out changes smoothly, onboard teams quickly, and maintain consistency from day one of the launch.

And then there’s this: you want your team to feel empowered, not policed. The best brandbooks don’t just enforce the rules, they give people the tools and context to make confident, on-brand decisions. Digital formats make that possible, with interactive examples, downloadable assets, and intuitive navigation. 

Your brand evolves

Your brand isn’t a fixed set of colours and logos. It’s a system that evolves, shaped by new products, channels, teams, and markets. It’s experienced differently on a landing page, in a pitch deck, inside your app, or across social media. And it needs to stay consistent without staying static.

A digital brand book reflects that reality. It’s not just a nicer way to present guidelines it’s a shift in how you treat your brand:

• as something collaborative, not top-down

• as something dynamic, not locked in

• as something people can use, not just read

By making your brand more accessible, more interactive, and easier to maintain, you also make it easier for people to care about it, and use it correctly. Whether you’re a startup scaling fast or an established brand staying sharp, a digital brand book keeps your identity alive and working. 

A final thought

If you’re still relying on a static brand book, now might be a good time to reconsider. Whether you adopt a third-party platform, explore new options like Figma Sites, or build something custom, the goal is the same: make your brand easier to use, easier to update, and more connected to how your team actually works.

We’ve seen the difference it makes both for ourselves and the companies we work with. It’s not about having the flashiest setup. It’s about giving your brand room to grow.

Take stock of how your brand is documented today. And ask: is it helping people bring the brand to life or holding them back?