Logo usage
guidelines & standards
in Amsterdam

Sustainability language spreads through a brand fast. One campaign calls the packaging eco-friendly, and within months the same phrase appears on the website, in sales decks and on product labels. A brandbook is the right place to stop that drift. It decides which environmental claims the company is allowed to make and how they must be worded.

In the Netherlands the Authority for Consumers and Markets, known as ACM, has published guidelines on sustainability claims. They rest on the general rule against misleading consumers. The core principles are well known. A claim must make clear which sustainability benefit it refers to. It must be backed by facts and kept up to date. Comparisons with other products or competitors must be fair. Labels and visual cues must not create a false impression.

For a brandbook, this means a list of banned vague terms. Words such as green, eco, sustainable, climate-friendly and conscious, used on their own, say nothing specific. The brandbook should mark them as not allowed without a qualifier and show an acceptable replacement. Packaging made from recycled cardboard is specific. Green packaging is not.

Each approved claim needs its evidence recorded. The brandbook, or a linked register, should name the source of every claim, the person who checked it and the date of the next review. Writers then use the approved wording instead of inventing their own. When the product changes, the register shows which claims must change with it.

Visual language needs rules as well. Leaves, globes and green colour fields can imply an environmental benefit even when no words appear. The brandbook should limit these images to products and messages that can support them. Self-made badges that look like official certification marks are a particular risk and should be avoided.

Comparisons deserve their own page. If the brand says a product uses less plastic, the reader must know less than what. The brandbook should require a clear basis for any comparison and forbid claims against competitors that cannot be checked.

Finally, the tone. Honest reporting of partial progress is safer and more credible than big promises. A sentence explaining what has been done and what remains builds trust. The brandbook can show that tone with two or three worked examples in Dutch and English.

Most brandbooks end each chapter with a grid of mistakes. The logo stretched, the logo rotated, the logo in the wrong colour, each crossed out in red. These pages are easy to produce and rarely useful. People who misuse a brand seldom do it in the ways those grids predict.

Real misuse comes from real situations. A partner places the logo on a busy photograph. A sales manager adds a drop shadow to make it stand out in a presentation. A printer substitutes a similar font because the correct one was missing. Collect these cases before writing the chapter. Ask the marketing team, the agency and a few frequent users what went wrong last year.

Each example should explain the reason. A crossed-out image alone teaches the reader to avoid one exact version of the error. A short note explaining why it fails teaches the principle. Too little contrast makes the mark unreadable. A shadow changes the shape at small sizes. Readers who understand the principle can judge new situations the brandbook did not foresee.

Pair every wrong example with the right one. Showing only what not to do leaves people stuck. If the logo cannot go on a busy photo, show the approved alternative: a solid panel, the reversed version or a crop that leaves a calm area.

Keep the number of examples small. Five or six well-chosen cases per chapter are enough. Twenty trivial ones bury the important errors and make the brandbook feel like a rulebook written by people who expect to be ignored.

Update the section as the brand is used. New mistakes appear with new channels and new partners. A misuse page that stays frozen for years slowly stops reflecting what actually goes wrong.

Think about where the examples are seen. Many people never open the full brandbook. They search for the logo file, download it and leave. Placing a short note on misuse next to the download link, or inside the file package itself, reaches them at the moment of use. The same applies to templates. A slide template that already contains a correct logo panel prevents more mistakes than any page of warnings.

Tone matters here too. Misuse pages written in a scolding voice make people hide their mistakes instead of asking. A neutral explanation and a named contact for questions work better. The goal is fewer errors in public, and that depends on people feeling free to check first.