If you’re reading this blog, my guess is you’re no stranger to brand standards. You’ve either used them, made them, or written an RFP asking for them.

Of course, we make them regularly, and we’re darn good at it. Hundred-page manuals for big brands; a handful of pages for baby brands. They can be a great tool. And, we’ve spent more than a little time executing brand standards developed by other talented folks, which is also remarkably satisfying.

One of the things we enjoy in the office is standards testing—one of our designers will build brand standards, then we move it to a different designer to execute. It’s delightful to see another designer interpret a set of rules and parameters. It’s magical. Innovative and fresh, and a lot of fun. Anyone intimately familiar with brand standards understands that while on the one hand, brand standards help an organization to enforce limits, they also set parameters for deep creativity. You will get vastly different results depending upon the practitioner’s skills and experiences.

But here’s what we’ve learned both through our own testing and through helping our clients navigate a new brand: No matter how great your standards are, they won’t deliver squat unless someone talented and visionary is executing them.

Let me give you this parallel.

We have this client/friend, Mary. I suppose you can say we have music in common. I sang in the choir, know how to read music. Played the violin for a lot of years and I was pretty good at it! But, holy bananas, Mary is great. Her voice, people. Her voice. And she handles a guitar like she was born with it. She’s got some great stories about her days on stage, and an almost encyclopedic set of music data in her brain.

I can pick up a guitar. I can read music and plunk out a tune. But I can’t sound like Mary. Given the same tools, we produce vastly different outcomes. Because she is an expert and I am not.

As with brand standards, everything is at my fingertips. But I sure can’t produce the same results as someone who is gifted, well-practiced, and immersed in her craft. The tools and the rules are very important, but they only get you so far.