Your brand guidelines are a bible. They’ve kept your logo safe, your colors consistent, and your voice recognizable across websites, billboards, and business cards. But what happens when your brand needs to exist not on a page, but in someone’s living room? Or floating above a city street?
That’s the new frontier. Spatial computing and augmented reality (AR) are tearing up the old rulebook. Suddenly, a brand isn’t just a 2D asset—it’s a 3D entity with depth, movement, and context. It has to interact with the real world. And honestly, your static PDF brand guide probably isn’t ready for that.
Adapting isn’t about starting from scratch. It’s about translation. It’s taking your core identity and teaching it to speak a new, immersive language. Let’s dive into how to do that.
Why Static Brand Guidelines Fall Short in a Spatial World
Think about it. Your guidelines likely specify exact Pantone colors. But in AR, that color is rendered in sunlight, under fluorescent lights, in a dim cafe. It’s affected by real-world lighting and shadows. A hex code alone won’t cut it.
They dictate logo clear space in pixels or inches. But in spatial computing, what’s the “clear space” around a 3D logo hovering next to a physical product on a shelf? It’s a spatial zone, not a margin.
Your beautiful, flat logo might look like a weird paper cutout when viewed from the side in AR. The pain point is clear: traditional guidelines assume a controlled, 2D canvas. AR and spatial interfaces are uncontrolled, 3D, and dynamic. That’s a fundamental shift.
Core Pillars to Evolve for Spatial Branding
1. From Flat Logo to Dynamic Spatial Asset
Your logo needs a third dimension. This doesn’t mean slapping a bevel on it. It means thoughtful decisions:
- Should it be a solid 3D object, a lit outline, or a flat plane that always faces the user? Each choice communicates differently. A solid object feels weighty and real; an outline feels futuristic and lightweight.
- How does it behave? Does it spin gently on its axis? Does it assemble itself when it appears? Motion becomes part of the identity.
- What’s its material? Is it matte, glossy, metallic, or even holographic? Materiality triggers emotional responses—gloss feels premium, matte feels approachable.
2. Color & Light: Context is King
In AR, color is a conversation between your brand and the environment. You need a system, not just a swatch.
Define primary and secondary palettes for different lighting conditions (daylight, low-light, high-contrast). Specify how colors can adapt for legibility against unpredictable backgrounds. Maybe you need a core color and a “vibrant” or “muted” version of it for context.
More crucially, define your brand’s relationship with light itself. Are your UI elements emissive (they glow from within)? Do they cast shadows? How do they reflect virtual or real light? Light is your new paintbrush.
3. Typography That Lives in Space
Text in AR isn’t just read; it’s encountered. A block of your perfect body copy floating in mid-air is disorienting—and hard to read.
You need rules for:
- Anchoring: How text attaches to surfaces or objects. Does it sit flat on a table, or float at a fixed distance from a user?
- Legibility Scales: Minimum and maximum sizes for comfortable reading at arm’s length versus across a room.
- Depth and Layering: How text stacks with other elements. It must be clear what info is in front or behind.
4. Spatial Voice & Sound Design
This is often forgotten. Your brand voice now has a literal voice—and sounds. Is it a warm, nearby whisper or a clear, ambient announcement? Does it come from the object it describes?
Sound effects for interactions (taps, selections, errors) need to be part of your sonic identity. They should feel like they belong to your brand’s world. A luxury brand’s “confirm” sound might be a subtle chime; a gaming brand’s might be a satisfying snap.
Practical Considerations for Your Spatial Style Guide
Okay, so you’re thinking in 3D. How do you document this? Your new guide needs to be more of a toolkit.
| Traditional Guideline Spec | Spatial Adaptation |
| Logo RGB/CMYK values | 3D model files (.glb, .usdz), material settings (PBR textures), LOD (Level of Detail) specs |
| Typography point sizes | Angular size ranges, anchoring behaviors, environmental contrast rules |
| Button hex colors and states | 3D button affordances, hover/select animations, spatial sound cues |
| Static icon library | Animated icon sequences, interactive icon behaviors |
You’ll also need to establish environmental ethics. Rules about where and how your brand can appear. Does it respect personal space? Can it be placed on sensitive real-world locations? This is new, crucial territory for brand safety and user comfort.
The Human in the Loop: Testing is Everything
You can’t design this in a vacuum. A color combo that sings on a monitor might vibrate painfully in a headset. An animation that feels sleek in a demo might cause motion sickness for some users.
Prototype. Test in real-world conditions—different lighting, different spaces (cluttered desk, open park). Watch how real people interact. Do they understand how to use your spatial UI? Does it feel like your brand, or like a stranger wearing your brand’s clothes?
This iterative testing is part of the guideline process now. It’s how you find the broken rules and write the better ones.
It’s a Layer, Not a Replacement
Here’s the comforting part. You’re not erasing your foundational brand identity. You’re building a new layer on top of it—a spatial layer. The core ethos, the mission, the personality? That stays rock solid.
You’re just expressing it through a new set of tools: depth, light, sound, and physics. The goal is that whether a customer sees your logo on a coffee cup or through a headset, they feel the same emotional resonance. They just experience it in a profoundly different way.
The brands that will feel native to this next computing era are the ones that start the translation now. They’re the ones asking not just “What does our brand look like?” but “What does our brand feel like to be around?” That’s the real question spatial computing asks. And your guidelines need to help answer it.