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6 Tips for Creating a Style Guide for Your Brand

Updated: Jun 1, 2022

brand style guide

You’re an entrepreneur – perhaps part of a small start-up, or an individual looking to make a splash. You’re not a massive corporation. On that basis, although you’re happy to work with a PR firm and make a press kit, you might draw the line at creating a style guide for your brand.

That would be a mistake. Such things aren’t just for monolithic giants – they’re for every company that wants to get their message out into the world in the best way possible. And as your business grows, creating a style guide for your brand is vital to ensure everyone stays on message.

What is a style guide and why is it important?

A style guide is one of the most essential documents for any business, yet it’s also often overlooked or ignored altogether, especially among smaller companies and startups. A style guide is a document that provides specific guidelines for presenting your brand in a consistent manner. The purpose of a style guide is to ensure that all collateral accurately represents the company with a consistent brand voice and design style. Creating a style guide with consistent brand elements allows you to differentiate your product, deliver memorable messaging, and build brand recognition and customer loyalty.

Why you need a style guide for your brand

Without a style guide for your brand, you’re much more likely to appear unprofessional, unorganized, and lacking a clear vision. For example, a company I once worked for lacked a brand style guide. Individual people would smash together their own presentations in PowerPoint, with no thought as to how they looked. Despite having over 60 staff, this SME came across like a half-hearted university student. It must have cost us business. Don’t let that be you.

Creating a style guide for your brand

1. A style guide should be simple


style guide should be simple

Therefore, when creating a style guide for your brand, decide on the things you consider most important from a branding standpoint, and realize your guidelines can initially be a few choice paragraphs and images on a single sheet of paper. This basic foundation of a style guide can subsequently be built on and expanded as necessary.

2. A style guide should ensure consistency


style guide should ensure consistency

There are other benefits, too. A style guide provides guidelines to the press, your visual and copy assets will more likely be used in a manner you’re happy with. As for internal use, you’ll find people are more productive when they have some rules to work from – and messaging will be far more coherent.

3. A style guide controls your visual content


style guide controls your visual content

List your brand’s color palette in your style guide – core and secondary. Show how the colors should be used, and what their values are (Pantone/RGB/Hex). Similarly, list your core typefaces, along with hierarchy/use-cases for headings and document structure. That can be especially useful for staff when creating presentations and pitch documents. If your brand has a non-standard spelling, outline that, too, although be mindful some editors will ignore it. (In-house staff, however, should not!)

Where possible, show correct and incorrect variations of all these things, provide instructions for web and print, and be aware that there must be some flexibility – just not too much!

4. A style guide should identify your brand voice


style guide should identify your brand voice

Be human and not self-important. Outline word usage – phrases and words you like, and those you do not. Feel free to throw grammar preferences into the mix. Hire a content manager for crafting words in the same way you’d hire a designer to make a logo, and heed their advice. At the very least, have someone proof your copy, so it’s not littered with embarrassing and unprofessional typos.

Have people you trust read through this aspect of your style guide, and provide feedback. Aim for appropriate and engaging. If someone says, for whatever reason, “that really doesn’t sound like you,” it’s time to rethink.

5. A style guide should emphasize your brand core values


style guide should emphasize your brand core values

You can keep this short. If you’re a newcomer, no-one wants to read a novella before they find out how to use a logo. A couple of sentences might do. Also be mindful that you can split how things are shared – perhaps you provide a few sentences to the press, but have a more detailed document for your employees.

6. Share and update your style guide


style guide

press kit. Centrally share it in-house with staff. If your company is just you, still keep the style guide handy for reference when you’re working on new material to send.

Finally, don’t let your brand style guide be neglected. Your brand will continue to evolve, and so too should your guidelines. Adopt versioning, so that you always know people are using the current take on the style guide, and revisit the latest release at least quarterly – even if only for a brief sanity check, to ensure it’s still relevant.

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