A style guide is an essential part of any marketing strategy, whether you’re running a startup company or tracking marketing efforts at a large B2B business. A brand style guide outlines the company’s design guidelines for all employees.
This document is for your writers, designers, developers, and others who are working on multiple elements of your brand, including your logo, colors, and typography.
Brand guidelines are an essential resource when you’re establishing or rebranding your company in order to communicate with your customers.
WHAT IS A STYLE GUIDE?
A style guide is a document that clearly explains how your brand should be presented in both a graphic and language perspective. A style guide’s purpose is to ensure that all contributors work together in a consistent way. This will reflect your corporate style and preserve brand consistency across everything, from design to writing.
By ensuring that your messaging is relevant to your company’s goals, style guides can support marketing initiatives. Your company’s brand style guide helps you distinguish yourself from the rest and creates long-term brand awareness. This consistency and awareness builds trust over time. Some companies refer to it as “brand identity guides” or “brand guides span”, but that is not the only term used.
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
Each company’s style guide should be considered its visual DNA. If your brand is going through a redesign, ensure you create a brand style guide that matches the new design. You should inform your team about the rebranding strategy so everyone is on board with the new design guidelines.
Online style guides can be hugely beneficial for large corporations with teams located in different parts of the globe. Trello, Adobe, and Skype allow companies to publish all guides so that every employee can access them.
A consistent style guide across all marketing channels will help you increase brand recognition. Numerous studies have shown that people perceive brands as personifications, which can also influence their purchasing decisions.
We are all creatures of habit so brands that are familiar to us over time are more likely for us to buy from them. A company can meet its customers’ expectations and provide successful services by being consistent in branding.
Let’s dig deeper into style guides.
VISUAL STYLE GUIDE
The visual style guidelines for a brand are designed to ensure that corporate graphics can be used across all media.
Graphic style guides usually include guidelines regarding the look and feel of the logo, how to use white space, and variations. This guide includes all typography details, including line height/spacing and font families. You will also find layout details that show how elements should be placed on a page.
A visual style can bring together all your marketing staff. If companies leave their visual representation open for interpretation, they will get mixed results.
Having a visual style guide is a great way to make sure that all marketing decisions are made in a consistent manner.
EDITORIAL STYLE GUIDE
This guide contains specific guidelines about how a company’s voice should be used. It could be written in the first person or second person, active or passive. This editorial style guide includes all words to avoid as well as any regional dialects that must be used.
It includes abbreviations and spellings as well as punctuations to ensure that all employees follow the same guidelines. Many companies choose to use the Chicago Manual of Style, while others can develop their own standards.
Brands are personified by the company’s voice as if they were people. Your digital and online marketing campaigns should reflect your brand. You should use a tone that is consistent with other content marketing efforts.
BENEFITS
A company can use comprehensive style guides to help define and re-create its image from an editorial or visual perspective. These style guides are essential for creating a cohesive brand. To keep your brand consistent across all media, you should use both an editorial style guide and visual style guidance.
Consistency leads to a consistent brand experience that consumers seek every time they interact and interact with your company. A style guide can help you establish brand recognition and nurture future customers.
It is essential to have a style guide in order to preserve your brand’s identity. This applies even if you have different content creators or marketers. Each company must invest the necessary time and resources to achieve its goals. These rules will help you and your employees maintain a consistent brand by ensuring that your company has a clear hierarchy of colors and typography.
Twitter’s brand guidelines, for instance, do a wonderful job of defining the best ways to display your logo. Google has its own brand guidelines.
PowerPoint templates, writing samples, and words to avoid are just a few examples of style guides. To ensure that the document is easily scanned and remembered, companies should include all important points. Your brand’s requirements will determine the specificity and length you give your style guide.
CONCLUSION
The brand style guide is an essential document that helps content creators communicate a consistent message with their audience. This guide is a list of all elements that make up your brand’s visual identity.
This document also contains a list of must-haves and should-not that will ensure your company communicates the same message every time. Your style guidelines will show potential customers that your company is professional and trustworthy.
Your style guide should include everything you need to know about your company, from colors and textures to your mission statement. Without a clear brand guideline, it is virtually impossible for your brand’s identity to be consistent. If need help setting up a brand style guide WorldPlay Digital is here to help. We have a team of experts who can help you realign your brand identity. Contact us today to see how we can help support your marketing initiatives.
