If you are in business, you need a style guide. A style guide – no matter how simple – helps everyone who creates content for your business to stay on message.
You need a style guide to set the parameters for how the visual elements of your brand can be used. The visual elements are typically your logo, other brand marks, primary and secondary brand fonts, and colors. Also, you may have a tagline or slogan and want to set some criteria for these as well.
Additionally, many style guides include primary messaging. Message clarity across platforms and departments, along with visual branding, supports brand identity.
Altogether, as projected outward, this concept is called “brand voice.”
A Simple Style Guide May Do the Job
When it comes to your style guide, go as simple as you can.
The Allyson Group’s very simple and straightforward brand guide, pictured above, is a one-pager. This is all our company needs for now. But it sure makes life easier, as we are a diverse group of writers and visual content creators!
You Need A Style Guide for Brand ClarityÂ
Whether you want to control every instance where your brand appears, or you just want to keep your designers on-brand, you need a style guide for your business.
Professionals will know what to do with it, and amateurs will at least be put on notice to take care with your brand.
At the end of the day, you need a style guide to save you headaches. It could one day save you legal fees as well.
Different Kinds of Style Guides
Kupendiza is a different company I once owned. It marketed hand-made products from women-owned social enterprises in five countries.
We developed a marketing brand, and created a simple style guide to help our writers and graphic designers create content for advertising and public relations.
Here’s what the Kupendiza style guide looked like — basic, but functional.Â
Kupendiza Style Guide
U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Style Guide
As an international agency responsible for the United States government’s role in international development, USAID gets way more attention than most organizations. They have been around since President John F. Kennedy introduced them in 1961 and they have evolved over the years.
They have many departments and divisions. Additionally, they want their brand to be recognized in many different countries. So their style guide is many pages long and very complex.
Yet, despite the complexity, notice how helpful their style guide is to users. Its goal is to make it easier to represent USAID in any kind of public communications.
The purpose of the guide is to ensure that USAID is instantly recognizable, no matter where their name is mentioned or their brand marks appear.
What About a Style Guide for Your Business?
This article is meant to make the point that as you begin a business or nonprofit, the elements of your brand are foundational pieces of that design. Your organization’s foundation will be made up of many important elements but, if you are looking to a long future in business, you will begin to lay the bricks for a strong visual brand from the very beginning.
Brand identity development is best managed by graphic designers, artists who are trained to put visual form to a company’s central ideas. There is no shortage of people who hold this title. However, it is well worth it to take the time and care to find a firm whose proven work reflects a look and feel that feels right for your company.
If we can help connect you with a graphic design firm of proven talent, give us a call today.
