Why style guides matter
It doesn’t matter if you’re a solo entrepreneur or a big company, having a brand style guide for your business is important. Not only is it time-efficient, it’s also a great tool to have on file, when briefing in marketing professionals, designers and content creators.
What is a style guide?
Whether you know it or not, your brand has a style of its own. Maybe it’s something you have worked on at the beginning or perhaps, it’s something that formed as you built your website and marketing collaterals. Either way, your style is how your customers perceive your business.
Now, style guide, also known as brand guidelines, brand guide, or a brand book, is a set of rules that you follow to create a unified identity for your brand. It acts as a key document that helps content creators and marketers effectively communicate a consistent message to your audience.
What is included in brand guidelines?
Logo Design
Think Apple. Think Nike. Think McDonald's. By the time you get to designing brand guidelines you will already have a logo designed. Brand guidelines explain how to use this logo and when. Depending on background and images and medium, a set of brand guidelines should dot point this out for you.
Colour Palette
These are your brand colours, usually made up of 1 main colour with complimentary colours that help support and create impact for your brand. Brand guidelines should include RGB, CMYK & HEX colour codes, so your colours can stay consistent for both web and print formats.
Typography
You want to stay consistent so fonts matter. Brand style guides should include typefaces and families, font sizes, and the hierarchy of the fonts your brand uses. Include one font for headings and then another for body copy. Don’t over do it, 2 fonts is more than enough.
Imagery
Imagery is about the types of photographs, what kinds of stock imagery you should be using. If your brand is illustration based or has a pattern, or icons it will show how to display these on your website or other marketing collaterals.
Reasons why it's important to have a style guide
1. To have consistency
You want to look professional to your audience. Whenever someone visits your website or sees your business card, they get a “perception” of your company outside of the content you produce. Now, when you set the rules and restrictions on what can and cannot be done, you are communicating a consistent brand identity which helps that “perception” that your potential clients and customers have about your brand. Consistency helps in making your brand look professional and reliable.
2. To know the brand do’s and don’ts
As we’ve mentioned before, your brand style guide is composed of rules on how to use your brand’s visual elements. With these rules, content creators and marketers will know how to navigate and highlight your brand in the best possible way. When you have new employees, having these rules will guide them when to use a logo, how to space the logo and the like. It is a valuable tool for your employees to keep your brand cohesive and well-planned.
3. To be recognisable
Building a recognisable brand is not an overnight success. Even if you manage to grow quickly, there is still a need to maintain your popularity. If you want to be a recognisable brand, you need to be patient. You need to adhere to your brand guidelines to make it happen.
4. To increase the brand’s value
We want a solid identity that we can follow and get behind. If a brand is inconsistent, it's harder to build trust and reliability.