So you’ve done it! You purchased a professionally-designed logo (hopefully from me) and you are eager to plaster that puppy everywhere, on everything! That’s awesome, and I love that you’re happy!
But there’s more to branding than having a logo. Let’s slow down a bit and look at Style Guides. These documents–which can range from a single page to a professionally bound book–save time, improve communication, and define your strategy for sending a consist message to your audience.
A style guide establishes and enforces style to improve communication. -WikiPedia
Style Guides keep everything looking and sounding like it came from the same place. Think of it as a framework for your communications–it doesn’t really tell you what to say as much as it tells you how to say it. The guide contains instructions on how to use your logo effectively, carefully-selected font and color pairings, and often times, what not to do.
More expansive guides contain example photographs (to portray a specific mood), define your voice and tone (e.g.: friendly, casual, humorous, technical, professional, formal), pattern or supplementary marks, and guidance for portraying your company’s personality. And conveying your company’s personality, friends, is at the core of its brand experience.
The most useful style guides are not exhaustive, however. When every point of contact has rules, it stifles creativity. Allowing room for flexibility creates some of the richest communications. Uber, for example, takes “an adaptive brand” approach. This company has different guidelines for different locations:
Style guides should also be updated periodically, and the speed at which your industry moves is sometimes a good indicator of how often your guidelines should be refreshed. If your industry moves quickly, it’s because your audience moves quickly, and your style guide should allow flexibility for those changes.
This may seem like a big undertaking–and it’s true, style guides aren’t developed overnight–but in the end, it’s worth it. Having a framework for communicating will save you time, create consistent messages, and improve your communications. Contact me to improve your company’s brand experience. Here are some style guides I’ve recently developed: