Why you need a Style Guide for your brand
You have your colors, logos, fonts… now what? THE ANSWER: A BRANDING STYLE GUIDE!
No surprise here....I am passionate about good branding and I firmly believe it will elevate your business. The right font pairings, branding color palette, logos and logo submarks (swoon) together tell the world what your brand stands for & what it’s all about.
BUT just having a great logo and colors does not automatically mean you will use them correctly - or that members of your team will know how to use them.
You’re probably not a designer (if you are, HI FRIEND! But your clients probably aren’t). So how can you take your incredible branding assets (all those graphic design files floating around on your computer just yearning for you to love them!) and make something amazing with them? How can you remain consistent with your branding while still having room to explore & be creative? How does a brand maintain uniformity & flexibility?
Say hello to a branding style guide
A brand style guide is your brands’ Bible. Yep, I said it. Treat this baby like your most precious book ever (all religious and non religious texts welcome here. ‘Brand Bible’ just has a nice bouncy ring I can’t deny).
After spending time and money developing your brand identity and brand personality, you need to create a brand style guide for how to use these branding assets.
What is a Branding Style Guide?
A style guide is exactly what it sounds like; It’s a guide that helps you execute and maintain your brands’ style.
A style guide for branding identifies the visual elements of your brand, and tells you (or your team) how to use those assets.
Investing time and money up front to hone in on your brands’ identity will save you a lot of time and wasted energy constantly debating what you should use to create any digital or print collateral (read: what should my website look like? What color should I use on my next social post? Etc. etc. etc.).
Having a branding style guide to outline how to use your brands assets will create uniformity and cohesiveness across all brand collateral and help reduce branding overwhelm.
And remember what that does?! SAY IT WITH ME: Cohesion creates Brand Recognition. Brand Recognition creates Brand Loyalty. And brand loyalty leads to DREAMY CLIENTS! Yes yes yes! That's what we want!!
And, the guidelines in your Branding Style Guide are extra important when you start to grow (which you will because you’re the best), because they can be utilized by anyone who is creating your content, regardless of what they are creating.
How to Create a Branding Style Guide
Above is a branding guidelines example of what was included in the branding style guide I created for Tiff Hoeft, Operations Consultant. I designed her logos, curated her fonts and colors, and sent her off into the world with the assets she needed to start building her brand (I have the best job!). Still, that isn’t enough to ensure successful use of those assets for making brand collateral and marketing materials.
When we were done with her project, I was confident she could use the Style Guide and the branding assets to make her own marketing materials that would be cohesive and gorge! (and she totally did an awesome job!!) Check out these graphics she was able to make on her own using her brand style guide!
So what should YOU include in a branding style guide for your business? There are many aspects of branding that can be outlined in a style guide, but some of the information often covered includes:
Brand Colors: This would not only list your brand colors, but also outline any specific uses for the colors. Is one color used for a logo only? Are there any colors that should never be used directly on top of or next to one another?
Brand Fonts: In addition to outlining what your brand fonts are, your branding style guidelines can also detail any rules for using your fonts. For example, if one font should be used for body copy on a website or print collateral and another font used only for header text.
Brand Logos and Submarks: If you have multiple versions of your logo and other logo submarks, your branding style guidelines can make clear how to use those different versions. Perhaps one submark is used only for adding a watermark to images. Maybe another version is made for social media graphics.
Creating Your Branding Style Guide
If this feels overwhelming, well, that’s why there are brand identity designers! All of my Branding packages include a style guide, so that you don’t have to stress about using your branding assets to their fullest potential.
Once we are done working together, you and your team will have the full arsenal of tools to make your own beautiful and consistent marketing materials. But you will also have the flexibility to experiment within the parameters of the BRANDING STYLE GUIDE!
Ready to get started creating a beautiful brand of your very own? Contact Sara Schultz Co today to learn more and discover how your branding can help you grow your business.
