Brand style guides serve as rulebooks that detail all of the essential aspects of your branding – from colors to fonts, logos, and more. These guidelines are essential for companies of all sizes, as they take your unique brand vision and translate it into specific design elements.
Let’s take a closer look at brand style guides and why they’re so important.
A brand style guide contains key reference details for a specific company or organization. It ensures that the brand remains consistent across all touchpoints. For example, someone looking at a company’s website should see the same colors and logo that they do on business cards or in emails (unless specified in the style guide).
These reference details provide design teams with a place to look when they begin creating brand collateral. That way, each team member can design content that matches the brand’s voice and targets the correct audience.
Style guides are essential for maintaining consistency across all aspects of the brand, as they help ensure that everyone involved in the design process knows the specific direction the company wants to take. Without this set of guidelines, the brand would likely become unrecognizable over time.
The main goal of a brand style guide is to establish definitions for specific design elements. This usually includes a variety of components, such as:
While these three elements form the basis of standard brand style guides, more in-depth variations will include several other components as well. For example, extensive guides often provide direction on icons and illustration styles, photography, and brand collateral (such as business cards, stationery, etc.).
Here’s what a basic brand style guide might look like:
Whether you’re building a brand from the ground up or want to revamp your existing image, creating a comprehensive brand style guide is the first (and perhaps most important) step. Therefore, it’s crucial to seek help from an experienced team of designers who can help you pinpoint your vision and translate it into a list of actionable items.
At Zero Gravity Marketing, we’re dedicated to helping you represent your brand and stand out from the competition. For more information about our creative design services, or to speak with one of our design gurus, contact us today!