How to Create Brand Style Guide
When it comes to branding, consistency is all that matters, simply because your brand should reflect the same look and feel everywhere. Staying visually consistent and connected with your audience is the best way for your brand to establish credibility and also grow rapidly.
Whether your business is big or small, you need a brand style guide. A brand style guide ensures that your brand is recognizable across every channel, medium & domain. Whether your website or your social media profiles, you need to adhere to this guide.
What
ment that describes, defines and presents what your brand can look like and what it cannot. It would be good if you lay down some ground rules that you follow across all online and offline channels and mediums.
How to create a brand style guide?
For this, you first need to define your brand identity guidelines. The brand style guide should reflect the heart, soul, mission and vision of your brand. Brand guidelines are something that defines the overall look and feel (design, structure, logo, font style) of your brand.
Why do you need a visual brand style guide?
To create an online space that makes your brand stand out from the rest.
Creating a brand style guide can be time-consuming, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need one. Having a style guide in place does more than just maintain consistency. For example, let’s say that you hire a new designer for your organization. What’s next? Are you going to spend time on explaining him/her all the guidelines for designing? Or would you prefer handing them over the brand style guide?
Picture the most recognizable brands like Google or Amazon. What is it about them that you are able to recall so easily? Is it their font style, logo, which are together called the brand elements? You recall these brands because of their unique visual brand identity.
What to include in a style guide?
The branding style guide needs to include everything, your vision to the textures, codes, etc.
Here’s how to create your brand style guide:
Brand mission & values
Define your mission statement and values. Know the background and history of your brand. Whatever you do, it should align with your brand mission and vision.
Know the mere purpose of why your brand exists. Who is your brand for? Who all are your possible clients? What are their possible likes? Clearly define how you want your brand to be perceived by the users. The message you want to convey should be perceived in the same manner.
Logo
Outline the proper usage of your logo to ensure its recognition. Logos are an important part of branding. However, there are some rules, how should be the spacing, what can be used.
The ideal logo should fit every domain, whether digital or print media.
Create a predefined set of guidelines that your designer needs to follow, which also have a clear set of rules about the size & placement. Companies usually make a few samples of logos that define how your logo can look and how it cannot. This is a good way to see which one perfectly suits your needs and requirements, and get the one that fits in.