It’s a weekday afternoon and you’re aimlessly strolling through the grocery store doing your shopping for the week. Your eyes are glazed over and you barely even take note of the items you’re putting in your cart. You have a routine and your brain knows what it’s used to. The same box of cereal, the same bag of shredded cheese … you get the picture.
The questions now are, why is your brain maintaining this routine? Why are you able to complete your shopping and come home satisfied with your newest purchases? It’s the brand style guide at work.
The key to this is branding.
Take a second to think of your favorite brands, what do you like about them? Why are they so special to you? Chances are there is an off-brand product that is close to the same at a cheaper price point, yet you still are buying the brand you know best. A brand is the closest emotional distance between company and customer. It’s what your customers think and FEEL when they think of your brand (or you!)
You empty your cart and you’ve bought Kellogg’s cereal, Kraft cheese, and a package of Oreos. Perhaps it’s not your most nutritious shopping experience to date, but you were drawn to the brands with the most consistent and well-known styles.
In today’s modern age we are hounded with media coming from all corners. Brands are everywhere and every company wants us to buy their product. While leadership, product design, and customer service all play a large role in what makes a company – so does branding.
The safety of consistency brings comfort to customers, and that is the importance of a style guide!
Colors, typography, email layouts, logo variations, graphic design styles – these are what make up your company’s visual brand. Creating a hub to store all of this information ensures that everyone who works for you is on the same page.
In order to make one the best thing to do is spend some time locating all of that information and writing it down on a list. Next, use Microsoft Word or Adobe InDesign to create your style guide. Insert all the information you wrote down and don’t be afraid to add details. Specify whatever you feel needs to be specified and after its completion share it with your employees.
We have linked some of our favorite brand style guides below, check them out for some inspiration.
What size font should a heading be? Which logo is supposed to be at the bottom of an email? Is dark blue the right color for this page header?
All of these questions and more can be answered using the power of the style guide.
Once you have your style guide created your brand is on track to becoming a consistent and recognizable brand. Clients and customers want to find comfort in the businesses they partner with or buy from. While employees, product quality, and reputation all may make people more comforted – the design of your color pallet can have just as much of an impact.
Are you looking to make a style guide of your own, but aren’t sure where to start? Fill out our form below and we can help!
