Why You Need a Style Guide and What Goes in It

When it comes to running a business, having a uniform brand is key. A style guide includes all of the elements that make your brand identifiable to others, and is, therefore, one of the best things you can have for your business. It helps you to create consistency in visuals and messages to your audience.

Just a few reasons you absolutely need a style guide:

• You can provide the style guide to designers or staff so they can create marketing pieces that are consistent with your brand.
• Because of the point above, your designers will be able to work faster and more to the point, which in turn saves you money
• You’ll save time! Whether you’re creating marketing pieces yourself or hiring someone, having a style guide ready to grab is faster than looking the info up every time.  
• Your marketing pieces will have a consistent look and feel which makes you look more professional and recognizable.

So, now that you know why you need a style guide, here are some of the important elements to include in your style guide.

Logo.

Your logo is what creates brand recognition. Make sure to include a primary logo and secondary logo if you have one. You should also have many different sizes and formats for different types of usage, the more variety you have, the more functional your logo becomes. 

Colors.

Primary, secondary and tertiary colors should all be included. This is another element that you should include in different values such as Pantone, CMYK, RGB, and HEX. Your colors will not process the same in different situations (print vs. digital), so make sure you know where you should be using which value. Hubspot has a great blog about color that you can check out here.

Typefaces.

What’s the font you used in your logo? What font do you use when creating newsletters about your business? Do you use a different font for headings than you do in paragraphs (hopefully you do)? Make sure to include these in your style guide.

These elements are a great starting place for your style guide. If you are looking to add more to your style guide, think about the personality of your band, your mission, or different personas you are trying to reach. These are other elements that could potentially be added. Identity and Branding Professionals can help you with more complex style guides and can even help you identify what your brand should be. 

Take a look at your brand and see what you can do to unify it. If you would like help putting together your own style guide check out websites like Frontify, it’s a great template resource. Now get to it because we want to see your colors shine!