Have you ever wondered, “What is a branding style guide, and why does it matter?” A style guide for branding will help you develop a consistent brand voice and message. In turn, old and new customers will understand who you are, what you’re selling, and why they should care.
Here, you can learn how to create an effective branding style guide. These core tenets will help you focus your brand and cement it within customers’ minds.
Identify your Brand Purpose
To start, you need to create a brand identity. Creating a brand identity revolves around your core purpose. What is your business trying to accomplish?
For example, will your business or product improve your customers’ lives? Will it make their daily lives easier? If so, this may make a good starting point for your brand purpose.
You can also identify your brand mission, values, and overall vision for your brand style guide. In short, your purpose should be short, simple, and easy to understand. Everything that comes after will support your brand purpose.
Outline a Brand Voice and Tone
With your brand purpose identified, you can start to outline how you want your brand represented. You should begin with the brand voice and tone through text. For example, do you want your language to sound business professional at all times, or are you aiming for a more conversational tone?
You can go through a variety of exercises to whittle down the voice and tone you want for your brand. Ideally, you should end up with three words or phrases that represent your brand, and anyone using the brand identity style guide can follow that direction.
Once you have the language pinned down, you can work on visual imagery. What colors do you want to associate with your brand? What logo best exemplifies your brand at a glance?
You can even get specific about what type of photography you want to use in content across the brand. These factors will help define your design language and play key roles in any brand design style guide.
Illustrate your Brand with Examples
Now that you’ve settled on a definition of your brand purpose and design language, you may think you’re done. Even if you have a clear written style guide, everyone interprets words and descriptions differently. That’s why it’s necessary to illustrate your brand style through examples.
You should work with a design team to develop these examples. Good and bad examples are needed, so whoever ends up using your brand style guide, will know what to do and what not to do. This will help in creating an effective, self-explanatory guide that will require no additional follow-up.
Always Stick to your Branding Style Guide
These tips will help you create an effective branding style guide. You can then share it with every department within the organization, as well as partners with whom you do business. That said, you need to make sure everyone uses your style guide for branding to stay consistent over time.
A brand style design style guide will serve you well into the future as a guiding light. If you want more information on a branding style guide for your business, contact us for more information. We can help you build and grow your brand.
