“Consistency is the key to success”- David Oragui.
Twitter, Skype, Facebook, Nike, Adidas, etc., one can identify the logos and brands even if the picture or photo containing their name is not clear. Not only this, but one can also differentiate between the brands based on the colour used in the advertisements; for example, Nike mainly uses a tinge of orange in its backdrop, whereas Facebook puts everything in blue and white.
But why is that so? Why are we able to guess some companies even without reading their name?
All the major players in the world have put their efforts into what is written at the start of the article, “consistency.” Companies realized that it is imperative to keep their logos, taglines, colour combinations, and font size the same throughout the world so that people can resonate with them easily. According to Custom Content LLC, consistently presented brands are three to four times more likely to get brand visibility.
Imagine it is your first day at the office, and you meet someone with a formal blue shirt on, and the next day you see that person dressed the same way. You notice that particular person throughout the week and observe that he always wears a formal blue shirt.
Now, if one day, a person with his face hidden under an object, say a helmet, comes in your way and has a formal blue shirt on, won’t the person in your office who always wears a blue shirt come to your mind instantly? Yes, he will.
And this is the reference point that the companies are incorporating in their branding and marketing strategies. Every corporation wants to create a niche for itself and be recognised by its logo or tagline. Seems Impossible, right?
However, creating a particular image in people’s minds is possible by using a style guide. But wait, what is it?
A style Guide or a brand style guide is a document containing a set of rules and regulations about how the organization will be presented to the world through its logo, font, colour palette, colour combinations, photography, and much more. In short, it is a reference book that helps a company maintain consistency and define how the brand looks and sounds. The guide is one of the most potent marketing documents created by a company and ensures that even if the company’s marketing, design, and sales are being worked upon from different parts of the world and by different people, the brand will still look and feel the same.
Now, we know what is a style guide; but before delving into how important it is for an organization, we shall first look at the elements of a style guide:
The Brand Story
It is one of the most vital elements in a brand guide that helps the people in your organization know what company wants to achieve and the path it takes to achieve its goals and objectives.
The five components of the brand story include mission, vision, brand personality, audience, and the brand’s values.
- Logo Specifications
The company’s logo is its face, so it is essential to have a standard logo specification that is used similarly worldwide. The style guide document should contain guidelines about the logo concerning the size, white spaces around the logo, and its color.
One should also mention how you don’t want your logo to be created or portrayed.
- Colour Combinations
A specific set of colours will help the company create a consistent and discreet look. Make sure to include the colour schemes that can be used to represent your brand accurately and concisely so that there is no possibility of using a contrasting colour palette.
- Font Guidelines
Typography and font are one of significant contributors to brand identity. Every brand should have specific guidelines for the font and alignment to be used in advertisements, logos, content, emails, etc.
It should also contain specifications related to the spacing and alignment rules being followed by the corporation.
- Image
Photos and visuals attract everyone and are a medium of connecting the brand with its audience. This section will help the marketing team steer the visuals in the right direction and prepare them without hassle. It is imperative to make clear instructions on what kind of images to use, their dimension, colour, and image content.
- Brand voice
It is how we communicate with the customers and engage with them, so following a standard set of adjectives in the brand voice will help the customers understand and resonate with the brand quickly.
Rules about what type of content, words, and adjectives should be used about the brand should be mentioned in the documents, and some do’s and don’t for communicating with the customers.
All these elements in the style guide will ensure that you can develop a brand image that is not only consistent but effortlessly recognizable.
Style guides help a brand become consistent, and it helps to be easily identifiable with the audience. You have been reading about a brand being consistent and recognizable with the help of a brand guide for quite some time in the article, but apart from creating an identity, how is a style guide helpful? Why should you invest your efforts in making a brand guide?
Here are some of the reasons why one should focus on developing a style guide document for the corporation:
Avoid Confusion
You might have a marketing team, but there might be many individuals in that team, and making each of them understand what the brand should look like, will be a very tedious task.
Therefore, it is here where the brand guide comes into the picture. It will help give the tiniest of details about what you want and how you present the brand by laying out the rules and regulations about the elements to be used along with the company’s mission, goals, and objectives. Thus, it will help avoid confusion and act as a catalyst for coherent working.
- Focus
Sometimes, while creating an advertising campaign for the company or launching a new product or service, the design and the marketing team may get too overwhelmed. At this point, the brand guide will help give the right direction to the marketing efforts and prevent the creative teams from using any unrecognizable colour or style.
- Uniform rules and Standards
A Style guide helps a company set standard guidelines that need to be adhered to in all situations and times. It will help even the newest hires understand your brand and its specifications in detail and help the marketing team draft the material.
The document outlines how the logos and colors should be used and how all these elements should not be used.
For example, the Facebook logo can only be used in versions of blue and white. Never in red or yellow, or orange or green.
- Value and efforts
A standard set of guidelines will help you forward the document to the creative teams rather than sit with them at every stage of creation, and give approvals and suggestions. It will help save a lot of time and effort for the top management or the owners.
In addition, a style guide document will help bring out the brand value the same way the business perceives it and will convey it along the same lines to the audience.
According to the Content Marketing Institute, 45% of a brand’s image can be attributed to “what a brand says” and “how it says it.” Therefore, any corporation needs to develop a style guide to gain recognition among the masses and develop a brand identity that people can connect to at a glimpse.
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