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So what is a Style Guide?

A style guide, typically constructed by a designer and business owner or manager, is a special document that lays out specific, clear guidelines for the presentation of a brand. It promotes consistency by defining rules regarding unique visual and language styles for your complete brand image. Style guides typically include distinct elements such as typefaces, vocabulary, colours, image characteristics, tone, document preferences and more.

Developing Your Brand Style Guide

The creation of your brand style guide is a complex process that should be organised and managed by a design professional. Even if you already have a great logo that you think represents your brand perfectly, there are many other important decisions to be made on everything from font, language and colour to tone, overall message and more.

Selecting Colours

Most businesses use between two and four primary colours across all company representations to promote consistency in the brand image. A professional designer’s experience with colour theory and application is invaluable during this process. Each colour should be carefully selected to create the exact emotional response your brand intends to portray. Once selected, these exact colours should be used across all of your webpages, print designs, letterheads and advertisements. Most designers ensure this exact colour match by noting the 6-digit hex code for every selected colour.

Typography

Although it may be necessary to use more than one font to portray your brand across all mediums, very few companies really need more than three font selections. The typography you choose should be versatile so that it can be easily implemented into logos, webpages, print designs and more. Professional designers may create font styles unique to your brand to help it stand out among the competition.

Tone

When all of your brand’s design elements and other content are combined, they should depict one consistent tone geared towards your intended audience. Whether your brand embodies a fun, energetic spirit with playful and upbeat tones or a more serious and authoritative tone works best, your writers and designers should be on the same page when creating content. Tone inconsistencies can be very damaging to the potential power of your brand.

Although there are hundreds of other considerations to be made while developing a style guide for your brand, understanding the feelings and needs of your target customers is paramount to the entire process. Once you understand your customers and learn how to communicate the key information effectively, your designer can help you build the perfect brand image for reaching those customers. A brand style guide is equally important for businesses with a heavy focus on online presence and for companies who work mostly through print and other mediums. The style guide is the “rulebook” that keeps everyone involved with your company maintain the valuable brand image you have created.

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Logo design is even more important in today’s fast-paced, online world. The need to stand out among the others is bigger than ever. These tips and tricks from professional designers provide some insight into great logo creation, but remember, these points only represent the tip of the iceberg in a very complex process.

Learning the Basics

Before one can even begin creating good logo designs, he must learn all the basics behind this process. Among other qualities, most successful logos are practical, graphic, distinctive, appropriate to the subject matter and simple in form.

Simple designs offer easy recognition and versatility in the logo world. Great logos include a unique or unexpected element without becoming overly complicated. Logos must also be memorable. One of the basic goals of logo design is to help customers and other parties to remember the company.

It is also important to focus on longevity when designing a logo. Once a company has established its brand and logo, the costs of switching to another one are high. For this reason, a good logo designer ensures that his logo will remain effective for many years.

Good logo also work effectively across many different applications and mediums. For example, a good logo design looks great on a billboard and on a mobile-friendly website. Even after meeting all these criteria, a logo cannot reach its full potential if it is not appropriate to its subject matter.

Avoid Clichés

When brainstorming, there are many elements that always come into mine for almost any purpose. For example, a designer trying to create an element to represent an “idea” will almost always think of a light bulb. One trying to portray an “international” symbol may think of a globe symbol.

However, these types of symbols are the first to come to mind for a reason, they are common. For a logo designer, common is not a good thing. A logo cannot stand out among the competition with basic, common elements. Designers must stay away from these visual clichés and use creativity to come up with a different element.

Research and Communication

Although some may believe it, logo design is about much more than creating something “pretty.” Professional logo designers understand that they are playing an important role in the development of an entire brand. They know that in-depth research is essential to success and communicate regularly with their clients throughout the process.

Communication between the designer and the company is especially important during the early stages of the process. It can be easy to misinterpret the direction or message a company needs in their logo, and a logo that doesn’t fulfil its true intended purpose is a complete failure. Clear, open communication in the beginning helps eliminate these problems.

While there are many more professional logo design tips out there, understanding the true importance and complexity of logo design is the true key. It is very rare that a great logo is created without the help of a professional designer, and a business with a sub-par or even average logo is simply missing opportunities for sales and value growth.

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Designing a brand that maintains its power across many different cultures however, is not an easy task. Professional designers use many different tactics to design a successful global brand, but all understand the importance of careful consideration and hours of creative thought when trying to overcome cultural obstacles.

Brand Immersion – Doing the Legwork

Before a designer can even begin to create a great global brand, he must immerse himself in what the brand should represent. Professional designers perform large scale audits that can span across the globe to identify the key cultural attitudes towards a particular brand. Along with external audits, internal interviews add perspective into the people behind the brand. All of this research plays a significant role in the design process of a global brand.

When doing research, professional designers should also place great focus on translation. Whether we realize it or not, almost every experience we have is based on cultural messages, linguistic translations and locational distinctions. The intended message of a global brand must translate across all of these differences and attitudes. For example, consumers in Western society match a completely different meaning to a “thumbs up” than those in a Middle Eastern country. Even basic colours can create differing emotional responses based on their cultural translation.

Focusing on the Story

Storytelling will always be a major part of designing an effective brand. Consumers can more easily connect with companies who offer a compelling, emotionally-driven story behind their brand. The story represents one of the main differences between complete branding and basic graphic design. Coca-Cola and Nike are both great examples of brands that maintaining a great story and applying it across different cultural audiences.

The Power of Symbols

Many of the world’s most successful global brands favour powerful symbols over language to represent their image. A great symbol can relay more information than a paragraph of words. It embodies a brand’s focus and its promise to be a responsible member of the community. A great brand name can become its own unique symbol that develops far beyond its original text meaning.

The Idea of Co-Creation

Every day, more and more companies are using co-creation during the brand design process. By asking customers and community members to take part in the creation, a company can make more informed decisions regarding the brand. More importantly, the process of co-creation builds loyalty throughout the company’s network.

When consumers are allowed to provide personal input, they feel more emotionally-connected with the brand. Through co-creation, the brand becomes a true embodiment of the consumers the company serves. Today’s fast-paced world makes it tough for any brand to stand out and achieve success on a global level. People deal with so many promotions and advertisements that they rarely remember a brand by itself. However, they will almost always remember the experience of co-creating a brand.

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Think your brand is gathering cobwebs and ready for a fresh idea? If any of the following points resonate with your business, then the answer is most likely a resounding ‘Yes!’

Rebranding lets people know you move with the times

People appreciate businesses that are rock solid and built to stand the test of time. Loyalty and longevity definitely mean something to your customers. However, that doesn’t mean your brand should look as it did when your first started out.

Rebranding will show your customers, potential new clients, and your competitors that you maintain a fresh edge. Innovation, investment in new trends, and ensuring your business is constantly evolving for the better is something you want to reflect in your brand.

Your brand is no longer relevant to your business

Just as with people, businesses change over time. Your branding needs to reflect your business now, not what it was a few years ago. This piece of advice is particularly relevant to growing businesses. You may have started as a small local start-up, but now you are in the big leagues. It’s time to start acting like it.

Set yourself apart from your competition

While we’re not advocating to go against the grain completely, it’s nevertheless important to inject a little bit of jazz to your branding. Something that will make people take notice of what you have to offer.

Having a stale brand that looks like anything else you’d find with an average business is going to keep you as just that, average. Look at what your competition is doing and ensure your branding blows everyone else out of the water.

Going after new business

Your current clients may be enough to keep the clock ticking over, but if you want growth then your branding may not be enough to gain interest from a wider demographic.

If your business started out catering to small businesses but now you’re capable of handling blue chip concerns, it’s time for your branding to reflect that professionalism. Have your brand grow with you, without alienating your existing client base.

Need advice?

Analysing your own business branding isn’t the most straightforward affair. Loyalty to a particular logo or colour scheme can cloud an otherwise objective perspective. Why not give us a call to run through some ideas?

We have ample experience in reinventing brands from top to bottom, without removing the core message of your business. We can make subtle changes to reflect a new direction while keeping your brand recognisable to customers. In short, we can help your business move forward.

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