Four (4) Reasons Your Business Needs a Styleguide

You may have heard the term ‚Style Guide‘ before.. perhaps I have mentioned it to you when talking about your Branding.

But what exactly is a Style Guide and why do you need one?

I) The Style Guide is the main deliverable of your Branding

Now that you are considering leveling up your brand with some professional and considered Branding; the Style Guide is the main deliverable you get from your Designer.
Your Style Guide will cover all relevant design decisions in topics like fonts, font sizes, font weights, colours and colour combinations for web and print, logo sizes and variants and if applicable to your business: tone of voice for written, audio and video content, patterns and style of photography.
Essentially, the Style Guide is the documentation of all the meetings, discussions and hard work of developing the look and feel of your brand.
Make sure you get one from your designer - and make sure to keep it.

II) Style Guides make staying on Brand easy

If you look at the most successful brands, you will notice they are very consistent in their communication.

A brand’s strength is built upon its determination to promote its own distinctive values and mission.

- Jean-Noel Kapferer

This is only achieved because everyone in the business knows which font, colours, imagery and words to use. A lot of the time, the customers notice these things only subconsciously - and the result? It‘s trust.

We trust this business, because they look professional. We trust this business because they look established. We trust this business because they look like they are good at what they do.

This is; why it is important to stay on brand.

So staying on brand is easy. If you‘re ever in doubt, your Style Guide is there to GUIDE you. That way, you don‘t have to think about all of these choices, because when you got your Branding; these choices were made already. Now it‘s time to make use of them.

III) Style Guides help you grow your business

Let‘s face it: if you are looking at Branding, you are probably planning on growing your business.
And if you are planning on growing your business you are going to expand the team in the future. These new team members will need to fully understand your brand in order to be ON BRAND. Find out why it is important to stay on brand.
As a team, it is important to be on the same page. And on page one of your Style Guide is where every new team member should start to learn about all these fine details that make your brand.

IIII) Outsource work in the future and still stay on brand

Us Brand Designers.. we know it. And I promise we are not bitter about it. You might hire us for the big job in the beginning - and then you might outsource design jobs in the future.
Now, quite often with this move, we witness the business losing the branding they paid for in the beginning. Bits have been broken off here and there and all of a sudden visuals on websites, social media and co are all over the place. This hurts your brand and it hurts your wallet - because what you paid for (the branding) is now inconsistent.
This is why a Style Guide is so important. If you choose to outsource maintenance- and design work; send along your Style Guide an emphasize how important it is to stick to it! That way, you will keep your Branding in tact and still be able to outsource some jobs.
Interested to chat lore about Branding? Get in touch at hello@the-creative-department.de and get a free online info session.

• What is Branding and why do I need it?
• The 7 Pillars of Branding
• The difference between Logo and Branding
• Why it is important to stay on brand
• Design Tipps for Start Ups

• branding
• styleguide
• brandcommunication