“Your personal brand is a promise to your clients… a promise of quality, consistency, competency, and reliability.” – Jason Hartman
“If people believe they share values with a company, they will stay loyal to the brand.” – Howard Schultz, Starbucks CEO
What is a brand book, guidelines and why every company needs one?
A brand style guide is a message that a company sends out to convey its vision, mission and values. It's a collection of everything that makes up a brand story - from typography, logos to colours and photography. The guide shows how to present the brand accurately so that all its elements - displayed on different carriers - bring the same values. Using the brand book ensures that the brand is presenting the same way by different people. This is very important to show the world the brand's personality and the consistency of the message.
To create the brand-style guide, every company needs to present its vision, target, personality and values. - to know why the company exists, who the customer is, what your voice is and finally, vision - who are you and how employees can identify with the company?
The important steps are to identify 6 essential elements of a brand style guide:
Brand Story - what is the company brand and story behind - mission, voice and values.
Logo - how the logo looks like, how it can be used and how not to use the logo.
Voice - what is your writing style, and what words the company uses.
Color Palette - The palette will go along all materials - starting from the logo that defines consistent look and feel.
Typography - identify font selection, your primary and secondary font type.
Imagery - what kind of images you use, consider making photography standards
Social Media and Website (optional) - how do you show your brand in digital
- all the above points should be applied here as well.
Packaging (optional) - keeping a consistent voice brand on packing using the right font and brand colors.
Brand graphic design examples:
Six essential elements must be used in any sales or marketing materials that the organization holds, from head letters to business cards, to keep the same voice through them all. It is an essential element of the company's structure, which should have the same profile on each carrier, which many companies forget about. It is important to build a style guide that tells about the company's personality in an obvious way so that everyone who has to deal with it will know it and easily recognize it.
Working on a brand style guide isn’t easy; you need to have a clear and strong vision about your brand and represent it to the world using digital and print materials. From my experience, the good idea is to start from small steps: logo, palette and font; these are basic elements that all organizations should start from.
Your company is not just what you do or sell; it is a story you tell people, from which they identify and recognize you as a brand. There are different ways companies present themselves in a style guide, some have very long books that contain a lot of details, but there are also brands that talk about themselves in a few sentences. It all depends on who your company is and how you want to enter the market.
To be authentic as an organization on market, Brand Style Guide is a first and important step to build a good reputation. Don’t go with the shortcuts, like stock logos or free online apps, that will steal your vibe and bled into a mixture of thousands of the same-looking companies around the globe. Find your uniqueness and send your message to get the right attention.
..and hire a professional Graphic Designer!
