As a business, you need to have a clear and concise rulebook for your branding style guidelines. This will help ensure that all of your stakeholders are on the same page when it comes to your brand identity. Having a well-defined style guide will also make it easier for you to enforce your brand standards and protect your brand equity.
Your brand guidelines should include all of the elements that make up your brand personality, including your logo, color palette, typography, and messaging. It should also spell out how and where your brand should be used, as well as any restrictions on use.
Creating a strong brand identity is essential to the success of your business. By having a clear and consistent style guide, you can make sure that your brand is always presented in the best light and that everyone who represents your company is on the same page.
1. Define your brand.
So, you want to start a new business. But first, you need to define your brand. This can be one of the most difficult aspects of starting a new business. After all, your brand is what will represent your business to the world. It’s how people will remember you. But don’t worry, we’re here to help. In this blog post, we’ll give you some tips on how to define your brand. First, you need to think about what you want your brand to represent. What are your core values? What do you want people to think of when they hear your brand name? These are important questions to answer. Once you have a good understanding of your core values, you can start to craft your brand around those values.
Once you have a good understanding of what you want your brand to represent, you need to start thinking about your brand style guide. This is a document that will outline how you want your brand to be presented to the world. It should include things like your logo, your brand colors, and your brand fonts / typography. This is an important step in defining your brand because it will help to ensure that your brand is consistent across all platforms.
2. Know your target market.
Knowing your target market is essential for a strong brand and to generate brand recognition. If you don’t know who you are targeting, it will be difficult to represent your brand and create a brand voice that appeals to them. You need to have an idea of who your audience is before you can start designing the look and feel of your website or social media channels.
The tone of voice for your brand should be authentic and speak to the people in your target market. This means that it must sound like something they would say themselves. It should also be genuine and not overly formal or casual.
3. Consider your company culture.
A company’s culture is the foundation of their brand. The culture is what sets you apart from other companies and what makes your company special. It’s the one thing that differentiates your brand from any other.
A good way to get started is by creating a mission statement that reflects your values and purpose. From there, you can create guidelines for how every employee should act in order to best represent the company’s culture.
The most important thing when creating brand guidelines is to make sure they are cohesive with your company’s overall culture and story. This will help make sure that everything from the messaging on your website, to the tone of voice in emails, to how employees interact with customers all align with your brand story.
4. Choose a brand style that reflects your business goals.
To create a brand style guide is a document that provides guidelines for all the visual elements of a company. It outlines the typeface, colors, logo usage, and design principles. But what should you consider when creating your own style guide?
Your logo and how it should be used
When creating a brand style guide, it’s important to consider your logo and how it should be used. Your logo is a key part of your brand identity, and it should be used consistently across all channels to ensure maximum impact.
There are a few things to keep in mind when using your logo:
1. Make sure your logo is always used in the same color scheme.
2. If you have multiple versions of your logo, make sure they’re all used consistently.
3. Use your logo in both print and digital applications.
4. Make sure your logo is legible and easy to read.
5. Keep your logo simple and easy to remember.
By following these guidelines, you can ensure that your logo will be an effective part of your brand identity.
Your color palette
There are two main ways to pick colors – by using pre-made palettes or by using your own custom colors. Keep in mind that either way, you’ll need to use programs like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator for fully customizing your palette and knowing important color code data like their RGB, HEX and CMYK value in order to replicate them.
The first way is by starting with an existing color palette on sites like Adobe Color CC or Paletton. These are user-friendly and might be a great option for those who are not very experienced in design tools but want to get started without any hassle. The second way is by extracting colors from photos, paintings and other elements in your brand
Your typography
Font selection is a very important factor in the design process. It creates the initial impression of your company and its style.
Here are some important points to take into account when choosing a typeface for your business brand:
1) Fonts are categorized into serif, sans serif, script, or decorative fonts. Serif fonts have small lines at the end that add elegant touch to the text whereas sans serif fonts do not have branched lines and are clean-cut. Script fonts make texts appear handwritten while decorative ones stand out with their unique patterns and shapes.
2) You should also consider how easy it will be for you to read text typed in that font due to your age, eye sight, and level of education when selecting a typeface. If you are an older individual , you may also want to choose fonts that are easy to read from a distance.There are many different types of typefaces, and some of them can be much harder for younger individuals to read. This is because the sharp edges found in many typefaces have a negative impact on children and those with low levels of education who cannot see well at distance.
Imagery style
When it comes to marketing your business, one of the most important things to consider is the style of imagery you use. Your choice of photographic style, illustration, and other visuals can say a lot about your brand and help to create a consistent look and feel for your marketing materials.
Think about the overall feeling you want to convey with your visuals. Do you want a warm and friendly vibe, or something more sleek and modern? Once you have a general idea of the direction you want to go, you can start to narrow down your choices of styles.
McDonald’s for example has always been associated with fast food and Americana, so they use traditional, American imagery in all their advertisements. They use close-ups or tight shots that show a real person enjoying their food in front of an American flag or surrounded by friends at a football game. The ads feel like iconic moments from America’s golden era where everyone was happy.
If you’re not sure where to start, consider hiring a professional who can help you create a style guide. This brand guide will outline the specific styles you should use for your logo, color palette, typography, and more. Having a style guide will ensure that all of your visuals are consistent and give your brand a polished, professional look.
Guidelines for using social media
Social media has completely changed the game of advertising and marketing, and every other way to communicate your brand. And with this change, the visual identity process has had to adapt.
Great brands have always been consistent with their logos, colors, fonts, and messaging. But social media platforms are constantly changing what they allow businesses to do – which means that an established brand needs to stay up-to-date on these changes as well. Because of this increased need for brand consistency, many brands have started developing templates for all their posts – so that they are on-brand every time they post something on social media.
But even with a template, there’s still room for creativity. For example, Nike often posts photos of their athletes wearing their latest sneakers. But instead of using a stock photo, they will shoot the photo themselves and use their own design to create one unique post. This helps them stay true to their brand and message while also giving their followers something new to look at.
5. How much does a branding style guidelines cost?
When you think about launching a new product or service, one of the first things you need to do is come up with a brand. And, part of that process is creating a brand style guide.Your brand style guide is essentially a document that outlines how your brand should be used. It includes everything from your logo to your brand colors to your tone of voice.
Putting together a brand style guide can be a daunting task, especially if you’re starting from scratch. But, it’s a good idea to have one in place to ensure that your brand is consistent across all channels.
So, how much does a brand style guide cost?
There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. The cost of your brand style guide will depend on a number of factors, including the size and complexity of your brand, the number of people working on the project, and the level of detail you need.
To get a better sense of what you might need to budget for your brand style guide, let’s take a look at a few different scenarios.
Scenario 1: You’re a solopreneur with a simple brand
If you’re a solopreneur with a simple brand, you might be able to get away with creating your brand style guide yourself. This is particularly true if your brand is still in the early stages and you haven’t yet established a lot of brand guidelines.
Creating a brand style guide from scratch can be a time-consuming process, but it’s definitely doable if you’re willing to put in the work. And, it can be a great way to get a better understanding of your brand and how you want it to be perceived by your audience. If you don’t have the time to design something yourself, you can always get a professional designer to do it for you. There are companies like Creatickz that can help you with any design needs you may have.
Scenario 2: You have a small team and a more complex brand
If you have a small team and a more complex brand, you might want to hire someone like Creatickz to help you with your brand style guide. This is especially true if you have a lot of brand guidelines that need to be created or if you’re not confident in your ability to put together a comprehensive document.
Hiring someone to help you with your brand style guide can be a great investment, as it will ensure that your guide is thorough and accurate. It will also save you a lot of time and energy that you can put towards other aspects of your business.
Scenario 3: You have a large team and an extensive brand
If you have a large team and an extensive brand, you’ll need to budget for a more comprehensive brand style guide. This guide will need to be much more detailed than a simple document, and it will likely require input from multiple people.
Creating a brand style guide can be a complex and time-consuming process, but it’s a necessary step in ensuring that your brand is consistent and cohesive. By taking the time to create a comprehensive guide, you’ll be able to save yourself a lot of time and headaches down the road. For this you can contact big design agencies such as: The Yard Creative, Wolf Ollins or MetaDesign
