If you want your brand to look consistent, polished, and professional across every platform, you need a brand style guide. Building a brand style guide ensures that your visuals and messaging stay cohesive, whether you’re designing a website, sending out a newsletter, or printing flyers. A brand style guide helps maintain the integrity of your brand, especially when working with a team, freelancers, or new collaborators.
Let’s walk through what to include when you are in the process of building a guide for your brand style so it actually works for your business (not just looks nice in a PDF).
1. Brand Overview and Mission
Start with a quick explanation of who you are, what you do, and why it matters. This section provides essential context for anyone reading the guide. It sets the tone and helps align every future design and messaging decision with your mission as you are building a style guide.
2. Logo Guidelines
Include all versions of your logo—full color, black and white, stacked, horizontal—and how each should be used. Provide clear rules about logo sizing, placement, spacing, and what not to do with it. Your logo is one of your most valuable brand assets, and it deserves clear, consistent handling.
3. Color Palette
Define your brand’s primary and secondary colors. Include hex codes, RGB values, and CMYK numbers for both digital and print use. Also, show how your colors should be combined—or not combined—and offer contrast examples for accessibility, especially when you are in the process of building a comprehensive guide.
4. Typography Rules
List your brand fonts, including headers, body text, and accent fonts. Explain when and how to use each one. Be sure to include fallbacks in case a font isn’t available, and provide download links or sources when needed. This guidance is crucial when building a brand’s style guide for ensuring consistency.
5. Voice and Tone
How should your brand sound? Whether you’re writing a blog post or responding to a DM, your voice should feel consistent. Define your tone (casual, witty, warm, formal, bold) and give examples of what’s “on-brand” versus what’s not when building your guide.
6. Imagery and Iconography
If you have a specific style for photos, illustrations, or icons, outline it here. You can also include preferred sources, do’s and don’ts for visual content, and examples of what fits your aesthetic when building a style guide.
7. Social Media Guidelines
If you have a strong social media presence, include best practices for visuals, captions, hashtags, and post structure. This helps maintain consistency across different platforms, especially if you have multiple people contributing. These guidelines are an integral part of building your brand style guide to ensure cohesive social media branding.
8. Brand Applications
Show how your brand should be applied across materials: business cards, social media templates, email signatures, pitch decks, packaging, and more. This section can include mockups or real-world examples to demonstrate consistency in action as part of building your style guide.
Final Thoughts
A strong brand style guide is more than a checklist. It’s your go-to reference for keeping everything aligned, whether you’re building a brand or launching a new product. When your brand shows up consistently and confidently, your audience is more likely to trust you.