Custom signage is an important part of any business. It is the face of your brand and a reflection of your identity. A brand style guide is an essential tool for ensuring consistent branding across all your signage, advertising, and marketing materials. It helps to define your mission statement, core values, and what sets you apart from your competitors. With a detailed brand style guide, you can build brand awareness and trust, creating a unified presence that will resonate with your audience. In this blog post, we will explore the importance of having a comprehensive brand style guide and how it can help your business grow.
Defining Your Brand
You must define your brand to create a brand style guide.
Before creating a brand style guide, you must first define your brand. This can be done through several approaches, including mission and value statements, visual representation, and customer personas. Your mission statement should serve as a North Star, giving everyone in the organization clear direction for how to act. It should answer the fundamental question of why your company exists. Your values statements should be your moral compass that can guide decision making and problem solving.
Visual representation is another way to create a strong brand identity. This includes color palettes, typography, logos, imagery, and iconography. All of these elements need to be used consistently across all marketing channels to ensure a strong brand impression. Finally, understand who your target customers are and create detailed customer personas that describe their needs and motivations. Knowing who you are talking to will help inform the language and tone of your message. Once you have a comprehensive understanding of your brand and target audience, you can begin to construct a comprehensive brand style guide that reinforces your core values and visual identity.
Creating a Brand Style Guide
Creating a brand style guide takes time, but it’s worth it. Start by articulating your company’s mission statement, core values, and what sets the brand apart from its competitors. This should be in the form of a few simple statements or bullet points that you can refer to. Then consider visual elements. Develop logos and fonts for use in all mediums. Note which colors should be used when creating materials, and define the appropriate usage of each logo type (for example, a horizontal logo, a vertical logo, and so on). Provide detailed examples and references.
Once you’ve developed the visuals, it’s time to craft your brand’s tone of voice. What types of language should you use? What should you avoid? Consider any terms or phrases that are specific to your company or industry and note how they should be used. Finally, create guidelines for using graphics, photographs, and illustrations. When creating your brand style guide, keep in mind that it should be easily understood by those unfamiliar with your company. Make sure the language is clear and concise, and that all instructions are actionable. Your guide should be a living document that you can refer to again and again.
