More 2 Marketing

Susan
More to marketing. Welcome to more to marketing, a podcast on marketing, product and everything in between. I’m your host, Susan, and today we’re going to be asking the question. What is a brand style guide? A brand store guide, also known as brand guidelines or a brand book, is a comprehensive document that outlines the visual and messaging elements that define a brand’s identity and how they should be consistently used. Used it serves as a set of rules and recommendations for internal and external stakeholders, ensuring that a brand maintains A unified and cohesive image across all communication channels. A brand style guy and shorts not everyone involved with the brand, from designers and marketers to external partners. Adheres to a cohesive and recognisable brand identity. It helps maintain consistency, build trust and strengthen brand recognition. I have to really stress that a brand guideline is more than just the PMS tones and the font to use. There’s a lot more that goes into it. So I want to go in to explain why maintaining A consistent brand image is so important and utilising one of these tools. Maintaining A consistent brand image plays a pivotal role in building a strong and recognisable brand. Here are some of the. Key aspects of what it. Involves. Establishing recognition consistency in branding, including logos, colours and topography, helps to create distinct and recognisable brand identity. When customers see consistent branding, they can quickly identify and recall your brand building trust, consistency in messaging and design conveys reliability and professionalism. It builds trust with your audience as they know what to expect from your brand, leading to stronger customer loyalty. Differentiation. A consistent brand image sets your brand apart from competitors and helps define your unique selling propositions and the value that your brand makes to stand out in the market. Clarity and communication. Consistency ensures that your brand’s message is clear and coherent. It minimises confusion and assures that your target audience understands your value and offerings professionalism. A consistent brand image gives the impression of a well organised and professional business. This can attract partnerships, investors and customers, so it’s very important. Cost effective with a well maintained brand, you save resources on consistent rebranding or identity changes. Consistency and branding can lead to long term cost efficiencies. Market resilience. A consistent brand can adapt to changes in the market and expand into new areas while maintaining its core identity. It ensures that your brand remains relevant and adaptable. Think about marketing verticals and product verticals. This is where consistent branding helps. Customer experience consistency extends to the customer experience, whether online or in store. Customers should have a uniform experience that reflects your brands and identity. Longevity brands that maintain consistency tend to have a longer lifespan. They are less susceptible to fats and trends and can assure changes in market. Maintaining A consistent brand image is fundamental for creating brand recognition. Trust differentiation in the market. It’s an investment in the long term success and sustainability. For business. But let’s go through with some of. The elements that are within a brand style guide. Typically a logo, so the logo usage itself guidelines for the correct. Use of the logo. Including variations, play space and minimum size. Logos, the usage itself, these guidelines, they make sure the consistency is there and also the correct usage, particularly for when you’re doing the sizing when you’re going up or down or where it needs to appear behind what colours your orientations, all these pieces, it includes all the different applications satisfying the clear space around the logo. And seeing the minimum size to maintain the legibility. Some great examples of logos and the consistency #1 the Apple logo. The user guide itself dictates the size and clear space around the icon apple symbol. It specifies the logo should never appear more than 16 pixels in digital applications. Another one is Nike, so the Nike logo includes variations of the famous Swoosh logo for different contexts. So you have your primary logo, the switch with the tag and more. Colour palette colour palettes very important and there are multiple different types of colour codes depending on how you’re printing or using it. You have RGB, CMYK and hex are three of the most popular ones. And you need to understand their applications as well. A defined colour palette ensures that brand’s colours are consistent across all materials. Generally includes all those 3 ones I’ve just mentioned for print or digital, and it has usually your primary and your secondary colours included. Coca Cola is a perfect example. It has the iconic red with the Hex code Foo. And provides guidance on how to use it in print. And digital materials. Facebook within it brand guideline also includes how to use its colour. The primary blue which is a 1/8 to. 77F2. And the secondary colours that company. Typography. This is the approved fonts that are used in the context of the brand, whether it is the headline or sometimes within the other documentations that you’ll create because. A brand guideline includes all the communication pieces, such as media releases, even Excel and PowerPoints and word documents you might create think of. Even a media. Release. So you’re going to have not just your normal headings, you’re going to have your body text and everything else that needs to be identified. So the topography guideline dictate the use of the approved logos for those various contexts ensures that its consistency in the style and the readability. Google has a very specific brand guideline like Roboto and Noto for digital applications and provides guidance on the weight of the fonts and the size that. Can be used in each case. Airbnb topography guidelines include font choices such as circular and Airbnb cereal with instructions on where they can be used as well. Imagery and iconography. Now this is all your images, illustrations and icons. And how they’re associated to the brand and where you can use. Them so that all white. They’re the combination of the recommendations of all the imagery and icons to find that the style of a visual element come together in a line for the brand consistency, whether it’s the type of photos you can use and the colouring within it, illustrations or little icons that might appear to identify different things like even a phone number, they maintain a cohesive visual identity. So if I go back to Airbnb, they have a use of authentic and diverse photos to represent their brand values. Whereas Slack uses icon free styles and ensures that the icons used in the interface are consistent and well recognisable. Turn your voice. Violence of the language, tone and style of copywriting to maintain consistent messaging. This is very key because some brands want to be very serious. Some want to be quite cheeky. Some are written in American English, some are UK English, so you’ve got to make sure you know what you’re doing here with your tone of voice, the language, the wording, and the dictionary you’re using. Tone of voice guidelines focus on that language, tone and style of copyright to ensure consistent messaging. It helps to stylish the brand’s personality and how it communicates with this audience. So MailChimp in its Tone Guide defines its voice as empathy plus playful and provides examples on how this voice should be used in reflectiveness of communication Dropbox. It also has guidelines which include the tone of the principles, emphasising simplicity and clarity in their messaging. Editorial guidelines so this is your spelling, grammar, and punctuation rules for written content. This is why I put in a bit of in the last comment as well. Editorial guidelines specify the spelling, grammar, punctuation rules for in content. This ensures that the material are error free and reflect the brand’s professionalism. This could literally be where full stops appear. The New York Times editorial guides are comprehensive, covering grammar, style, and the standards of quality journalism. Airbnb also has included nears for consistent writing and spelling rules. Layout and design. Recommendations for layout of printed or digital materials, including brochures, websites and digital media. This could even be banner ads and things like that that help. You on socials. Layout and design recommendations provide guidance for the visual aspects of the printed audition materials, and it could even include templates, grids, and principal designs itself. Adobe within its brand guidelines includes layout templates for various materials and showing that that adheres to the Adobe standards of design. Coca Cola, naturally office principles for creating consistent marketing materials as well. Usage examples, visual and textual examples to illustrate how brand elements should be applied. So the usage examples provide visual and textual illustrations of how our brand elements should be applied. They serve as a practical reference for designers and marketers. Nike, within its brand guidelines include usage examples of the logo on the products, apparel and marketing material. Twitter, now known as Ex, had within its previous style guide features of the usage of examples of the local and different contexts to show the brand consistency. So let’s have a dive into a few excellent examples of brand style guides from around the world. Medium mediums brand Style Guide is known for its simplicity and consistency. It provides clear guidelines of the logo usage, topography and colour schemes. This style guide is a great example of how a clean and uncluttered design can represent a brand effectively. You can explore it for its inspiration in maintaining A minimalistic, yet impactful print image. Walmart. Walmarts Brand Style guide showcases the brands elements of one of the world’s largest retailers. It offers insights into their use of the logo iconography of Walmart, and the classic blue topography and logo. This guide is a valuable source of understanding how a brand with a broad audience maintains a consistent and recognisable. Which? Asana, Asana brand Style Guide is a testament to maintaining a modern and professional image. It emphasises the use of the signature teal colour, topography and design elements. A Sonny’s guide serves as an example of how a tech orientated brand compared to cohesive and visual appealing identity. Creating a brand style guide is a critical step in establishing and maintaining A consistent brand identity. But how do you go about it and what steps should you do? Well, First off, you should always do some research. Begin with the comprehensive understanding of your brand’s identity values and target audience. Analysing competitors style guides and. Look for inspiration to identify industry styles and trends, and what the consumers are actually expecting when within your industry. Conduct surveys and interviews and gather the. Hotel. And listen to it. So go to internal, external and people and find out from them what they think, what they expect, what their first pictures are. Do research. Your next step is going to be to design. So develop a visual identity including those logos, the colour palette, typography and imagery. Ensure that the elements align with your brand values. Create guidelines for local usage. Specifically, what’s acceptable in variations and size. Define the colour codes. And the usage of the rules for maintaining consistency. Provide content guidelines. They’re not too hard to to create. You know where you’re going to be putting most of your messaging so you’ll be able to pull that together. So establish a brand tone of your voice for your. Your brand itself and the guidelines for those messaging specify the type of grammar. The style guide. And just to ensure that there’s a unified, unified brand message. Documentation compile all brand elements and guidelines into a cohesive document that anyone can find when they need to. Organise the guide for easy reference and accessibility. An index table of contents. So at the beginning is fabulous for that, including samples and practical applications to illustrate, because sometimes words aren’t enough. People that can help you along this journey, 2 main ones come to mind. For me one is definitely a graphics designer. They play a crucial role in creating visual assets like logos, colour schemes and typography. And then also brand managers, because they’re usually the ones responsible for overseeing the brand, style guides, development implementation, ensuring consistency across all those touch points. Too. But really good brand style guide should include and very well structured is you’ve got your consistency so ensure that your brand’s visual and messaging elements remain uniform across various platforms. Materials cohesion, strengthening your brand identity and recognition, making it easier for the audience to identify and relate to your brands. Efficiency, simplify the design and the marketing process itself. As teams will then have a clearer guideline on what to follow quality control. Help maintain the quality of the brand materials and prevent any mishaps happening. That’s what the whole point of sale God is scalability. It also allows for brand expansion without loss of consistency, particularly if you’re going come into other verticals. Trust and professionalism can face a professional image. Increasing trust among consumers and partners alike. Creating a brand style guide is a vital investment that helps your brand stand out and can communicate effectively in a competitive market. I encourage you either if you haven’t already, make your own or seek professional assistance to make one for you because you want to be able to ensure you’re putting your best foot forward for your. Brand your products. Or whatever it is. And that you’re not gonna. Confuse consumers out there either. Thank you for listening to this podcast and more to marketing about creating brand style guides. Don’t forget to follow modern marketing to hear more podcasts. More to marketing.