How To Create A Brand Style Guide

The purpose of a brand style guide is to ensure consistency in order to safeguard a brand’s value. Many marketers struggle with what to include or how much detail is necessary. We created this guide to help you determine what is right for your brand.

Introduce the Brand

State your brand’s tagline/positioning statement and point of difference. Explain why your brand exists and what it stands for.  

Brand Voice

Explain how the voice supports your brand strategy. Provide your messaging platform, key words and phrases and personas. This will help partners develop messaging and stories that are on-brand.

Brand Look & Feel

Explain how the look and feel support your brand strategy. Identify the most important visual attributes and describe how designs, photography or illustration can be created to fit within the brand’s visual framework.

Brand Asset Access

Many marketers hire multiple agencies to develop work. These partners need access to your brand’s photo library, templates, logos, etc. Include this in your guide, so everyone knows where to find these assets.

Logo Usage

Include a description and examples of acceptable and unacceptable uses, including color, black and white, on backgrounds, etc.

Brand Color Palette

Include your Pantone colors along with the RGB, CMYK, and HEX breakdowns. If you have a primary palette and a secondary palette, provide guidelines and/or examples of usage.

Brand Fonts

Include the Foundry name, font name, acceptable weights and visual examples. While agencies and marketing departments have access to these fonts, people outside of the marketing department typically don’t. Font consistency is important, so make sure you provide acceptable substitute fonts for common business software, like the Microsoft Office suite.

How Many Pages?

How many pages should it be? There is no real number, but we would suggest erring on the side of less pages. Most brands don’t need more than 8 to 12 pages, but some may require as many as 24 – 36. The goal is to be useful, not daunting.

If you have any questions, please email us at Brand@TagStrategies.net.

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