Almost all marketing gurus, design gods and world leaders argue that any business or brand needs a style guide of some form. It adds graphic cohesion, a consistent voice, delivers a level of certainty to your market and proves to your team, contractors and partners, that you’re playing with the big boys (or girls), or at the very least, on your way.

If you’re reading this article, chances are you’re not a corporate. So if you’re not a corporate, why think like a corporate. Part of your advantage as an SME is your versatility. You don’t have to be a corporate to produce original, consistent and powerful marketing, you just need to be organised.

‍So when it comes to style guides, like your Yoga teacher, think flexible. I like to build the guides specifically around what the client needs, often in different stages, rather than follow too much of a set convention. Creatively and technically I find this saves me from being pushed into a corner and allows the brand and business’s identity to grow with more flow and natural progression.
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‍Benefits of a style guide

‍One word that goes a long way, consistency, consistency, consistency.

It’s less about the benefits of a style guide, but more about the benefits of the consistency that a guide provides, including:

• Consistent brand message to your market
• Affirms to contractors and team members, the importance of your brand and plays a role in ensuring consistent artwork and editorial production

So, where to from here?
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Start with a solid Platform‍

Whether I’m building a guide or not, with any initial brand identity, at the very least, my first port of call is to produce a brief but ‘considered' document to support the master logo or word-mark. The document will contain identifiers, such as colour, alternative logo formats, white space, reverse colour styling (if required) and document the available logo file formats available. This is a good start. No, it’s not a complete guide, but yes, it is a quality platform to rest the remainder of your growing guide on.

Design as you mean to go on‍

With a more progressive and developmental approach to your guide, you can build sections of the guide as required. Not only does this breakdown the cost into realistic segments, it also allows the dust to settle and explore creative assets with greater clarity. It also allows creatives, like me, to apply revisions, tweak and dare I say, improve on what is already there. Culture evolves, technology improves and consequently graphics do too, so don’t see your guide as a static document. Much like your website, product brochure or advertising, your style guide is no different than any other growing asset in your organisations' armour.

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‍A style guide, but not as we know it

‍I ask clients not to look at style guides as an ‘all or nothing’ document. It doesn’t matter if it contains all the usual suspects of what a ‘proper’ guide should be. If it contains elements of your brands styling and provides guidance on how to use it, then it’s a style guide.

Style guides can be designed to accommodate solely a specific segment of your business’s marketing. For example, I work with a client that has a large sales team. A sizeable amount of their promotion relies on social and digital media. Rather than letting the team fluster over visuals (or, and I say this politely, make a complete hash of it), I designed a series of effective, and very importantly, practical advertising templates, supported by a guide, just for this application. The guide would then be a usable everyday tool, ensuring brand consistency and speeding up the publishing process. Voila, still creative, still with impact and published almost on a daily basis. The guide has done its job.‍

To conclude, drum roll please‍

‍The process of building a useful and coherent style guide isn’t always black and white. Thinking out of the box will undeniably help in the development of a brand strategy that genuinely helps your business. Don’t be afraid to say ’no’ to an all or nothing solution, ‘yes’ to a 'quality not quantity' approach and an even bigger ‘yes' to a growing solution that works individually for your business and brand.

Secondly, hire professionals to help with the development of your style guide. Organising your sales team or marketing manager to put it together is rarely advised. Yes it’s handy to put together a rough layout of content to pass onto a designer, however I’ve yet to see a competent guide designed in-house without glaring technical and creative failures.

Last but not least, manage it. Very little point in investing in any form of branding asset without some form of accountability. If you’re not going to adhere to your style guide, then why have one. Delegate the right person to manage, adhere and nurture the guide, to ensure that your marketing is coherent and that your brand message remains consistent, consistent, consistent.