Why Your Business Needs a Brand Style Guide

Branding is the foundation of any business, although a logo is important, a great brand goes above and beyond its logo. Great branding depicts the overall message that a business wants to portray and this can be represented through a variety of different visual elements.

That’s where a brand style guide comes into play…

What is a brand style guide?

A brand style guide is a detailed document that defines your brand identity and how it is represented across digital, print and in-store. Yes, your style guide will probably include your logo, but it goes much deeper than that.

A brand style guide could be a simple one-pager highlighting your brand colour palette, typography, logo variations, graphic elements, and imagery; or it could be a comprehensive booklet outlining all these visual elements, as well as your brand’s voice, target audience, key values, and printing guidelines.

Your style guide provides a voice and identity for your brand and outlines how you would like your brand to be perceived, not only visually, but through meaning and value. Every little detail counts.

Here are some examples of simple brand style guides that we’ve created, outlining the basic visual elements including logos, colour palette, typography, and imagery.

Why do you need a brand style guide?

A brand style guide is essential in establishing your brand identity for many reasons.

Creates consistency

A style guide ensures that your brand remains consistent across all mediums including print, digital, web, and in-store. Cohesion across these aspects is important as it helps to increase brand recognition and implies that your brand is defined and credible. Who doesn’t want their brand to be memorable? For example, the Coca-Cola brand is easily identifiable as their branding has remained consistent, despite slight alterations and improvements, over the years.

For more, read our blog on brand consistency.

Increases efficiency

A distinct style guide allows you to streamline the design methods to create content and material for your brand. Therefore, the process to create content (even for the non-designer) is a lot easier and it can save your business a lot of time in the long run that could be spent on other aspects of the business.

To learn more about creating content and branding on social media, check out our blog.

Communicates professionalism

When your brand is integrated across all aspects of your business, it communicates your message and brand in a professional manner and ensures that your business is taken seriously. A style guide that is implemented effectively demonstrates that your business is polished, accomplished and highlights professionalism at its finest.

Still confused? Take a read of our Baffled by Branding blog post.

Ready to build, nurture or evolve your brand?

Get in touch

Good work starts with good relationships.

One of our favourite parts of what we do is getting to know the people behind the businesses we work with. Understanding their stories, sharing ideas, challenging each other`s thinking and seeing those ideas come to life.

Joanna Photography is a perfect example of that. We`ve had the pleasure of working with Jo on her brand, and more recently, the tables turned when we stepped in front of her camera for our own branding shoot.

Jo embraced our creative direction, brought her own ideas and perspective to the shoot, and captured our team in a way that felt genuinely us.

There`s something pretty special about being able to support each other`s businesses, collaborate creatively and share a few laughs along the way.

Thanks for being such a wonderful part of our Oraco community, Jo! 🖤

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Content is easy to make, but content that actually feels like your brand is a little harder.

It`s why we don`t think content should begin with, “What should we post this week?”

It should begin much further back.

What do we want to be known for? What does our audience actually care about? What stories are worth telling? And how can we tell them in a way that could only really come from us?

Because when those things are clear, content stops being a constant search for something to say. You have a much stronger foundation to keep coming back to.

And that`s exactly why we created the Brand Builder Map and Brand Oracle.

Built on our Eight Brand Marks™ methodolgy, the Brand Builder Map and Oracle helps you explore the foundations of your brand, uncover what makes you distinctive and develop the clarity to guide everything that comes next, including your content.

Because knowing what to say starts with understanding who you are, what you stand for and why people should care.

Here`s Kannika behind the scenes capturing some of the content that brings those ideas to life.

Strategy gives you the story and content gives you somewhere to tell it.

Want to build a stronger foundation for your own brand? Explore Brand Oracle and the Brand Builder Map through the link in our bio.

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Imagine what you could build with real brand clarity.

What if you could articulate exactly what makes your brand worth choosing? Know what you stand for, who you’re here for, where you’re going and what makes your perspective different?

Imagine making decisions with confidence. Communicating your value clearly. Creating work that feels unmistakably yours. Building a brand that people recognise, connect with and remember.

For nearly two decades, we’ve helped businesses explore these questions and turn their answers into meaningful brand strategies.

Now, we’ve brought that thinking together into the Eight Brand Marks™, a framework designed to uncover what makes every brand distinctive.

And we’ve created a new way for you to explore it yourself.

Something new is coming…

Comment ‘Imagine’ to find your Mark.

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Being different isn`t the same as being distinctive.

A business can have a genuine point of difference and still be difficult to remember. It can also offer something remarkably similar to its competitors and become the brand people recognise first.

That`s because differentiation and distinction do two different jobs.

Differentiation gives people a reason to choose you.

Brand distinction gives them something to recognise, remember and associate with you.

And while differentiation often looks sideways at competitors, distinction starts by looking inward. At the stories, beliefs, experiences, relationships and perspectives that already make a business unmistakably itself.

Because the goal isn`t to be different for the sake of it but to become more confidently and recognisably yourself.

Our latest Studio Paper explores Brand Distinction vs Differentiation, why both matter and where lasting distinction actually comes from.

Link in bio to read more.

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Studio Paper /002
Filed by: Oraco Agency
Reference: SP-002
Photo source: @joannaphotography.au
Filed under: #BrandDistinction #BrandDifferentiation #Branding #BrandIdentity

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Attention and brand building aren’t always the same thing.

We believe having a perspective is one of the most important parts of building a distinctive brand. But there’s a difference between sharing an opinion because you genuinely believe it and sharing one because you know it will get a reaction.

Trends can be useful, controversial opinions can start conversations, and reach can absolutely be valuable.

But if the perspective you’re putting out there doesn’t align with what you genuinely believe, how you work or what you want your brand to be known for, what is that attention actually building?

Brand strategy is the long game.

Your perspective should have enough conviction behind it that you’re willing to stand by it long after the views, comments and algorithm have moved on.

Attention might make you visible but it’s conviction that will make you memorable.

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We’ve seen some interesting conversations lately about where brand strategy ends and brand identity begins, particularly around whether things like logos, colour and typography are really that important.

Our perspective? They shouldn’t be separated in the first place.

Colour, typography, symbolism, imagery, language and tone aren’t simply aesthetic choices made once the “important” strategic work is finished.
When they’re done well, they’re strategic decisions.

They’re informed by what the brand believes, where it’s going, who it needs to connect with, what makes it distinctive and what we want people to recognise and associate with it over time.

We don’t finish the strategy and then ask, ‘Okay, what should this look like?’

The identity is already taking shape through the strategic process.

Because good brand identity is strategic thinking made visible. Not just decoration!

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Leanne Nicholson

Leanne Nicholson is a brand strategist, Creative Director and Co-Founder of Oraco, with more than 18 years’ experience shaping distinctive brands. Her work explores the intersection of strategy, symbolism, storytelling and design, with a particular interest in uncovering the ideas and stories that make brands memorable. She is the creator of Oraco’s Eight Brand Marks, a philosophy for understanding the defining elements that shape how brands are experienced, remembered and sustained over time.

Why Your Business Needs a Brand Style Guide

What is a brand style guide?