What is a Style Guide?
A style guide is a document used to promote brand consistency and enforce brand standards. It documents brand guidelines including specific colors, fonts, and logo usage specifications. Your brand’s style guide is intended for use by your marketing team, freelancers, agencies, web designers, printers, and others to represent your brand uniformly.
Logo Usage Guidelines
Your style guide should include directions on the proper use of your logo. Display approved logo examples, including a full-color version as well as black/white/grey 1-color logos. Document the minimum and maximum logo size requirements (i.e., logo should be no smaller than 0.5-in). Communicate legal copyrights, including the use of the ® registration mark for registered trademarks and the ™ trademark for logos in the process of registration.
If there are unapproved uses for your logo, these can be included in your brand style guide, as well. Indicate improper uses, colors, or orientation to help control your brand.
Brand Colors
Establish a color palette for your brand. Include colors used in your logo as well as other branded materials, like your website. Your brand color palette should include a range of colors, including lights, darks, and a vibrant callout color (for the BUY NOW button on your website or the promotional call to action on your brochures, etc.).
Colors should be identified in multiple ways:
- CMYK (Cyan/Magenta/Yellow/Black) color profile for print
- Spot colors / Pantone colors for print
- RGB (Red/Green/Blue) color profile for digital use
- HEX colors for web use
Brand Fonts
The fonts you use to represent your brand convey your brand’s personality and design style. Select fonts using various weights and colors to help create a visual hierarchy when presenting information and communicate your ideas clearly. Make sure your fonts are legible and easy to read.
Font specifications should be detailed in your style guide for headings, body text and linked text. Using fonts uniformly across both your digital and printed marketing helps create a cohesive, branded look.