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How to Create a Design Style Guide

At Idaho Falls, Idaho, AlphaGraphics, we believe the key to creating an identifiable brand is consistency. Consistent themes in colors, logos, and even typography solidify the personality behind your brand. That can be accomplished by creating a style guide.

What is a Style Guide?

A style guide is a document, sometimes even an entire book, that describes and provides examples of your brand’s visual presence across various platforms, including print and internet. People can reference the style guide rules to maintain consistency in the brand’s looks, feels and sounds. Some common design elements included in the style guide are:
  • Logo specifications
  • Approved logo color variations
  • Minimum size of logo and placement
  • Designated color palette
  • Chosen fonts with heading sizes
A style guide should be extremely detailed and concrete to prevent any questions in design.

Why Create a Style Guide?

Many businesses require people to create content. Having a style guide ensures brand consistency regardless of who created it—which allows leaders to assign multiple people to one project. A style guide also protects your brand and trademark because it is published and property you clearly own. Overall, a style guide allows clients, consumers, and employees to understand the tone and essence of your company. Check out this page to see what other marketing solutions AlphaGraphics in Idaho Falls, Idaho, can offer you.

Creating a Style Guide

What you put in a style guide should be concrete. It is something you may want to add to later, but because people will be using it as a reference, you want to make sure it’s close to perfection when you print it. AlphaGraphics in Idaho Falls, Idaho, can help you create and print a style guide that fully harnesses the essence of your brand.

Logo

The first element to include should be your logo, the size, and placement. You should include good and bad examples to indicate the expectations with the logo. Including a color palette in a style guide is also important. Typically, a company will choose a few select colors to associate with its brand and stick with them. If the logo is in color, it is often one of the signature colors in a style guide.

Font/Type

It is aesthetically pleasing when fonts are consistent throughout brand materials. Fonts have the power to reflect the identity of your company and help consumers identify your brand by typography. A style guide should also include tips for writing in a brand voice. This means including particular words, phrases and even hashtags that appear frequently in your content.

Look

Besides consistent logos and fonts, a select number of icons and photo styles should also be outlined in a style guide. Icons for websites or mobile applications can give your brand a unique look—but the rules for using them should be clearly defined in a style guide. Photographs also create an original look, especially when they are all edited similarly. Many style guides will have preferences for editing pictures to keep the look consistent.

Tips

Since it’s full of instruction, a style guide should read like a cookbook. It should be straightforward, but not so dull that people can’t stand to go through it. Having clear, relevant information will keep the reader from feeling overwhelmed and makes it easier to go through.

How To Get A Hold Of Us

Idaho Falls, Idaho, AlphaGraphics helps assist businesses in creating the best style guide for their brand. With our help, your freshly designed and printed style guide will direct content that resonates with your consumers. Come in your local business center, call us at (208) 522-2679 or request a quote in the form below to get started today!   [wpforms id="545" title="true"]    

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