What is a brand style guide?
A brand style guide (also known as brand guide or brand guidelines) is essentially an instruction manual on how a brand should be communicated. It contains the standards required to represent your brand correctly both internally and externally.
A brand style guide is a digital rulebook that specifies every aspect of the look and feel of your brand. Apart from being used internally, a brand style guide is shared with partners, media, and agencies to brief them on how to communicate your brand properly and consistently.
Your brand style guide shouldn't be shared via email attachments. Discover the benefits of using online, easy-to-share, dynamic brand guidelines to safeguard your brand identity like never before. Find out more with our free guide: Brand guidelines reinvented.
What goes into a brand style guide?
The main goal of a brand style guide is to be shared with others. Taking time to create one means ensuring that your brand image stays consistent– even when handled by external parties.
A brand style guide should be a succinct, easy-to-read digital document. It begins with the brand's mission statement and goes on to define the brand's look and feel as well as its tone of voice. A brand style guide usually includes the following:
- Tone of voice: how the brand uses language and emotion (including grammar, abbreviations, and acronyms)
- Typography: font styles, sizes, and spacing
- Logos: full logos, secondary logos, and icons
- Color palette: primary and secondary colors
- Other imagery: photos, illustrations, and artwork
- Examples of use and unacceptable uses
If you're looking to develop a brand style guide to safeguard your brand identity and have it remain consistent when managed by external agencies, Bynder has the right tool for you. Bynder's Brand Guidelines module offers dynamic, web-based guides that are easy to create, edit, and distribute to the right stakeholders. Find out more, book a demo with one of our experts.