Are you currently in the midst of launching your new brand? Or perhaps have just successfully positioned your product and/or services and are now focusing on building brand awareness and recognition for your startup business?
As you are aware, how your brand is perceived greatly affects how well it is received. Ultimately, your consumers or customers buy the brand -- and not just solely the product or service that you offer.
This further cements the importance of making sure that you also have a style guide to serve as your true north as early as at the point of brand conception.
A brand style guide is, in essence, a simple document that catalogues the specific colour schemes, font, logos, imagery, patterns and even tagline of your brand. This brand style guide serves as a reference, so whatever form of design or content that you create should always remain aligned and reflective of the brand.
Things are never straightforward in the world of branding and design. Every little thing must make sense, remain cohesive and contribute to the brand’s bigger picture.
To best help give you an idea of how to create a brand style guide, we've put together a list of top 3 branding style guide examples that you use as a point of reference.
Of course, they’re not just any famous brand – they’re one of the top 3 most recognised brands in the world, so it’s worth learning a thing or two from them.
Take a look:
Image from: Apple Marketing Resources and Identity Guidelines
When we think of anything Apple-related, be it their print adverts or even product packaging, consumers would automatically and naturally visualise the sleek, clean and crisp, and monotone signature style of the brand.
This is definitely an indicator of a strong brand awareness. While the brand is curated ever so carefully, Apple's nature of the business also means that the brand is being used by authorised third-party vendors.
To protect its image and also ensure consistent branding, Apple's brand style guide outlines very specific instructions. On badges usage alone, there is clear portrayal and example of how taglines should be positioned, alternative badges for versatility and their very own tool that generates embeddable code that leads to an App Store product page and displays an App Store badge.
So, in the event that your brand blows up as big as it did for Apple (fingers crossed), you’d want to protect how it’s portrayed elsewhere. You can make this easier for both yourself and other vendors by creating a brand style guide just like Apple did.
Image from: Google Brand Resource Center
Given Google's prominence but also large influence over the digital sphere, it's no wonder that stringent controls need to be in place. Being this huge and omni-present brand means that you must be extremely meticulous with how you allow the brand to be represented.
Now, as a startup, you might not think there is a need to be overly detailed. However, there is definitely no harm in safeguarding brand permissions from the beginning, just as Google does so in their brand style guide.
There are strict rules on what areas of brand identity can be used in certain ways, for example; usage of brand logos, Google doodles and even its hardware products are actually not allowed.
Meanwhile, Google states that any mention or use of the brand for sponsorships and partnerships purposes must be submitted for their internal review, which is another point you can take note of to ensure that you have measures of control in place when it comes to your brand.
After all, it can be very damaging for your emerging brand to be associated with anything that does not represent the brand's values.
Image from: Twitter Brand Toolkit
As one of the most popular and trafficked social media platforms in the world, Twitter's brand is instantly recognizable by its blue bird icon.
Because social media platforms are not just being used, but also discussed in general (think forums, thesis, and also for other brands' marketing use), Twitter made its brand style guide public to ensure that there is a clear guideline on how the brand should be applied.
What's great about this move is that Twitter focuses on providing the right resource materials to minimise the incorrect use of its brand assets. This can be something to think of: providing high-resolution files so your brand is always represented in the best quality, from logos to even Tweet templates.
You don’t have to wait until you get as successful as Twitter, by the way. You can start one right now for your internal communications, designs and more. It would be especially helpful if you’re a little pressed for time but with limited resources and need to engage in a freelancer to design your collaterals too.
Want to start putting together your very own brand style guide, or rehash your current one? Or have you yet to create a brand identity? No matter which stage you’re at, our team at Brandripe are equipped with the necessary tools, experience and skills to help you.
We understand that with so many different elements and grounds to cover, putting together a brand style guide can seem a daunting task. It’s more than just about consolidating rules and instructions in a document; it also touches on your business' ownership of the brand itself.
With you juggling so many tasks at hand to ensure smooth sailing of the business, let us take the designing work off your hands and deliver only the best brand style guide for your business.
We’ve done the same with a number of prominent brands, so rest assured we’d give it our all. Having worked with brands from a diverse blend of industries and sizes, we have the expertise to understand what your startup brand needs to cover and what will be handy for future reference as well.
On top of that, we claim no rights to any work that has been produced and delivered to you, meaning that everything is fully owned by you. This is crucial especially for a core brand item such as your brand's style guide.
That’s just one of the many different benefits you get when you work with us, aside from unlimited requests and revisions, no hidden fees and a 24-48 hour turnaround time. But we can get into all of that in detail when we talk.
Schedule a 15-minute VIP demo call at your earliest convenience with us so we can have an understanding of your needs, and review the process of how submitting a request works via our platform and more.
Otherwise, feel free to drop in via email at hi@brandripe.com or chat with us on our homepage. We’ll get back to you as soon as we can.
