You’ve built your brand, shared your mission, found success, and secured a following. High five! Over time, you’ll refine your values, bring on new employees, and potentially lose some too. Your business is rock solid, but your culture and partnerships are constantly evolving.
The question then becomes: how do you maintain a consistent message amidst the inevitable change and growth in your work environment and marketing presence? A simple solution is to have an up-to-date style guide available. This proactive measure is often neglected and turned to out of necessity… especially after your inbox catches fire.
Your brand’s assets should be defined in a visually clear and consistent manner.
When you’re slammed and your designer is inaccessible, or a third party wants to feature your company in a time-sensitive press release, it is much too easy to stray from consistent design elements and approved graphics. Guesswork is the enemy to the livelihood of your brand. Don’t succumb to it!
Having an official style guide in place ensures that your brand’s assets are usable by almost anyone — as long as guidelines are presented and closely followed. It also guarantees the best possible experience for your customers whether they’re online or in the real world.
Practice what you preach!
We recently converted our offline PDF to a dynamic, online version for easier reference and sharing. We encourage you to take a look at the Razorfrog Style Guide as an example to see how we’ve outlined our assets to be more approachable for our team and partners.
Perhaps I’m just hungry, but a quick analogy that comes to mind is the Chipotle franchise. If you’re a fan of their food, you already know what you’re getting into before you even step through their door. The noticeable level of consistency is built into their brand’s message of fast, quality-oriented dining.
Similarly, a style guide ensures that your customers will be craving the same taste of excellence that they’ve come to expect time and time again, especially in the midst of inevitable change.
If you need an update to your style guide, or simply do not have one, contact our team to get started. Whether you need your style guide formatted as a PDF or stored on your website, we’re here to help make sure your brand’s experience is sustainable and enjoyable.
Long live (your brand here)!
