Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, or Facebook – today, there are countless opportunities to promote your business across various media channels. Therefore, it is necessary to present a consistent image on all platforms and channels. In addition to the factor of a harmonious appearance, a consistent design also contributes to your brand recognition.
This overall image is summarized as Corporate Identity, representing the brand identity. It encompasses all strategic measures that contribute to the desired self-image. You should not underestimate the time and financial investment behind it. However, the style guide or corporate design can assist you in the planning process. Ultimately, this identity is intended to encapsulate your entire and cohesive visual representation.
Corporate Design
The word “style guide” is often used interchangeably, but the terms do not have the same meaning. The corporate design describes the appearance of a company. This primarily includes the design of the means of communication (word signs, pictorial signs or word-figurative signs), but also of business stationery, advertising material, packaging, websites and product design.
For example, the logo, which comes to many people’s minds at first, is only one element of the corporate design. It does not fully describe the concept of “uniform and comprehensive appearance”. To achieve this appearance, Corporate Design establishes a suitable sign system. This is used to visually convey consistency and brand recognition to the outside world.
Styleguide
A Styleguide delves much deeper into the subject matter. In addition to design, it also encompasses the company’s mission, brand personality, and the intended application for specific design elements. These design guidelines aim to ensure a consistent appearance across various communication tools.
Whether you’re posting on social media, creating brochures, sending out invoices, sending out an internal company newsletter to your employees, or planning a TV commercial, a style guide lets everyone know exactly what the result should look like. The goal is for products to be perceived as cohesive, creating an association with the associated brand.
What Goes Into a Properly Structured Style Guide?
Well-thought-out and successful brand positioning forms the foundation of effective market leadership and strategy. This includes an individual mission statement that defines the purpose of your company and how it serves customers. It also serves as a kind of guide for your customers. Additionally, there are the company values that articulate the desirable principles your business stands for in language use. Finally, it is crucial how you tailor your communication to your target audience. Therefore, it is essential to document your various buyer personas in your Style guide. This makes it easier for all employees of your company to adhere to the intended design and language guidelines.
Here, you delve into the specific attributes of your company or organization. Determine how you want to address your target audience (for example, formally or informally). What mood should be conveyed when potential customers come across your products, website, or social media accounts? A mood board can help express the desired emotional foundation through images. The more precisely each aspect of your personality is developed, the easier it becomes to communicate a consistent image outwardly.
A logo is often the initial anchor point that provides clues about a brand’s identity. The design can show potential consumers of your products the type of business it is and the services or products it sells. With a successful logo, the target audience and brand identity are harmoniously brought together. You should be able to answer these questions about your logo:
- What does your logo look like?
- What colours should be used? (Primary and possible secondary colours)
- What does the positive and negative representation look like?
- What are the individual elements?
- Are there different layouts? Are there backgrounds?
- Are there smaller or reduced versions? In what scenarios are they used?
As mentioned before, the more detailed these points go, the easier it is to achieve consistency. If you do not have a logo yet, that’s not a problem. As an advertising agency from Thuringia, we are happy to advise you and develop a logo for you or work on your corporate design.
To create the right impression of your company, the colours must align with your brand personality, target audience, and your company’s values. Therefore, carefully consider which colours should be used in different contexts, and ideally, establish a secondary colour palette. If you use gradients, shades, and grayscale, document everything extensively in your style guide to avoid any confusion.
Since a style guide aims to strongly support consistency, it is advantageous to use the same fonts across all social media platforms. Simultaneously, this enhances your recognizability. It’s best to limit your selection to two to a maximum of three different web-safe fonts, ensuring your design remains clear. Subsequently, specify which font is intended for your headlines and highlights, and which one for the body text, for example.
In addition to the logo and colours, graphics and background images can enhance the overall appearance of your media channels in specific situations. In the style guide, for instance, you can specify whether only images in certain colours, with selected motifs, or under particular lighting conditions may be used in the future. Perhaps they are intended to convey a specific mood. Another mood board can help in defining the desired impressions more clearly for all involved parties.
In this section, you can list and explain specific use cases or items. Using visual examples, you can define how the interface of your website or app should look and how posts for your social communication channels should be designed. Business cards, letterheads, or flyers can also be defined in this context.
Developing a corporate design or creating a style guide is indeed a complex task. Typically, companies require both strategic and design support in this process. Therefore, do not hesitate to seek our assistance.
As an online marketing agency, this creative task falls within our capabilities. We are more than willing to support you and collaborate to shape the visual identity that your company needs.
