Growing your business usually, means building your brand. Brand recognition can help you consistently reach consumers who will come to expect a certain product quality, no matter where they buy your goods or employ your services.
To achieve this type of branding success, you’ll need to create a style guide as you adopt a business marketing strategy.
Why is a branding style guide so important for your business?
A branding style guide will govern the nitty-gritty details of brand development, helping to establish consistency. Without a style guide, your brand will take longer to become established, and you’ll find yourself scrambling to create a tangible business identity. With franchises and multiple locations under different management, it can be difficult to pin down brand recognition among consumers that you seek for business growth.
Even if your business is small, establishing a style guide right from the beginning can help you keep customer support as you expand, directing the design of storefronts, coupons, logos, and packaging.
6 Elements to Include in Your Branding Style Guide?
The biggest goals for branding are recognition and consistency. These are achieved by:
1. A simple, easy-to-understand font that stays the same for the title and often the subtitle of your business
For example, if your business is “Bella’s’ Blooms,” choose a simple semi-cursive font, and use it for all locations, business cards, flyers, and posters. If you have packaging and stationary, use the storefront font on the packaging.
2. A recognizable color scheme
When selecting your color scheme, be specific in shade and hue. Red is not as specific enough, as crimson is not cranberry. Some businesses are instantly recognizable through specific color choices. Grocery stores, chain restaurants, and home improvement stores stay committed to their colors.
Choose a primary color and a complement color that will act as your signature colors as well as a secondary color palette that will support your signature colors. These are the primary colors you should use when designing a logo or adding color to your business title.
If you have any brick-and-mortar locations, these colors should be utilized as an integral part of the interior design.
3. Shapes that compliment your logo
Framing your logo or business title is almost as important as the name itself. Will the name be set against a rectangle box, a circle, or a flower? Be specific about the use of shapes for design, especially if you create your own custom logo form.
4. A tagline
It’s easy to quote some of the taglines from prominent restaurants, jewelry stores, and banks. Slogans should be short, applicable, and honest. For example, Bella’s Blooms might have the basic tagline of “Say it with flowers.”
Do not permit franchises to change the tagline for your business. Consider having the line quoted in subtext on packaging and with any audio advertising
5. Whitespace and signatures
Complete branding covers even the most minute details, including the amount of space between a logo and title, the placement of a signature on the page, and picture to text ratios permitted on more text-rich publications.
6. Restrictions
To prevent too much diversification with branding, which can confuse consumers, be sure to make your branding style guide restrictive in its application. Be very specific about where fonts, colors, shapes, and quotes are to be used and in what order.
A branding style guide prepares your business for expansion, so you’re not struggling to create a brand retroactively.
As you deliver dependable branding for quality products or service, your business will be that much more successful. Contact us at 4ColorPrint for more information on mindfully crafting promotional branding materials for your business.
