10 magically meticulous design style guides | Branding. This is heading directly into geek territory. But we are self-confessed geeks, particularly when it comes to logo design, typography and pictograms. And that leads us to the meticulously regulated world of brand style manuals... A style manual, or style guide, is a set of standards for the design of documents, signage, and any other form of other brand identifier. The reason for their existence is to ensure complete uniformity in style and formatting wherever the brand is used to ensure no dilution of that brand. We love the obsessive nature of these, and so here we've gathered 12 of the best to inspire you when you create your own brand style guides... The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Graphics Standards Manual was created by Danne & Blackburn in 1974 when NASA changed from its original crest-based logo to the 'worm' logotype that we are now familar with.
The manual has recently been revived thanks to a Kickstarter campaign to fund its reissue. 02. 03. 04. 05. 06. 07. Designing Style Guidelines For Brands And Websites. Advertisement A website is never done. Everyone has worked on a project that changed so much after it launched that they no longer wanted it in their portfolio. One way to help those who take over your projects is to produce a style guide. Edward Tufte once said: “Great design is not democratic; it comes from great designers. If the standard is lousy, then develop another standard.” Although there’s no stopping some clients from making their website awful, by creating a style guide, you’re effectively establishing rules for those who take over from you.
Why Create A Style Guide? You’ll have an easy guide to refer to when handing over the project.Makes you look professional. Branding Guidelines: What To Include? Strategic Brand Overview This should be short and sweet. 1See Kew’s branding guidelines2. Kew uses strong photography in its “brand essence” message, with a few paragraphs that both inspire and define the brand. Logos For print and Web, most brands revolve around the logo. Spacing Colors. How To Write A Style Guide | Intelligent Editing. Introduction In publishing and media companies, use of a style guide is the norm. However, style guides can also be useful for any organization that prepares documents for clients and the public. This article is for organizations outside of the publishing industry who can benefit from the introduction of a style guide.
A style guide is a reference point that sets standards for writing documents within your organization. The focus of the style guide is not usually a matter of 'correct' or 'incorrect' grammar or style but, rather, it provides guidance for instances when many possibilities exist. Style guides offer you the chance to present your brand in a consistent way. The rest of this article is structured as follows: How Your Guide Will Be Read (aka 'The Facts of Life') To write an effective style guide, it is important to keep in mind that most people in your company will barely read it. Making Use of Existing Style Guides How do you decide what belongs in your style guide? Conclusion. Brand identity style guides from around the world. This is great! The University of Connecticut has a nice one designed by Peter Good. Web and link to PDF version. (Get the PDF version!)
Peter did a great job of differentiating the three identities a university typically has. – The academic and marketing identity (what most would think of as the main identity). – The athletics or mascot identity. Not designed by Peter and very clearly just for and controlled by the athletics department. UConn has a pretty simple color palette but, many academic systems also include extra Pantone colors to be used for marketing or just for the presidential or university seal (gold, etc.). Stanford University just redid their system too! I also like Vanderbilt University’s. How to Build a Brand Bible & Visual Style Guide. Every brand, from the smallest website or startup, to corporate giants such as Nike or McDonald’s, need a set of branding guidelines and rules to maintain their identity.
This document, which can range from a couple of pages, to several hundred, is the thread that holds together what the public sees from a company. A brand bible establishes the voice and personality of a company, as well as who the public will see, and it governs every aspect of communication from the company. The brand bible is the basis for all interactions on behalf of a company – personal communications, social media, advertising and design. While a brand bible focuses on many things, we are really going to look at how it affects design. What Is a Brand Bible? A brand bible or book is a document that establishes distinct guidelines on how all aspects of a company’s brand will be handled. The brand bible is meant to help employees properly use and communicate the message of a brand.
Logo Usage Fonts and Typography Colors. Do You Need a Style Guide? It’s a simple question: Do you need a style guide? And it has a simple answer: Yes. Any brand, company, blog or webpage that wants to create and maintain consistency and a professional feel should have a style guide. Style guides are a must for any publisher with multiple employees. This is especially important if more than one person will work on any brand elements (from the website to printed materials), and to ensure that transitions between employees are seamless in the eyes of users. Today, we take a look at well-documented style guide from MailChimp, and highlight things you can take away in creating your own document for the first time. What Is a Style Guide? A style guide is the ultimate resource for visual and writing tone for your brand.
Style guides cover two big areas: visuals and writing. A style guide is a fluid document and once written should be updated regularly. MailChimp’s “Voice and Tone” style guide follows this concept. Getting Started Visual Style Writing Style. How to Write Your Business's Image Style Guide - Dummies. Well-branded businesses have rules, called style guidelines, about how their brand images may be used.
Image style guidelines protect the consistency of your business image in the marketplace. Create your business's style guidelines to steer how your business's brand and image are used: Logo: Your logo is the face of your business on marketing materials. Ensure that it is presented cleanly and without unnecessary alteration by answering the following questions in your style guidelines: When your logo appears in black ink, what color backgrounds may be used? When your logo appears in white ink (called a reverse), what color backgrounds may be used?
When your logo appears in color, what ink color or colors may be used? What's the smallest size that can be used for your logo? Limit the number of fonts that you combine in any single marketing piece. Create a Style Guide for Your Brand. Even the smallest, simplest web presence needs consistency. Consistency of design, sure. But also of language. Consistency is reassuring. It shows control and care. And in an unpredictable place like the Wild Wild Web, it can be even more valuable than in other media. Your style guide is your starting point for ensuring your online presence is consistent. What is a style guide? A style guide is a document that provides guidelines for the way your brand must be presented. That might include visual styles—rules defining the way the brand will look—as well as language styles influencing the way the brand will sound or read. In some organisations, the style guide’s printed, kept in a ring binder, and laughingly referred to as the “brand bible”.
In others it’s a simple electronic document containing images of the logo, a brand vocabulary, and a reference to a popular style manual, like the Chicago Manual of Style , which is to be used in any cases the house style guide doesn’t cover. It’s done! Sample Brand and Style Guide. In an effort to streamline and document CPAC's design process and communication efforts, it created these brand guidelines.
The document is designed include the necessary information while demonstrating CPAC's brand. The printed version acts as a tool, in that it functions similar to a paint swatch. A user can see how colors look side by side or against black or white text. The style guidelines, which offer specific information about CPAC's grammar, formatting and other style choices are located on the back of the guide to provide one tool for all communication material. If you do not have the capacity to create a designed version of brand and style guidelines, consider a simplified document that includes bullet points of the relevant information as it relates to your work.
Download this document CPAC Brand Guidelines.pdf 3.25 MB 12 pages More In This Series. A List of Branding Style Guides: Corporate, Academic and Government Brand Manual/Logo Guideline Examples » The ENGINE Blog » ENGINE Industries: Atlanta, Georgia Web Design.
We’re about to pitch the creation of a branding style guide to one of our clients. I was putting together an example list of style guides used by well-known companies, planning to include the list in our proposal. But it seemed smarter to expand it into a gigantic list and post it here, so we can reuse it — and you can benefit from it too. First: What’s a branding style guide? It’s a document meant to ensure an organization’s members are all on the same page as far as official logos, logo usage, colors, fonts, stationery, images, and so on go.
It’s good for any organization of any size to think about what messages its print and web materials convey, and then to make sure the whole team stays on message. Second: Why look at a brand guide made for somebody else’s company? A Short List Just want to see five or so decent style guides, mostly made by organizations you’ve heard of? The Long List ABANDON ALL HOPE OF NOT SEEING BRANDING GUIDES, YE WHO KEEP READING. Academic Branding Style Guides. Raising Standards: Tips for Creating a Brand Style Guide | Chalkboard Blog | Web Design, Marketing, Business and Charleston SC. Protecting a brand’s identity can seem like a daunting task, especially when you need to communicate its importance to a client. That’s why it’s a great idea to include a Visual Standards Manual (aka brand style guide) with any logo you design for a client, so they have a reference point before making major decisions. The guide will protect them from diluting the logo’s message thus weakening the brand’s overall identity in the marketplace.
The manual itself can range from a just a couple simple pages to what appears to be a thick novel. Obviously, what you offer depends on your clients’ specific needs. Step 1: Draw a layout. There are a few basic pages that most manuals include, but there are literally hundreds of rules you could chose to incorporate as well. Narrowing it down before you start will save you time and a headache later. Step 2: Make a master. Step 3: Add a contents page and directives.
Color Palette: Include Pantone colors for printing. Step 4: They’ll have questions.