Create your Brand Style Guide 

In the digital age, audiences have personified brands and having a consistent brand personality helps build credibility. Wondering how? 

A brand style guide is the way to go. You can build it in the form of documents or presentations. This guide will list all the rules and dos and don'ts your graphic designers, marketers, brand managers, or web designers will look at when creating content, a website or any publishing assets that will go public. If you're still thinking about how to begin with it, consider the article your path to your brand's style guide.  

Define Your Brand Identity 

Your brand's story has to be in place before you move towards the visual elements. Initiate with defining the core values of your brand. What is the mission of your brand? What does your brand envision? What value are you providing to the audience? 

Having it in your mind is one thing but taking it amongst the audience is another. It would be best if you define the brand identity before your audience or even your competitors start producing it. When deciding on any factor, keep in mind who you are communicating with. What value do you want them to add to your social presence? This process may take a while, but that isn't something you should stress over. Instead, give more profound thought to what your audience will talk about your brand when you are not around.  

Develop Your Brand Elements 

Once your story is ready, your next focus should be on visual elements.  

Logo 

You can begin with creating a logo that resonates with your brand identity; you can creatively make it a combination of pictures or letters or choose either of them. Try to create multiple formats, including a variation of size and coloucolors. This process should be highly thoughtful, as changing your logo every six months will demean your brand image. Also, specify the dos and don'ts of your logo's usage. Search engine Optimizations

Color Palette 

Define your color palette and save them along with their hex codes. So, whether your company is using them or any freelancer or agency you've onboarded, there is no place for any confusion. A combination of 3-4 colours serves well. However, if you want to go ahead with one or two colours and feel the brand objectives will sustain, then there's no harm in that as well. Multiple brands have successfully imprinted their brand identity in the audience's mind with specific colors.  

Typography 

What sort of fonts you'll use in your creatives or messages you roll out for the public eye to see? You can choose two to three font styles of your choice or can curate custom fonts specifically for your brand. Many brands do not want their visual elements to match others, so they have got their custom fonts made. 

Layout 

Document all the layout rules you wish to be adhered to, including margins, grid systems, spacing, icons and button designs that can be incorporated into various projects! 

Be consistent in your representation 

Remember that one friend who is always decked up from head to toe, their attire without a crease, and always polite when they utter even the smallest of sentences. And, one fine day, they look raggedy; it will surely raise many brows. You might wonder which of their facade is true. Taking the same example to a bigger scale, brands communicate with the masses through their look and feel. Curating different personalities across social media can be confusing for the audience. Remember, Consistency is a big-time green flag everywhere!