True collaboration means combining everyone’s strengths and skills to accomplish a common goal or project. Picture this: Your team needs to create a brochure that reflects updates to the company’s services. One person will write the copy, another will design the graphics. A third person will format the brochure’s layout to fit all the important information. The brochure draft will be passed back and forth over the course of several days, reviewed, and finally sent to the printer. The printer reaches out late in the day, asking for final approval, and it’s then that you notice something: Your company’s name is missing a minor but important element, ‘the’. Quickly, you correct the copy and check over the rest of the brochure, finding other inconsistencies, and spend the rest of the afternoon revising and finally approving the document. But you’ve lost valuable time, and now wonder why all the correct titles, brand names, and industry-specific terminology are not known by everyone in the company.
The above scenario illustrates just one reason why every business needs its own unique style guide.
More than a book of correct grammar, a style guide is a set of standards (in this case, for a specific company) for all things written, designed, formatted, or produced that ensures consistency across an organization. A visual roadmap of sorts, a style guide lays the guardrails for a company’s voice and visual identity, and is a centralized reference point that streamlines everything from content creation to strengthening brand recognition. Also, as seen in the example above, a style guide reduces the chance of errors that may end up having costly consequences.
Why does a style guide matter?
Consistency. A style guide helps maintain a uniform voice, tone, and visual style (such as fonts, colors, and grammar) across all channels, even with multiple creators. It also preserves a company’s voice and visual identity, even through the flux of personnel.
Saves time. It’s a resource guide for what you need to do and how to do it, quickly and efficiently. A well-thought-out style guide provides instant answers to common formatting or writing questions, speeding up the editing process.
Simplifies Onboarding: New team members or contractors can quickly learn the required brand voice and styling, facilitating easier collaboration.
What’s in a style guide?
An individual company or organization may have different guidelines for a style guide, but in general, it should include clear information regarding:
The brand’s voice: Whether conversational or authoritative, a style guide includes sample sentences or paragraphs on voice and tone, which can be particularly helpful for digital delivery of information. Additionally, this is a great place to add the business mission statement, company vision, and values, if applicable.
A writing style: Grammar nerds, listen up! A comprehensive style guide literally spells out the rules for punctuation, capitalization, and spelling for any company-related term. Provide an example if necessary for clarification. Be sure to include any acronyms, abbreviations, and geographical locations (if relevant). Also important: The company’s formal name. Is there a definite article (the) or an indefinite article (a or an) in the name or tagline? Don’t forget to include it!
Most companies utilize AP Style, the standard for American journalism. It is also used in public relations and news-oriented marketing, particularly when media releases, brochures, and other community-facing information are being distributed.
Design standards: Color palettes, typography, and image styles are critical for maintaining a consistent brand. Add in the accepted logo formats as well (some companies have several versions), and be clear with sizing. This doesn’t have to be a complicated guideline. Think simply, and envision what would be most used by team members and recognized by customers or clients. Even having one page of the brand’s main colors and font styles (heading and body fonts) can be enough.
Formatting: A style guide should also include guidelines for headers, spacing, and citations ( an in-copy or bibliographic reference giving credit to original authors for ideas, data, or quotes used in a paper).
Where should we keep our style guide?
A company’s style guide should be available and accessible to all team members, ideally in both electronic and print formats. For digital files, create a .pdf series and store it in Google Drive, OneDrive, or Dropbox. If the business has a brick-and-mortar office, print the style guide, place it in a binder, and store it in a common area. Don’t forget to roll out the new style guide at a team meeting, either, so everyone can ask questions and clarify issues.
Not sure how to begin the style guide process? Ovibos Consulting wordsmiths are up to the task! Our content wizards will work with you to design and create a personalized style guide tailored to your company, and can even conduct a training session to ensure every member of your team is comfortable with the guidelines. Reach out to [email protected], and we’ll schedule a time to discuss your specific needs.
Looking for an Alaska style guide?
We created a style guide for our Alaska clients. We send it out with our newsletter. If you haven’t received, you can sign up to our “Ovibos Huddle” newsletter here or reach out to us via email.