Brand style guides: the key to your brand identity

In MARKETING
19 May 2022
Share

Have you ever seen an advertisement and immediately known which company it belonged to, even if you didn’t glimpse the name? Chances are you recognized certain facets of that company: special fonts, taglines, logos, and color combinations that belong unmistakably to a brand. These elements, and more, make up a brand’s identity. All visual and editorial aspects of a brand’s identity are determined by the brand’s style guide.

On the Calaméo blog we have talked about logos, brand identity and brand image. Next up? Brand style guides, sometimes called graphic charters or brand guidelines. In this article we will discuss the ins and outs of this important document, so let’s dive in!

  1. What is a brand style guide?
  2. Who creates the style guide?
  3. Why and how should you use a style guide?
  4. What is included in a style guide?
  5. Applying your style guide to digital publications

What is a brand style guide?

First thing’s first: what is a brand style guide? A brand style guide is a document that governs all the visual (and sometimes editorial) elements of a company that make it recognizable and unique. It also explains when and how to use these elements. Simply put, a style guide is the key to all communications!

These guides ensure that there is no confusion when it comes to what the brand’s content should look and sound like. Using the guide as a reference, all company communications are consistent across channels and mediums. The style guide can be as detailed as you like; typically, larger companies have more comprehensive style guides because they are more likely to use a wider range of communication channels, and they appear in more places (television, print, online, etc.).

Who creates the style guide?

The creation of brand style guides is best left to professionals. However, it’s a collaborative process: graphic designers or design firms will work with you to create a style guide that suits your company and fits your brand identity. You must decide who you are, your values, and the image you’d like to portray to the world.

Why and how should you use a style guide?

A brand style guide is essential for your company’s brand identity. In order to maintain clear and cohesive communications across all channels, a style guide is the ultimate reference. Internal documents such as slide decks and employee newsletters, external communications such as advertisements or social media posts, plus everything in between: all of this content must look similar and adhere to your brand identity. To achieve this consistency, companies must have a brand style guide. Otherwise, logos may appear in the wrong colors and dimensions, there won’t be a uniform look to your communications, and your tone will be all over the place. Any communication that comes from the company, both internally and externally, should use the style guide as a reference.

What is included in a style guide?

Length and details may vary depending on the company, but a brand style guide is usually made up of the following visual and editorial elements:

Logo

Logos are a crucial part of a brand’s identity, its most visible identifier. Logos are images, texts, or shapes (or a combination of the three) in the company’s color palette that represent the company. A blue bird invokes Twitter, three stripes on a sneaker will certainly mean that they are Adidas, and a swoosh (both the shape and the word) is emblematic of Nike. 

A company’s logo cannot be used haphazardly. The brand style guide should explicitly outline the exact colors and dimensions of the logo. Even the background on which the logo appears is specified in the style guide.

Take Calaméo’s logo, for example. The spacing and colors are exact: the dimensions around the lettering are determined by the height of the green accent, and the colors are specific to our brand.

There are other elements to consider. Do you have a slogan or motto with words as part of your logo? If so, you must clearly state where the slogan goes, how big it can be, the color(s) to use, and when to employ this version of the logo. There are many rules you must define in your brand style guide, especially when it comes to your logo. 

Colors

Companies have specific brand colors, usually two to three, that they use in logos and branding. The style guide will include complementary colors as well. These colors all together are known as the company’s color palette. 

Great thought and care go into a company’s color palette. There are even psychological tricks behind choosing certain colors that the company wants associated with the brand or product. They may want to demonstrate trust, youth, sophistication, or other descriptors.

The brand style guide should outline all the ways to find these colors: a visual representation of the color, HEX and RGB formats, and other formats if necessary. Rather than just “blue” or “red”, companies choose very specific shades of these colors that go well together and set them apart from other brands. These exact shades need to be used every time.

Examples of Calaméo’s color palette using the HEX values

Typeface

Another important element of the brand style guide is typeface. Typeface is the kind of lettering used in communications, which includes fonts. Does your company use only lowercase letters? All capitals? You must include the size, spacing, and color of your typeface in your style guide so employees know exactly how the typeface should look.

Work with a graphic designer to choose the best typeface for your company. Some brands even create their own fonts! Keep in mind that your typeface also reflects your tone– is it silly, serious, elevated? Your typeface must work well with the other elements of your style guide.

Images

Some brand style guidelines include rules about styles of images or photographs to use. These images must fit into the brand’s identity and remain consistent; you should not use a bright and airy photograph one day and then a dark and moody photograph the next. The rules could include using colors from the company’s color palette or desired emotions that the images should evoke (energetic, powerful, soothing). Images are available to download on sites like Getty Images, Shutterstock, or Unsplash, if your company does not have access to a photographer or photography studio to create your own images. However, make sure to check that you have the right to use the images.

Icons

Brand style guides may also include illustrations or icons. Consider the icons you see on a company’s website: a shopping cart to click on when you are ready to purchase or an envelope icon if you want to communicate with the company via email. These icons must be coherent across all platforms. Icons will, much like the rest of the elements of the style guide, reflect the brand identity. Whimsical, rigid, colorful, playful…your icons can express a lot about your brand!

A few of Calaméo’s icons

Tone

Your tone and voice give your brand a personality via the written word. Once you decide who you are, it should be easy to find your company’s tone The brand style guide may include different instructions depending on the channel– perhaps your social media tone will be slightly less formal than that of your advertisements, for example. The guide should include written examples so employees can see how to employ the tone in different situations. Think of the image you want to project, and stay consistent.

Applying your style guide to digital publications

So now that you know all about style guides, it’s time to apply this knowledge to your digital publications! Because digital publishing is a visual medium, consistent brand visuals make all the difference between an amateur-looking document and a professional-grade publication.

With Calaméo, you can personalize your viewer Theme, add your logo, and enrich your content yourself so that your digital publications match your brand identity. With our White Label feature for PLATINUM members, your publications appear in your name and image, without the Calaméo logo. Start your free trial today!

🔎 READ: What content can you publish with Calaméo?

Related Posts
MARKETING

3 tips for updating your approach to analytics

In MARKETING
9 November 2017

When it comes to the statistics you need most for your digital publications, views are probably the first thing that springs to mind. You want to know how often your publications are being read online in order to measure their success with your audience. But the advanced statistics offered by Calaméo let you access data to dig in much deeper and better understand the impact of your digital publications.

In this post, we’ll highlight three ways to make the most out of data for your online publications.

Focus on the fundamentals

Views are undeniably a key metric for anyone publishing digitally. It makes sense to check in on your publications and see how many times they have been displayed.

The more context you have for this information, however, the more valuable it will be to you. A longer data history means that you can distinguish a short-term decline in readership for one of your publications from its overall long-term growth, or even model month-to-month views. In the case of data for your digital publications, more is definitely more.

For more statistics, upgrade today: PREMIUM subscribers have access to six months of stats and PLATINUM subscribers enjoy an unlimited data history.

 Expand your vision

Views may be the basics, but Calaméo’s statistics offer you a wealth of other information. Looking at data that you may not be taking into account yet can refresh your approach to analytics and reveal fresh insights into your readership.

Stats like the average amount of time that readers spend on each page of your publication, or the time of day that your publication is most read may require a bit of interpretation, but they can help you understand your readers’ interaction with your documents.

A relatively even average reading time from page to page could indicate that readers tend to browse your publication. A clear spike in reading time on a particular page, however, suggests that readers are looking for specific information. Similarly, a noticeable peak in views at a certain time of day might correlate to an event mentioned in your publication as readers seek out the details. Add in the quantity, date and time of reader downloads and you begin to have a clearer picture of how your audience makes use of your digital publications.

 Take action

So far we’ve talked about tips for looking at your Calaméo statistics. To take full advantage of your readership data, you can use it to try out changes in your own publications. Knowing what works will let you build on successful features and experiment with areas that you wish to improve.

This applies not only to your content but also to an element of your publication such links. Our PLATINUM plan provides you with a detailed breakdown of clicks for your publications. You can view clicks on external links, audio and video elements in your documents, as well as the CTR (Click-Through Rate) automatically calculated for each.

We’ve already discussed how these statistics can be put to good use in your sales and marketing strategies. The data can also help you to maximize the performance of your external links. By testing different types of placement with our Editor, for example, you can determine how and where to position links most efficiently to engage your readers.

💡 Want even more detailed statistics? PLATINUM subscribers can connect their Calaméo accounts to Google Analytics.

We hope that this post has inspired you to take a new look at how you use Calaméo’s readership statistics. Have any questions? Check out our Help Center or write us anytime at contact@calameo.com.

MARKETING

SEO : 5 tips to improve your ranking

In MARKETING
30 March 2023

The search engine optimization or SEO is a set of techniques to optimize the visibility of a website in search results. It is a major issue for companies that want to improve their visibility on the internet. In this article, we will give you 5 tips to improve your ranking and gain visibility on search engines.

1. Produce quality content

Content is a key element for SEO. Search engines attach great importance to the quality and relevance of content published on a website. It is therefore important to produce original, relevant and quality content to improve your SEO. The content must be structured, easy to read and to understand for the reader.

2. Work on your keywords

Keywords are terms or expressions that describe the content of your website. They allow search engines to understand the subject of your site and to display relevant results for Internet users. It is therefore important to choose your keywords well and to use them strategically in your content. It is also important not to abuse keywords to avoid being penalized by search engines.

3. Optimize the structure of your website

The structure of your website can have an important impact on your SEO. It is important to have a clear and easy-to-navigate site structure for Internet users. Search engines also place great importance on the structure of your website. It is therefore important to optimize the structure of your site by using meta tags, titles and descriptions for each page.

4. Use social media

Social media is a great way to promote your website and improve your SEO. By sharing your content on social media, you can attract new visitors to your website. Links shared on social media can also improve your SEO by increasing the number of links pointing to your website.

5. Assess your results

It is important to regularly monitor your SEO results to know if your efforts are paying off. Use analytics tools to track your traffic, search engine rankings and backlinks. These tools will allow you to know what is working and what is not and adjust your strategy accordingly.

Conclusion

Improving your SEO is a long-term job that requires time and effort. By following these 5 tips, you can improve your SEO and gain visibility on search engines. Don’t forget that SEO is a constantly evolving field, so it’s important to stay on top of the latest trends and regularly update your strategy.