Making a brand style guide is essential for ensuring consistency across all your brand’s touchpoints. In essence, it acts as a rulebook that defines how your brand looks, sounds and feels, which will help you create a cohesive identity that resonates with your audience. Whether you're a small business or a large organization, a style guide is nothing short of an invaluable tool for professional branding.

In this guide, we’ll explore six straightforward steps for creating a professional, functional and polished style guide for your brand.

Step 1: Define Your Brand Identity

A mood board consisting of 15 images against a white background. Many of the images feature vintage-style hand-drawn typography. The colors blue, red and champagne are prominently featured in multiple images. 
In the Skillshare class “Design a Brand Identity: Create a Compelling Mood Board,” teacher Courtney Eliseo shows students how to create beautiful mood boards that exemplify their brand’s identity. 

Brand identity encompasses the visual, verbal and emotional elements that define how your brand is perceived by your audience. It includes your brand's logo, colors, typography, tone of voice and even the emotions it evokes in your customers.

A strong brand identity can not only set you apart from your competitors but also build trust, loyalty and brand recognition with your audience. But don’t just take our word for it: “Authentic, emotional and purpose-driven branding remains one of the growing trends that will always stand the test of time,” says Khadija El Sharawy, who’s known for her work with brands like Coca-Cola, in Skillshare’s Trendshare 2024 report.  

What to Include

  • Vision: Clearly articulate the future your brand aspires to create. This will set the direction for your brand’s long-term goals.
  • Mission: Describe how your brand intends to achieve its vision. This will act as a blueprint for your daily operations and strategies.
  • Core values: Outline the principles that define your brand’s philosophy and will guide its behavior going forward.

Research Like a Pro

Find style guides from established brands in your industry and note how they integrate their vision, mission and values into their branding. With their guides in mind, look for ways to differentiate your identity while simultaneously staying relevant to your target market.

Top Tips

Leverage a brand archetype framework to clarify your brand’s personality. For example, an adventurous brand might align with the “Explorer” archetype, a humorous brand might best fit the "Jester"  archetype and a compassionate brand might resonate with the “Caregiver” archetype. The archetype you choose can influence your messaging and visuals, so be sure to carefully consider all your options.

Step 2: Establish Your Brand Voice and Tone

An interactive tool titled ‘Find Your Voice / Personality Sliders.’ In it, the user can slide an indicator between two brands of opposing personalities. For example, on the end of the first slider is the brand Chanel and the word ‘elite,’ while at the other end of the same slider is the brand H&M and the word ‘mass appeal.’
In the Skillshare class “Find Your Brand Voice: A Brand First Workshop,” teacher Christ Fredricks helps students find their brand’s voice by comparing it to other, well-established brands like Chanel, Google, Honda and Wells Fargo. 

Brand tone and voice define how your brand communicates with its audience and the personality it conveys through written and spoken content. While the voice will remain constant to reflect your brand's core personality, the tone may vary depending on the context or audience. For instance, your brand’s tone could be more formal in a business proposal and more casual on social media.

By adopting a consistent voice and adapting your brand's tone to each situation, you can build trust, foster emotional connections and create a recognizable and authentic presence across all communication channels.

What to Include

  • Tone guidelines: Specify whether your brand's primary communication style is formal, conversational, playful, authoritative or something else entirely.
  • Language rules: Provide clear guidance on preferred vocabulary choices, sentence structure and phrases.
  • Examples: Showcase sample text that clearly illustrates your favored voice and tone.

Research Like a Pro

Conduct audience research to identify the language and tone your target market prefers. Use surveys, customer feedback and social media analysis to distill your findings even further.

Top Tips

Create a "do’s and don’ts" section with concrete examples. For instance:

  • Do: Use inclusive language to connect with a diverse audience.
  • Don’t: Use overly complicated terminology or jargon that might alienate readers.

Step 3: Set Visual Guidelines

Ten brightly-colored squares of color arranged into five columns in Adobe Illustrator. To the left of the squares is bold black text that reads ‘brand colors.’ The user is using Illustrator’s built-in tools to tweak the color of a bright yellow square. 
In the Skillshare class “Mini Class: Let's Create a Brand Color Palette in Adobe Illustrator!,” teacher Kyle Aaron Parson brings multiple vibrant colors together to create a single cohesive brand color palette. 

Visual guidelines define the visual elements that represent your brand and ensure consistency across all visual touchpoints. They cover aspects such as your brand's logo usage, color schemes, typography and imagery.

By establishing clear rules for how your brand should look, you can create a unified identity that is instantly recognizable and visually appealing. Consistent visuals will help make your brand more memorable, and will also create a cohesive experience for your audience—that's true whether they encounter your branded content online, in print or in physical spaces.

What to Include

  • Logo usage: Specify acceptable variations of your logo (for example, color, monochrome, horizontal or vertical) and prohibited modifications.
  • Color palette: Define your brand’s primary, secondary and accent colors, along with hex, RGB or CMYK codes.
  • Typography: Outline font families for headings, subheadings, body text, social media posts and special use cases.
  • Imagery: Provide guidelines for photos, illustrations and iconography, including your preferred styles and themes.

Research Like a Pro

Look at brands with iconic visual identities like Apple, Nike or Coca-Cola to understand how they maintain visual coherence. Take note of how they balance creativity and innovation with long-term consistency.

Top Tips

Create and refine your color palette using color palette generators like Adobe Color, Coolors or ColorMagic. Remember to test your choices for accessibility to ensure they're easily visible for all your viewers.

Step 4: Create Content Guidelines

Four cards, with one titled ‘write in a clear voice,’ one titled ‘write in a warm voice,’ one titled ‘write in a knowledgeable voice’ and one titled ‘write in a positive voice.’ Each card contains details about how to achieve each voice, such as ‘cut out adverbs,’ ‘write in the active voice’ and ‘provide evidence.’
In the Skillshare class “Tone of Voice: Copywriting Strategies for On-Brand Marketing Copy,” teacher Ruth Clowes shows students how they can achieve different tones of voice simply by changing the way they write.  

Content guidelines provide a framework for creating and managing the written and visual materials that represent your brand. They ensure that all the content you create, whether it’s a blog post, social media update or email campaign, aligns with your brand’s tone, voice and visual identity.

These guidelines are crucial for maintaining consistency across platforms, boosting your brand’s professionalism and making it easier for team members to collaborate effectively.

What to Include

  • Formatting rules: Specify how blogs, emails, social media posts and presentations should be formatted. Include guidelines for headings, bullet points and spacing.
  • Tone for specific platforms: Tailor your content rules for each platform. For instance, your LinkedIn tone may be professional, while your Instagram posts might have a more casual tone.

Research Like a Pro

Analyze content from thriving blogs, newsletters and social media pages to identify formatting trends. Then, try adapting the insights you gain to fit your brand’s identity.

Top Tips

Provide templates for types of content you expect to publish frequently, such as email newsletters or blog posts (more on that in the next step). This will help you save time while also maintaining uniformity across your team.

Step 5: Provide Examples and Templates

A gallery of images open on a Mac computer. The images are all the same size and shape, and all feature a colorful pattern surrounded by a white border. 
In the Skillshare class “Smarter Workflows: Time Saving Social Media Templates,” teacher Rebecca Flaherty demonstrates how the same template can be used to create countless pieces of content.

Examples and templates serve as practical resources within a style guide, helping your team clearly understand how to implement your brand’s guidelines. Examples illustrate the application of brand rules, while templates provide ready-made formats for content creation.

Together, they eliminate guesswork, save time and promote consistency by giving your team a strong starting point for creating materials that align with your brand identity. Well-crafted examples and templates also act as training tools and will help new team members quickly adapt to your branding standards.

What to Include

  • Sample layouts: Include mockups for digital and print materials such as ads, business cards and brochures.
  • Writing samples: Offer text examples for emails, product descriptions and social media captions.
  • Visual mockups: Create prototypes for web pages, app interfaces or physical packaging.

Research Like a Pro

Use tools like Canva for quick template creation, or try Figma for more detailed mockups. When in doubt, get inspiration from successful brands that balance creativity and usability.

Top Tips

Test these resources with your team to identify areas of improvement. Gather feedback to make the templates more intuitive, and then use it to create more refined final versions.

Step 6: Document and Share Your Style Guide

The productivity tool Notion open on a computer. The user has clicked the ‘share’ button and is mousing over options like ‘full access,’ ‘can edit,’ ‘can comment’ and ‘can view.’ An image of the Skillshare teacher controlling the software is superimposed over the view of Notion. 
In the Skillshare class “Notion for Beginners : Build a Life Dashboard for Personal Productivity,” teachers Mike and Matty explain how to share Notion pages with others.  

Documenting and sharing your brand style guide is essential for ensuring that everyone involved in your brand’s communication and design has a clear and consistent reference point. A centralized, well-documented guide eliminates confusion, minimizes errors and speeds up the creative process by providing a single source of truth. It also serves as a valuable training tool for new team members.

By sharing the guide across your team, contractors and stakeholders, you can foster alignment and ensure that your brand identity remains cohesive, no matter who is creating content or designing visuals.

What to Include

  • Formats: Provide the guide in multiple formats, such as a PDF, a digital document or even a printed booklet.
  • Accessibility: Ensure the guide is stored in a centralized and easily accessible location, such as Notion, Google Drive or Trello.

Research Like a Pro

Investigate how successful brands tend to share and manage their style guides. For instance, you'll likely find that digital-first companies often integrate their guides into collaborative platforms for easy updates.

Top Tips

Schedule regular updates to ensure the guide reflects any and all changes in your branding. Notify your team of each update, and provide training sessions to familiarize them with new guidelines.

Bonus Tips for Maintaining Your Style Guide

Creating a comprehensive brand style guide is just the first step. To ensure its continued effectiveness, it’s crucial to maintain and update it as your brand evolves. Why? A style guide that's regularly reviewed and adapted will help keep your brand consistent while staying relevant to changing trends, new platforms and team feedback.

Use these practical tips to keep your style guide fresh and effective for the long haul.

  • Schedule reviews: Conduct quarterly or annual reviews to keep the guide relevant.
  • Seek feedback: Encourage your team to share input on the guide’s usability and clarity.
  • Streamline the onboarding process: Use the guide as a resource for training new employees or contractors, which will help them align with your brand’s standards from day one.
  • Document brand changes: Any major changes to your brand identity—such as a new logo, updated messaging or a shift in target audience—should be reflected in the style guide as soon as possible.
  • Maintain version control: Use version control when updating your guide to keep track of changes and avoid confusion. This can be done by labeling versions (for example, "v1.1", "v2.0" and so on) and making a quick note of what was updated in each one.
  • Encourage flexibility: While consistency is key, also strive to allow room for creativity within the bounds of the guide. This will encourage your team to innovate while still respecting the brand’s core identity.
  • Monitor real-world use: Regularly assess how your style guide is being applied across various channels, from social media to blog posts, to ensure it’s working not just in theory but also in practice.
  • Create a feedback loop: Set up a way for team members to easily report issues or provide suggestions based on their experiences with the guide. This will foster a culture of ongoing collaboration and continuous improvement.

Examples of Brand Style Guides

To see the principles of an effective style guide in action, consider these iconic examples of publicly available guides:

  • Apple: The tech giant's detailed identity guidelines cover logo usage, color choices and more, while its editorial style guide contains a wealth of information about language and communication.
  • Spotify: In its design and branding guidelines, Spotify provides instructions for using its logo, showcasing its signature green color and choosing the right fonts to maintain a sleek, modern brand image.
  • Google: Their developer documentation style guide provides an example of a highly specific style guide that's targeted toward anyone who's writing developer documentation about Google-related products.

Learn Brand Strategy & Design with Skillshare

A thoughtfully crafted style guide is an incredibly powerful asset for building a cohesive and professional brand. It can ensure consistency across every platform, enhance customer trust and streamline your marketing efforts, and all for a low (or even nonexistent) cost. By taking the time to create a detailed style guide, you can build a foundation for long-term success.
Ready to deepen your branding knowledge? Explore Skillshare's library of online brand identity and logo design classes to learn from industry experts. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, a creative professional or just want to brand your side hustle, you can take your business to new heights by gaining a deeper understanding of brand strategy and personal branding.

Written By
Carrie Buchholz

Carrie Buchholz

Carrie Buchholz is a freelance writer who lives in Northern Colorado with her husband and dog.

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