How To Easily Make Your Branding Consistent
Why Brand Consistency Matters
When you’re driving on the freeway and see the Mcdonald’s arches, you know immediately that there’s a Mcdonald’s nearby. You don’t have to read a sign or ask anyone for directions, you know exactly where it is and what they have to offer you.
You may not even like Mcdonald’s. You might hate Mcdonald’s with every ounce of your being, yet… when you see their sign, you know exactly where they are, who they are, and what their product is.
This is all because of the strength of the Mcdonald’s brand, and a HUGE part of that is because of the consistency of their branding.
Mcdonald’s has spent decades building their brand to be consistent and recognizable.
If you hum the “bada da da da!” jingle… people will probably respond with “I’m lovin’ it” because they have done such a good job at getting their branding out there.
But they’re Mcdonald’s… a corporation with endless amounts of capital to throw at their branding and marketing, so what is a regular person supposed to do?
Easy… Create a Branding Style Guide.
You don’t have to be a $150 billion dollar corporation like Mcdonald’s to make a Branding Style Guide, in fact, we have a template that can help you get it done NOW!
Creating A Branding Style Guide
“What is a Branding Style Guide?”, you may be wondering…
It’s simply a document that lists all of the details of your branding to ensure that you, and your employees, keep everything uniform.
Even something as simple as changing the font you use can have an impact on your brand, and while it may seem like it’s “not a big deal”, it is.
You need to have a way to clearly communicate your branding goals and guidelines to other people.
Once you have your Branding Style Guide finished, there’ll be no excuse for anyone to ever use the incorrect colors, logo, or even font, again.
You DON’T have to make your Branding Style Guide super fancy, but if you want something fancy, check out our Branding Style Guide Template.
What Needs To Be Included In A Branding Style Guide
To make a proper Branding Style Guide, there’s a few elements you’re going to need to include, that way everyone is on the same page.
Things to include:
Brand Purpose/ Mission Statement
This helps marketers, employees, vendors, and your sales team understand who you are and what you’re trying to accomplish. As Simon Sinek would say (he even wrote a book about it) “Start with ‘why?’.”
Logo Usage
Here you can include which logos you’d like to use, how they should be used, your preferred layout, and any specific preferences you have. For example, we don’t like to rotate our logo, so we specifically mentioned that.
Your Primary Brand Colors
Going back to the Mcdonald’s example, have you ever noticed that the colors they use are primarily red and yellow? Some brands you can identify by just seeing their colors, and it’s very important to keep your color scheme in mind when building your brand.
Your Preferred Fonts
Similarly to color schemes, the fonts you use can make a huge impact on the success of your brand. Once you find a font or two that look great and are readable, stick to them.
Approved Graphics
This can be an entire gallery of media resources, OR just a few examples of the types of graphics you are okay with using. You can list all of your preferences here, and keep track of different resources, like stock photo services you use.
Social Media Links/ Contact Information
In a perfect world we would all have our social media links memorized, but that’s seldom the case in the real world. Having a quick reference to all of your important links is a great way to save time when you’re creating content.
Here’s Our Branding Style Guide Template
We’ve already went through the trouble of making a wonderful Branding and Style Guide Template, as well as a Logo Template, and an E-Mail Signature Template(for making your E-Mails stand out) with the free version of Canva.
This will save you some time and make the process of standardizing your Branding much easier.
All you really have to do is enter in your relevant information and the media you want to use, and you’ll be ready to go!
You COULD make your own from scratch, but why re-invent the wheel? The price of your time is worth more than the cost, so check it out here!