« Summary of our services

+ Style guides

The style guide of a company ensures consistent presentation to the world and is mostly the first contact costumers have with your company. Therefore it is very important for your image. However, there is a clear difference between a style guide in its restricted sense and its broadest sense.

STYLE GUIDE: broad definition

A style guide is also often called corporate identity. This definition is about the style of the company and this goes a lot further than purely visual matters. This also deals with communication and the behaviour of employees. These three elements (design, communication and behaviour) deserve to get the same degree of attention during the development of a style guide.

STYLE GUIDE: restricted definition

In the restricted definition we only look at a style guide as the visual identity of an organisation. This only concerns the symbolic part of a corporate identity: logo, colour, typography (font), shapes (straight angles/bends/layout) and pictures.

Why does your style guide need a design?

Unity in visual presentations contributes to a consistent visual look for your business. It will save you money and help you form and maintain the identity of your organisation. A company can design a (renewed) style guide for many reasons.

An amalgamation or a reorganisation can be a good reason, as can be the desire to create a more modern image. The development of a style guide can even have an economic background: e.g. to save a large amount on printing. Specifically, you don’t need that many different envelopes, or that many sizes of blank forms. A final argument can be the belief that the introduction of a style guide can produce a positive change, since a new style guide affects everyone within your company and may stimulate a fresh start.

Some tips

1. Asking any designer to just develop a new logo will nearly always cause problems. Good ideas on their own are not sufficient. A clear briefing, a good schedule and strict price control are at least as important.
2. Make an inventory of all the items that require a style guide: printed matter, as well as cars, clothes, buildings etc. This means there will not be any surprises in the end, as a result of an important element being forgotten.
3. Eventually these preparations will result in a list of necessary requirements for the creation of the guide. At this moment it is important as well to think about an ideal result.
4. Always consider the complete organisational, financial and legal concerns.