Logos and the essential visual brand assets should be consistent throughout all print and digital mediums.
If you’re a startup or an established player that’s growing, it can be easy to lose control of your brand’s image. Taking simple steps to organize your visual assets will help you maintain consistency while launching new products, opening new locations, adding more employees, working with vendors, and creating new marketing campaigns and materials.
Following a few simple guidelines will help you maintain your brand consistency:
1. Create a style guide. A style guide is a set of standards for the writing and design of documents, either for general use or for a specific publication, organization, or field. A branding style guide will define what images can be used, how, and in what variations. This includes specific design descriptions and color codes for print and digital mediums. The size and scope of a style guide depend on the number of assets and the size of the organization.
If you’re a startup or smaller organization with a limited set of brand assets, consider using these elements for your brand’s style guide: a description of the brand experience, writing tone and style, color codes (Pantone, RGB, HEX, etc.), acceptable fonts types, logo specifications and examples of proper and improper use, and printing guidelines.
2. Assign someone in your organization to enforce the style rules and guidelines. If no one is responsible for it in your company, then it won’t be followed.
3. Consider using an outside marketing agency to manage your assets. Companies can save time and money and ensure consistency and quality by using an outside agency.