Try the Most Accurate AI Detector on the Market
Our patented AI checker is the most accurate detector on the market! Don't believe us? Try it for yourself!
You already know how consistency is the cornerstone of your brand.
The same fonts, colors, and style that say “This is unmistakably [brand]”.
To establish a cohesive brand style that clearly communicates brand values and style, your style guide is essential.
A style guide isn’t just a “once and done” process. It’s an evolving document that lays out all the rules and standards for how you present and structure your content. It guides the approach and tone of every piece you produce.
Let’s take a closer look.
Looking for a best-in-class suite of patented editorial tools? Check out the Originality.ai Grammar Checker, AI Checker, and Content Optimizer.
A style guide is essentially a set of directions that outline how content needs to be created and formatted.
It may cover everything from capitalization rules and citation formats to color codes and fonts.
In this guide, we’ll take a closer look at what goes into both an editorial style guide and a brand style guide, so that you can optionally choose to combine them into one document if you wish to have a central go-to source.
Beyond having a single “source” to refer to for questions about how text or images should be formatted, there are several reasons to consider taking the time to create a style guide.
Here are some of the biggest benefits of a style guide:
Whether you have one person creating all of your content assets or you’ve got a large pool of contributors, having a style guide makes sure that every piece of content and every communication is consistent and unified under the larger brand umbrella.
Clear, accessible style guidelines make onboarding new team members faster and editorial reviews even easier since every article is checked against the same standards.
Consistent fonts, image styles, and layouts of everything from blog posts to social media captions become recognizable over time and are tied to your brand.
As people begin to identify with and understand your values, the quality of your content helps shape their responses. That in itself delivers a better user experience, no matter what marketing channel the user is interacting with.
Although every company is different and each one has a preferred approach to handling what goes into a style guide, in general, with an editorial style guide, you’ll find elements like:
This section includes which language standard to follow (for instance, American English versus British English) and how to handle specialized terms. It might include country or region-specific differences, like preferring the spelling color versus colour, or organize versus organise.
This is the section where you can insist on the use of the Oxford comma. It covers how you want to use different types of punctuation, including em dashes, quotation marks and ellipses. For instance, you might include that serial commas are required in lists, or that em dashes should (or should not) have spaces on each side.
Do you want your content to follow title case or sentence case capitalization rules when it comes to headings? How will you treat proper nouns or internal capitalization? Should it be eCommerce or e-commerce or e-Commerce? This is the section to cover that.
How will you credit sources and references? Which academic style will you use (APA, MLA or Chicago) or will you use your own internal system? How are things like footnotes and endnotes handled? Are in-text citations in parentheses required?
The document structure section details how you’ll handle headings, subheadings, summaries, bulleted and numbered lists, as well as the length of paragraphs. For instance, you might choose to make headings always appear in the form of a question or as an active-voice statement.
How formal do you want your tone to be? Is your brand more conversational or more corporate? Make a list of words or phrases to avoid and others that you recommend incorporating.
Now that you have a better idea of what goes into an editorial style guide, let’s turn our attention to a brand style guide.
As well as covering grammar, citations, and tone, in the age of AI, it’s essential to include AI policies in an editorial style guide. Clarify whether AI tools are (or are not) permitted and, if so, to what extent. That way, the entire team is on the same page from the beginning of the project.
Also, clarify if an AI Checker will be used to detect potential instances of AI text as part of the editing process.
Brand style guides make sure that every piece you publish, whether it’s a carousel on Instagram or a video on TikTok, follows the same visual identity. Brand style guides most commonly include:
Include the main logo (as well as versions for both vertical and horizontal use) and guidelines for how much space to include around the logo. Include any changes that aren’t allowed to be made to the logo, such as adding drop-shadows, changing the color scheme or editing the proportions of the logo.
This section of the brand style guide is tailored for graphic designers, but it’s important for content creators as well, who might be creating charts or images on platforms like Canva.
The color palette lays out the main brand colors along with their exact color codes (RGB, CMYK and codes for HTML). It also includes secondary colors as well as how to combine them and what level of contrast to include for better accessibility.
Includes which fonts should be used for headings, subheadings, body text, and other special sections like pull quotes. It may also recommend web-specific fonts or system fonts if the main font you want to use isn’t available online.
This section includes the ideal photography or imagery setup, such as how much natural light to include, how much contrast belongs in the composition, and so on.
It most commonly shows what’s acceptable and what isn’t in terms of image filters or overlays, since it’s impossible to cover every specific type of imagery and photo!
Communicates the brand’s personality or brand voice within a few words, like warm, energizing, or approachable. It might also include example headlines, taglines, and social media captions.
Ready to create your own style guide? Here are some top tips to consider:
For a complete guide, check out this resource: How to Create a Style Guide.
As your brand evolves, it’s always a good idea to go back and make sure that the guide still stays true to the vision and tone you’re looking to portray.
Keep in mind that a well-written style guide is more than just a rulebook — it’s the guide rails for every piece of content and every design you publish.
By focusing on both the editorial and branding parts of the style guide, you make sure that from blog posts to brochures, every detail sounds like your brand.
Get a best-in-class suite of patented editorial tools! Check out the Originality.ai Grammar Checker, AI Checker, and Content Optimizer.
Then, learn more editorial tips and best practices:
