Style Guides: Part One in a Four Part Series

Keeping your messaging consistent is one of the most important aspects of building a strong brand. That’s why many companies put together style guides. Style guides are company standards for how a logo and other brand information are to be used. They usually include regulations on color palettes, spacing, font usage, layout, proper logo use, and so forth. We’ll be exploring all these things in this series. 

Style guides can range from simple & to the point (S & H Solutions (PDF)) to detailed and complex (WebEx Style Guide (PDF)). Review these style guides to see some of the basics each company includes to keep their brands consistent.

Brochure Design Part 3: Make it Actionable

We’ve discussed catching the eye of your audience and making your brochure easy to follow. Now let’s explore perhaps the most important part: making it actionable. By this I mean leading your audience to do something now that they have some information.

What is your call to action? Do you want them to walk into your store, call your 800 number, log on to your website, refer a friend, etc? If your brochure doesn’t make it clear what you want your audience to do and provide a way they can take the next step, it will be useless. You need to create what I call an  Actionable Invitation.

You should design your brochure around that desired action. Consider these questions:

What colors will draw people to my Actionable Invitation?
What words, styles, fonts, shapes, and feelings appeal to my target audience?
What do I want them to see first?
What do I want them to see last?
How will the brochure be opened/browsed?
How personal will it be?
How direct should it be?

As you can see, there’s a lot to think about from a designer’s perspective. But thinking this way will allow you to produce a valuable brochure that will make a difference in your company.