A style guide is a document collated for one single purpose: consistency. Anything related to the public image of a brand can be part of the style guide: color schemes, the logo (and its use in different contexts), letterheads, social media communications, packaging layouts... you get the idea.

Many people think of a style guide as a clunky, difficult document that narrows the scope of possibilities and makes your life harder. But it's actually the opposite. A good style guide will take the thinking work out of the small nitty-gritty elements so you can focus on the big picture and get creative.

If you're still wondering whether or not your business really needs a comprehensive style guide, ask yourself these questions:

Do you need to create brand consistency?

Okay, so this is more a rhetorical question, the answer is simply "yes". Brand consistency is crucial to effective marketing, because it creates a uniform public image customers can relate to. It may seem like a small issue to you, but if all your communications follow different templates, or your logo colors are only sort-of the same between your email campaigns, website, business cards and packaging, your brand will never feel fully established. An unstable brand is an unreliable brand, and that doesn't bode well for sales.

Do you regularly create branded content?

Again, the answer here should be "yes" if you take your marketing seriously. In the online age, there is really no excuse for not regularly engaging your client base with some form of content; be it an expert blog, Instagram images, or tweets. This content should be consistent in its tone, design, and delivery to reap maximum benefits.

Is more than one person involved in creating your content?

In this early stage of developing your business, you may be doing it all on your own. That might make you think a style guide is useless, because obviously you know what you want. But take it from a seasoned copywriter who is obsessive about consistent grammar – with a million deadlines and tasks dragging you in every direction, you will easily forget if your numbered list blog article from last week used "#1", "Number 1", "1.", "1)" or "1 –" as your preferred format. And you will get sick of looking it up again and again.

A style guide is not only for new employees or outsiders, it's also there to keep you on track.

Oh, and if you answered "yes" to the question, and there are others involved – get a style guide right now. These are not the kinds of questions you want to be answering 15 times a day.

Do you anticipate hiring new content creators any time in the future?

You might have hired a designer who is so on top of their vision they don't need anything to remind them of how to do things right. Brilliant! Except you still need a style guide. If your designer suddenly comes into money and decides to live it up in the Bahamas, or, you know, just gets another job, you'll have a problem.

Best case scenario is you'll have a lengthy training period for new staff to get the hang of things. Worst case scenario you'll be forced into a new look because your new designer can't figure out how their predecessor managed to create that particular effect, or a specific color scheme. There are many valid reasons for re-branding your company, but general staff turnover is not one of them.

Also, if you decide to crowdsource your creative through a site such as DesignCrowd it will help ensure you get the artwork you're after. With up to 480,000 designers competing for your favor, you will want to ensure none of the entries are too far off the mark. By providing a few insights from your style guide, you will be able to steer the designs to suit your brand, without having to even meet with a single designer. You tell them the basics you require, and they can spend the time developing the concepts using thier expertise.

A style guide may seem like a lot of effort to begin with, but in the long run it will seriously boost your brand while saving you lots of time and confusion.

Want More?

Unsure about the best design aspect of your business? Read these articles for clarity:

5 Tips for Incorporating Compelling Design Into Your Twitter Strategy

The 10 Decisions You Will Make When Designing Your Logo

Business Color Palettes - How to Create a Color Palette that Reflects Your Business

Written by Jane Murray on Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Jane Murray is a freelance copywriter based in Sydney. Apart from writing up a storm for the DesignCrowd blog on anything from logo design to Michael Jackson's shoes, she enjoys reading literary science fiction and hanging out with most animals except wasps. Get in touch via LinkedIn.