Do you express your creativity online?
Are you a blogger, graphic designer, or virtual assistant?
If you have a creative online presence, it is important to create a consistent look and feel across all posts , images, files, and products.
A style guide captures all the relative information in one place.
If you’re a Virtual Assistant (VA) you may need to create one for your personal site as well as one for each client.
If you’re a graphic artist, your site designs, ebook covers, products, logos and branding should be consistent. Create a separate style guide for projects and clients.
If you’re a blogger a style guide is a must!
- Create a style guide for your blog or website
- Provide a copy to each member of your staff including virtual assistants & designers
A good quality, consistent style provides the reader with continuity. Unless you’re a site like Mashable, the reader should not be able to tell if your site has multiple authors or content producers.
Guest posts should follow your style guide, but indicate guest author’s name - Review at least annually to make sure all branding is up-to-date and still fits within your business and brand goals.
- Update the style guide anytime you rebrand or change your website them
When referring to color, keep in mind :
- CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) color code used for print design
- RGB (red/green/blue) color codes used for digital design
What’s in a style guide?
A style guide has relative information for the elements, colors, and fonts used in your brand.
Download your free style guide and follow along
Core Values, Tone & Mood
- Capture your core values and the promises you’re making with your readers
- Document your mood, what your brand is and is not
- Define the tone of your blog
Brand Colors
- Pick colors that match your values, mood and tone
- Use palettegenerator.com or other online tool to generate a color palette. Upload a photo and in a few seconds, you’ll get a color palette with HEX color codes, some even include the RGB & CMYK codes
- Use Adobe color wheel to find complementary colors
- Pick 4 colors. A primary, Secondary, Tertiary and highlight colors
- Capture the HEX#, CMYK# & RGB#s for each color
Brand Logo Variations
- Insert your logo in color & black & white logo, full size
Shape Variations (optional, you may not have these on your site)
- Document number icons, shapes, arrows and lines.
- Capture images of textures that you will use
Typography
- Choose font family and font names
pick a font that is easy to read - Define the font size & style
- Determine text alignment, decoration & transform
- Capture the HEX#, CMYK# & RGB#s for each color
select a color that is easy on the eyes
I love yellow, bright pink and green as much as the next person but some tones of those colors are very hard on the eyes - Pick no more than 3 fonts
too many fonts makes your site feel cluttered
Call to Action
- Standardize your Call to Action buttons
- Capture the HEX#, CMYK# & RGB#s for each color
- Choose font family and font names
Images
- Standardize blog and social media images
- Standardize the text overlay and color
- Capture social media icon
Include headshot Images
Include Signature Image
- Image for your newsletter header
- Image for your email closing
Remember your blog style guide serves as a communication tool between you and your team.
Documenting and imbedding your images serves as a backup in the event you have to restore your website or child theme CSS settings. You’ll be grateful you took the time to have your branding and styles documented.
Planning upfront will save a lot of headache, time, and money on the backend.
A blog or website that is clean, crisp, and uncluttered
- is easier to read
- welcoming to your reader
- and converts your readers into subscribers
Think of your style guide as an insurance policy.
You may never need it, but if you do; you’ll be glad you put forth the effort!
[bctt tweet=”UR Style Guide is UR Ins Policy. U hope U never need it, but you’ll be glad if you do! Check out the FREE Blogger Style Guide “]
