What a brand style guide for a small business should include (with a one-page example)

A brand style guide sounds like something for companies with a marketing department. In a small business its job is plainer. It answers the questions you'd otherwise hear from the printer, the web designer, the sign maker and whoever posts on Instagram, each of them asking separately and each a little differently.

Most small businesses can fit it on one page. To show how, we'll follow an illustrative example through each part: a physiotherapy practice called Fernwood Physio.

Quick answer

• Logo versions: the main logo, a stacked version for narrow spaces and the symbol on its own, with a line on where each one goes.
• Colours with their codes: HEX for screens, and the print values your printer works from.
• Typefaces with their exact names and weights, and a fallback for email and documents.
• Clear space around the logo and the smallest size it may be used at.
• A few things nobody may do to the logo.

Who opens a brand guide, and what they look for

Everyone who works with your brand arrives with one question. Your web designer wants colour codes and typefaces. Printers want to know which colours must match exactly. Whoever makes your social posts needs the version that fits a round profile picture, and the sign maker asks how much empty space the logo needs around it.

Put those answers on one page and people use it. Forty pages with a mission statement on page three tend to stay in a folder, and everyone goes back to guessing.

The one-page version

Nothing on this page was invented for the guide. Each line records a decision made while the logo was being drawn, written down so it survives the next printer, the next website and the next person who joins the practice.

Logo versions, and where each one goes

Most logos need three versions. In the main logo, symbol and name sit side by side; it heads the website and the letterhead. Narrow places get the stacked version, with the name under the symbol. Think of a sign beside a door or the back of a T-shirt. Then there is the symbol alone, made for small squares like the favicon in a browser tab or a profile picture, where the name would be too small to read.

Write down where each one goes. Skip that line and sooner or later the main logo gets squeezed into a round profile picture, its name shrunk to a few pixels.

Colours: codes for screens and for print

Fernwood Physio has three colours. A near-black carries text and the name, a wine red marks the symbol and buttons, and a gold adds warmth. Each one is listed as a HEX code for websites and as RGB values for other screen work.

Print is different. Your printer converts the colours with the profile of their own press, so ask for a printed proof of the gold and the wine before ordering five hundred cards. If something has to match exactly every time, a sign or embroidered clothing for instance, your designer can add a Pantone reference.

The gold also needs a note on where it may be used. On white it reaches a contrast ratio of about 3.2:1, while the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines ask for at least 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text and graphics. So it works in the symbol and in large headings. Small text stays dark. One sentence in the guide prevents a website with gold body text that many people struggle to read.

Typefaces: exact names, weights and a fallback

"A clean modern font" gives a web designer nothing to install. Your guide should name the face and the weight: Outfit semibold for headings, Inter regular for text. Both are free to use under the SIL Open Font License. Note the licence for any typeface you pick, because a font bought for desktop use is often not allowed on a website.

Some places won't let you choose the typeface at all. Email signatures are one, Word and Google documents another. For those, name a fallback such as Arial, which keeps them tidy without anyone installing anything.

Clear space and the smallest size

Clear space is the empty margin a logo needs around it. Measure it with a part of the logo itself, here the height of the F's top bar, and the rule grows with the logo. On a business card that means a few millimetres. On a sign it means several centimetres, and nobody has to convert anything.

The smallest size protects the name. Below about 120 pixels wide on a screen, or 30 millimetres in print, "Fernwood Physio" gets hard to read, so anything smaller uses the symbol on its own. These numbers depend on the logo; a long name or a thin typeface needs a larger minimum. Your designer can check it by printing the logo at a few sizes and looking at it from arm's length.

What a small business can leave out

Guides for large companies cover tone of voice, photography, icon sets and dozens of templates. In a practice of three people those pages get written once and never opened again.

Start with the one page above. Add another only when a real need turns up, say a photography page when you hire a photographer, or social media templates once someone else starts posting for you.

Getting a guide for your logo

If your logo came from our generator, the brand kit download includes a short brand guide with your colours, typefaces and logo versions. It is free; we only ask for an email address.

A guide is most useful when it is made together with the logo, because the clear space, the smallest size and the colour rules come from the way the logo was drawn. Our designers draw a custom logo with you and write its brand guide, with every file the printer and the web designer will ask for.

Checklist for your brand guide

• Three logo versions, each with a line on where it goes
• Every colour with its HEX code, and print values checked on a printed proof
• A note on which colours may be used for small text
• Typefaces with exact names, weights and licence, plus a fallback
• Clear space measured in a part of the logo
• The smallest size for the full logo, and when to switch to the symbol
• Three or four things nobody may do to the logo