- [Voiceover] Style guides tend to intimidate
a lot of designers, that's mainly because
we tend to think of those huge tomes
that large branding agencies love to create
and showcase as their own proprietary process.
From my experience, most of them are over-complicated
and like most long-winded publications,
are mostly ignored as well.
I like keeping the process simple so let me show you
how I deliver style guides to my own clients.
Now, most of my own clients are small business owners
so I don't go overboard when it comes
delivering the final artwork.
I like putting it in a format that's easy
to discern and easy to use.
If you make it overly complicated,
they're not gonna use it and it's gonna
degradate their brand as they move forward
and produce different things, so this shows you
an example of one small client based out of Iowa,
and he's a pest control guy and so this was the brand
I created for him, and it's just simply
a vertical and a horizontal mark
and I provided this CMYK, so if I zoom in on this one,
you can see all the information I provide
for the CMYK version of this vertical mark
and it calls out the colors used, the Pantone process
colors used, it defines the usage of this logo,
what it could be used for, and it does that
both for the horizontal, both for the vertical,
and then the next line item down it's the spot color
iteration at the exact same artwork,
once again calling out the Pantone color for both iterations
and then a simplified black and white
format on this logo mark.
Now, when I deliver the final art files to the client,
all the names that I use here, if we zoom in
on the black and white name, the file for this one will be
HPCLOGO, Black and White one, and so
all the logo files that will be in the folder
I delivered to them as their logo files folder
will correspond to this PDF, so they always know
what file to provide to a vendor
and I encourage them that when they work with a vendor,
they provide the PDF style guide I give to them,
to their vendor and let the vendor
tell 'em what file to send them.
That way, the vendor knows exactly what the color
needs to be, and it holds them accountable
so it keeps the continuity of the brand intact
moving forward as they work on various projects.
So this is about as simple as it gets.
Now it can get a little more complex
when it's a different client.
Here's another project I worked on.
You saw me how I built the shading
for this particular brand design for a skateboard company
that produces bearings for skateboards
called Dragon Bearings, and this was the
first page of a three page PDF style guide
that I provided for him, once again,
it breaks it down into both CMYK
for vertical and horizontal format,
the spot color iteration and the black and white
simplification of both of those marks.
On the second page of this though, I've given him
just the isolated brand mark alone
in both CMYK and spot color, and also
a secondary format for horizontal,
which kind of uses shape recognition of an O
and replaces it with the brand mark as well,
and broke that down into the black and white usage as well.
Another page is where I simplify the art
into a reverse image, both with using flat colors
and with just simple white.
And so I did this so it made context of use
easier for him moving forward, and I provided
all the final logo art files that associate
with all the names on this and you can check
all these out in the exercise files.
I have a few examples of the source logo files
as well as the PDFs that correspond with them
so make sure to check them out.
Let's take a look at one more, and this is Seed Collective,
so this was all the final color art files.
In this case, because this logo design
had so many colors in it, I didn't bother to
spec spot color, this would be a design
where they would always print it in process color,
or if they're using a simplified color
of one color format as shown in the header here,
then it could be used as a one color spot print as well,
but in this case I created different iterations
such as an encapsulated version of their logo
along with both the vertical, horizontal,
and just their brand mark isolated on its own,
but here's what the black and white page would look like.
So sometimes I'll separate the different color formats,
whether it's processed, spot, or black and white,
and put 'em on their own page, but it all uses
the same kind of formatting as you can see here.
And then the next one would be
just the reverse options of this logo.
I should point out that when I work with large agencies,
I don't do any of this.
I just deliver the final logo design
and they have their own in-house people
build the style guide, because they have their own
proprietary way of doing that.
But for my own clients I try to make the whole
experience of getting a logo designed,
and the delivery of the final logo assets
as painless and helpful as possible.
And providing them with a well organized style guide
like this, will communicate all the necessary things
they need to keep in mind so that their brand stays
consistent and the continuity stays intact moving forward.