Last Friday, I had the privilege of attending the style guide review meeting with the Indium Corporation Marcom team and employees from The Paige Group. Until then, I had absolutely no idea how much work went into corporate branding. There are so many rules to follow, and finalizing these rules takes a lot of time and effort.
Prior to attending the meeting, I was given a copy of the style guide to look over. Much to my surprise, the packet was 50 pages long, whereas the previous company style guide was about half the size. As I read through the packet, I couldn’t believe how much information was in it. There were things such as the correct and incorrect way to use the Indium Corporation logo, the approved colors to use, approved fonts, and a very large list of industry acronyms.
The meeting was held at The Paige Group’s office at 11:30am. When we arrived, the conference room was pretty much filled. Up until this one, I had never attended a meeting where the conference room was almost completely full. As soon as I saw how many people were there, I knew how important the meeting was. We were in this meeting until 4pm. Four and a half hours spent talking about fonts, color schemes, logos, and acronyms; which are all things I love, so I was having the time of my life.
I had heard the Marcom team talk about the style guide, and things that needed to be updated in it, but I never knew how extensive the work was to get everything together, and ready to give to employees. There were even more things added to the guide during our meeting, which I thought was incredible because there was already so much information in it, I couldn’t believe there could possibly be more.
I would’ve never known about these rules, had I not attended this meeting, which got me thinking about how careful you have to be to stick to your company’s style guide rules. Your company has an image to uphold, and the style guide helps keep that image intact. If you morph your company's logo, or use the wrong colors, your company's image is being skewed in a different direction, which looks bad on your part and on behalf of the company you work for.
So, if you’re ever thinking about switching your company’s logo color from the approved “corporate green” to that nice blue color you like, pick up your style guide, which is probably sitting in the desk drawer you never open, and check out your company’s style-related rules and regulations.
Best,
Brittney