Style Guide
A document defining the visual and verbal rules of a brand or product — logo use, colour, type, spacing, imagery and tone of voice.
Deliverables & ArtifactsA style guide records decisions so they do not have to be re-made or re-argued: which logo lock-up on which background, the type scale and when to use each step, the palette with contrast requirements, how photography is treated, and how the company writes. It is documentation, and its usefulness is proportional to how specific it is — 'use the brand blue confidently' helps nobody.
It is a smaller commitment than a design system, which adds working components and a contribution process. For an early-stage company a good style guide is usually the correct investment: it stops drift across marketing, product and pitch materials without the maintenance burden of a component library nobody has time to keep current.
In practice
A startup's decks, site and app used four typefaces between them because each was made by a different contractor. Before: every new asset needed a founder to arbitrate. After a six-page guide fixing two typefaces, a five-step scale and one palette, contractors matched on the first attempt. The catch — enforcing it meant redoing the existing sales deck.
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You may ask
Frequently Asked Questions
Is a style guide the same as a design system?
No. A style guide documents rules; a design system also ships the implemented components and the process for changing them. A style guide is a PDF or a page, a design system is living code plus documentation.
How long should a style guide be?
Short enough that people read it. Six to fifteen pages covering logo, colour, type, spacing, imagery and voice covers most needs; hundred-page brand bibles are usually written to be admired rather than used.
Related terms
All terms- Brand IdentityThe system of names, marks, type, colour and voice that makes a company recognisable and consistent everywhere it appears.
- Design SystemThe single source of truth for how a product looks and behaves: tokens, components, patterns, usage rules and the process for changing them.
- Design TokenA named variable holding one design decision — a colour, spacing step, radius or type size — so the value can change everywhere from one place.
- Visual DesignThe craft of composition, colour, typography and imagery — how an interface or asset looks, and what that appearance communicates.
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