Looking for style guide examples to inspire your brand?—I’ve compiled an enormous list of some of the best brands and their style guides.

If you want to build recognition and differentiation, you need to pay close attention to how your brand assets are being used.

Branding is all about consistency and style guides are tools to help you achieve that.

Best brands stick in our brains because they are very consistent in the way they use their logo, fonts, colors and other visual assets.

When we see these logos, fonts and colors consistently over time and on different applications, they become instantly recognizable and bring a sense of reliability and security.

On the other hand, when use see logos, fonts and colors being used inconsistently, it devalues the brand in our eyes or outright confuses us.

Table of Contents:

1. What is a brand style guide?
2. Why style guides are important?
3. Best style guide examples
4. Who creates a style guide?
5. What is included in a style guide?
6. How much does a style guide cost?
7. How to create a style guide?

That's why you need to establish a solid style guide to ensure proper use of your brand assets.

A good brand presence is defined by the repetition of the same logo, fonts, colors, and images used consistently across all communication.

Moreover, you will get everyone from internal teams to external clients on the same page, so that collectively you can build a strong brand presence.

PS. If you want to learn how to create a style guide—check out my YouTube video.

1. What is a brand style guide?

A brand style guide, as the name suggests, is a guide that establishes rules for how a brand should be presented.

A style guide is a rulebook that specifies the look and feel of a brand.

It specifies on how to use the brand from both: graphic and language perspective.

These guidelines help graphic designers, marketers, web developers, and other creatives stay “on brand” in everything they create.

2. Why style guides are important?

A style guide improves communication by ensuring consistency both within a piece of communication, and across multiple applications.

In a nutshell, a style guide helps to ensure a great brand experience.

This simply means that no matter how, when or where a user experiences a brand, it always feels like the same one.

Target audience is experiencing the same underlying traits across every brand touch-point.

3. Best style guide examples

The best way to understand what a style guide is and what should be inside is by looking at some of the best style guide examples.

I’ve compiled a list of 100 famous brands and their style guides.

That way you can see some of the practices and use it as your inspiration for the next branding project.

Below it the list, just open the links in new window to check them out—they're all PDFs.

You can also bookmark this page for future reference.

100+ Best Brand Style Guides

1. Apple Identity Guidelines
2. Samsung Visual identity Guide
3. Cisco Brand Book
4. National Geographic Style Guide
5. Slack Brand Guidelines
6. NASA Graphics Manual
7. Twitter Brand Guidelines
8. Tesla Branding Manual
9. Deloitte Global Brand Guidelines
10. Dell Brand Identity Standards
11. XBOX Brand Guidelines
12. L’Oréal Graphic Guidelines
13. ASICS Brand Style Guide
14. Dell Brand Standards
15. IBM Developer Brand System Guidelines
16. Yale University Brand Guidelines
17. Peloton Commercial Marketing Guidelines
18. New Balance Brand Bible
19. Hyundai Identity Guidelines
20. GoDaddy Trademark Guidelines
21. Umbro Brand Standards Document
22. Adobe Corporate Brand Guide
23. Trip Advisor Branding Style Guide
24. Avast Brand & Logo Guidelines
25. Snapchat Brand Playbook
26. Pinterest Brand Guidelines
27. Jaguar Style Guide
28. Uber Brand System Quick Guide
29. UPS Brand Guidelines
30. TESCO Brand Toolkit & Guideline
31. Walmart Brand Guidelines
32. Mitsubishi Visual Identity Guideline
33. Kryptonite Brand Manual
34. The Emirates Logo Usage Guidelines
35. Aetna Logo Usage Guidelines
36. Xiaomi Visual Identity Guideline
37. Michelin Brand Usage
38. BMW Advertising Guidelines
39. Alaska Airlines Identity Style Guide
40. Target Brand Guidelines
41. Domino’s Brand Manual
42. British Rail Corporate Identity Manual
43. Sony Brand Identity Guidelines
44. Air Asia Style Guide
45. Yamaha Logo Usage Guideline
46. Formula 1 Brand Guidelines
47. Windows Logo Usage Guide
48. Honda Brand Design Style Guide
49. Santander Style Guidelines
50. ESPN Brand Identity Guide
51. Casio Logo Guide
52. Motorola Style Guide
53. Pfizer Brand Guidelines
54. American Express Communication Guide
55. Lyft Brand Manual
56. The North Face Brand Guide
57. Coca-Cola Identity Style Guide
58. Dropbox Brand Guidelines
59. Mercedes-Bens Brand Elements
60. Spotify Brand Style Guidelines
61. TEDx Branding Guidelines
62. Ford Brand Book
63. PayPal Corporate Master Brand Guidelines
64. Hard Rock Hotel Brand Identity Guidelines
65. FIAT Brand Book
66. Red Bull Style Guide
67. Jeep Brand Mark Guidelines
68. WWF Brand Guidelines
69. Kentucky Fried Chicken Style Guide
70. Volvo Brand Identity & Communication Guide
71. Alfa Romeo Brand Guidelines
72. Epson Design & Brand Standards
73. YMCA Graphic standards Guide
74. EA Sports Brand Guide
75. SpaceX Logo Style Guide
76. Pirelli Brand Book
77. Pepsi Brand Standard
78. Expedia Group Brand Guidelines
79. Smithsonian Museum Brand Book
80. FedEx Branding Guidelines
81. General Electric Brand Expression Guidelines
82. Skype Brand Book
83. BenQ Corporate Guidelines
84. Heineken Visual Identity Guidelines
85. AT&T Brand Identity System
86. Husqvarna Corporate Design Manual
87. Lenovo Visual Identity Guidelines
88. Lexus Logo Style Guide
89. Marks & Spencer Design Guidelines
90. Allianz Basic Brand Book
91. Volkswagen Corporate Design Manual
92. Puma Brand Style Guide
93. Starbucks Logo Guidelines
94. Mastercard Brandmark Guidelines
95. Sharp Identity Guidelines
96. Philips Brand Identity Guide
97. LG Brand Guidelines
98. HSBC Brand Basic Elements
99. Southwest Brand Style Guide
100. Microsoft Visual Identity Guidelines
101. Facebook Brand Assets Guide

As a designer and branding expert, I always like to look at other people's work to get some ideas on how I can improve the quality of my work.

I studied some of these above style guides in preparation for my recent project and now I share it with you for your inspriation.

If I missed any of your favorite style guides just send me an email so I can add them to the list.

4. Who creates style guides?

A style guide document is usually developed by whoever is working on the branding project—an agency or a designer.

Style guides are created by designers and agencies who specialize in branding.

Not every designer will know how to develop a comprehensive style guide, but most will certainly do know how to make at least a simple style sheet that covers the basics.

5. What is included in a style guide?

Depending on the company, a style guide might describe different brand assets like typography, color palette, layout, patterns, imagery, illustrations, icons, animation, UI elements, and other graphic assets.

A basic style guide includes: logo usage, its versions and colors, and the do’s and dont’s.

However, most style guides will also include things like brand strategy, tone of voice, editorial tips with examples, and so on.

At the end of each style, there should be at least a few examples of proper use of these brand assets on real applications (business cards, stationery, signage, website etc.)

Ultimately every style guide is different because every company is different and therefore has different requirements.

6. How much does a style guide cost?

As mentioned earlier, a style guide can include just the minimum basics laid out on a couple of pages or it can go to an extent of hundreds of pages—therefore price can vary greatly.

Expect to spend anywhere from $3,000 up for a decent style guide.

Ultimately, the price you pay for a style guide development will depend on who you hire and how big the scope of work is.

Just like with logo design, graphic design in general or any other creative service—the price depends on who you hire, their experience and expertise, their location etc.

However, while anyone can design a logo, I don't believe any designer can develop a great standards document.

Building a style guide is a tedious, often  hard work that only experienced designers will actually know how to do.

7. How to create a style guide

Design is not always a linear process like from A to B, it’s more of an iterative process where designers test things out to find the right solution.

Prepare a list of all the touch-points that a brand user will come in contact with.

First you need to figure out where the logo and other brand assets will be used.

Next, based on that you will be able to outline what sections your guidelines could include.

Here’s a simple step-by-step process to create a basic style guide:

1. Set guidelines for your logo
2. Define your color palette
3. Outline how fonts are used
4. Spell out your brand voice
5. Include examples of applications

As mentioned earlier, your style guide can contain just a few to a couple of hundreds of pages.

For example, the style guide I recently developed for one of my clients is quite comprehensive—it contains over 70 pages.

BTW—You can check it out when you download the brand guidelines kit.

Conclusions

The more people are involved in working with the brand, the more difficult it is to maintain consistency over time.

Consistency is key when it comes to branding.

Inexperienced designers often try to add their own flavor to the brand, often breaking the rules and therefore making your brand look inconsistent and weak.

The solutions to that problem is a well-developed style guide that will guide them in the development of marketing collateral and ultimately ensure that your brand is being presented in a unified way.

Looking to create a style guide?—Check out The Brand Guidelines Kit, which is my comprehensive style guide template that i use to deliver branding work to my clients.

In my new YouTube video I show you how to quickly customize my template.

Also check out my other relevant articles:

• 10 Best Examples of Brand Guidelines
• How To Create A Brand Style Guide
• 50+ Best Style Guide Templates in 2021

Do you have a great style guide to add to the list?—leave a comment.