Styleguides across the web - Digital Defiant Studios Seattle Web development & Design by Chris Tabor

Styleguides: what are they? Put simply, their a how-to guide for keeping all marketing efforts “on-brand”. What is “on-brand” exactly? Well, it’s making sure your “brand” (i.e. the pieces of your companies image that make people feel a certain way) stay true and don’t become diluted through poor design and misuse.

Brand styleguides can be short and sweet, or they can be 100+ page behemoths that dictate just about every possible move you decide, from tone-of-voice to spacing on letterheads.

You might ask yourself: “why do I want to look at a bunch of other companies styleguides?” Well, for one, you might find something useful in your own styleguides. It’s also good for research purposes, and helps shed light on a company and why they may choose to a certain thing. A useful feature for me is uncovering what types of font families a company might use. This gives your in-depth information than say, uploading an image to www.whatdafont.com.

I found a nifty way to scour for stlyeguides across the web, using googles filetype: parameter.

Here are few interesting finds I discovered:

Webex Brand Styleguide

http://www.webex.com/pdf/WebEx_Style_Guide.pdf

Pretty extensive styleguide from Webex, the web conferencing software. Lots of different points covered, definitely a well thought out guide!

Hard Wear Brand Styleguide

http://marketing.mountainhardwear.com/pdfs/MHI-BrandGuide.pdf

Pretty nifty little guide by the makers of kickass and durable outdoor wear and gear.

G4TV

http://www.scribd.com/doc/20151/Brand-Identity-G4-Logo-Guide A kickass little styleguide from the gamer channel, G4TV.

SEOmoz Brand Styleguide

http://www.seomoz.org/SEOmoz-Brand-Guide.pdf

Another cool styleguide from the talented folks at SEOmoz, a local Seattle based SEO company! On another note, check out www.seomoz.org, they’ve got some pretty killer tools for SEO goodness. Their guide even covers appropriate usage of the “mozbot”. Cool!

United Way Brand Styleguide

http://www.ctunitedway.org/Media/logos/BrandGuide_v5.pdf

Support organization United Way has a pretty nice and extensive styleguide too.

University of Pennsylvania Styleguide

http://www.business-services.upenn.edu/publicationservices/pdf/logostyleguide.pdf

This one is pretty extensive. I have found in my research that college styleguides tend to be very long and very specific. This one is no exception.

Cerwin-Vega Styleguide

http://www.cerwinvega.com/pdf/branding_guide_cv.pdf

A very “short and sweet” styleguide for Cerwin-Vega.

University of Delaware

http://www.udel.edu/daretobefirst/digital/UD_IdentityGuide_web2__.pdf

What did I say? College styleguides are LONG!

Wi-Fi Alliance Styleguide

http://www.wi-fi.org/files/WFA_Brand_StyleGuide_May2007.pdf

Didn’t know that the Wi-Fi Alliance had a styleguide did you? This one is great, it covers all the various “badges” for the Wi-Fi Alliance.

Emory University Styleguide

http://www.bus.emory.edu/pdf/GBS_StyleGuide_07_11_07.pdf

STILL don’t believe me? Another college styleguide, very long. Another feature of college styleguides are the usage of glossaries and college-specific terminology.