As a small business we understand the challenges other small businesses face. Resources can be limited and you need to truly maximize every dollar. Most of the time you (and/or your small staff if you are lucky enough to have one) perform every function from sales to marketing to client services and fulfillment to accounting and design. Its exhausting and intimidating but you get it done.
No matter what, cohesiveness is key when representing your company. A style kit is important when launching a consumer facing brand. Most small businesses don't have the start up funds to invest in a graphic designer and brand strategist. However lack of funds does not need to equal lack of brand identity. You can build a style kit all on our own.
What is a style kit?
Basically a style kit or style guide are the decorative elements used to represent your brand/product/image. This kit is made up of 3 main factors - color palette, font, imagery. When you establish the rules around how to use these three elements together they become your brand signature for presentations, business cards, emails, your website, social media accounts, etc. The best our thing about your style kit is that for start up these elements are free. You only need to invest sweat equity and time with deciding what color(s), font and image to choose. Make sure the fonts and images you select are available for free for the purposes you need. It's what we did here at 16|28. Now if you find that you do need a little assistance and could benefit from some sort of guided template, check out the new Squarespace logo builder here. Perfect for creating simple brand representation until you have the funds to invest in a more stylized professional logo down the line.
Just for fun we created this and we kinda love it!
