Why a short guide beats a thick brand bible

Most small businesses already have a brand, even if nobody has written it down. It lives in the logo file on someone's desktop, the colours on your website, and the way your longest-serving member of staff answers the phone. Trouble starts when five people create five different quotes, social posts or leaflets and none of them quite match. Customers notice the wobble, even if they can't say what's wrong.

A full brand bible is overkill for a team of six. What you need is a style guide short enough that people actually read it: two or three pages, saved as a PDF in your shared drive, covering the handful of decisions your team makes every week. If it takes longer to read than a kettle takes to boil, it won't get used. Aim for something a new starter can absorb in ten minutes and refer back to in thirty seconds.

Start with the logo

The logo is where inconsistency shows up first, so give it clear rules rather than vague encouragement to "use it nicely".

• Which file to use where. Say plainly: PNG with a transparent background for documents and slides, SVG for the website, EPS or PDF for anything going to a printer. Keep all of them in one folder named Brand Assets so nobody hunts through old emails.
• Clear space. A simple rule works well: leave a gap around the logo equal to the height of the letter "x" in your company name. Nothing else sits in that space.
• Minimum size. Something like 25mm wide for print and 120 pixels for on-screen. Below that it turns to mush.
• Never do this. Don't stretch it, squash it, rotate it, add a drop shadow, or place it on a busy photo. If a photo is unavoidable, put the logo on a plain strip or panel so it stays legible.

Colours: give codes, not descriptions

"Our blue" means nothing to a new starter or a printer. Write down the actual values for each colour in your palette and say what each one is for.

• Hex codes (like #1F4E79) for anything on screen: website, email signatures, social graphics.
• CMYK values for anything printed, so the colour on a leaflet matches the colour on your van.
• Proportions. Most small brands look best with roughly 60% neutral (white, grey, off-white), 30% primary colour and 10% accent. Without this, everything ends up shouty.
• Accessibility. Note which colour combinations are safe for text. Dark text on a light background almost always is; white text on a mid-tone yellow usually isn't.

Fonts: name them and give a fallback

Pick two fonts at most — one for headings, one for body text — and tell people exactly where to get them. If your fonts are licensed, keep the install files in the same Brand Assets folder, along with a note about who to ask if they can't install them.

Always list a fallback for people working on a shared laptop or in a hurry. Something like: Headings: Montserrat Bold. If unavailable, use Arial Bold. Body: Source Sans Regular, or Arial Regular. Arial isn't exciting, but a consistent Arial beats a mismatched pair of fancy fonts every time. Add a couple of sizes too — for example 18pt headings and 11pt body in Word documents — so letters and quotes come out looking like siblings rather than strangers.

Tone of voice in four plain rules

Words drift faster than visuals, especially when several people answer emails and write social posts. Give your team a short set of rules they can apply without asking.

• We, not the company. "We'll send your order today" sounds human. "The company will dispatch the aforementioned goods" does not.
• Short sentences. If a sentence runs past about twenty words, split it.
• Plain English. No jargon unless your customers genuinely use it themselves.
• Spelling and dates. Choose British English and stick to it, and settle on a date format such as 3 March 2025 so nothing gets misread.

Add three or four real examples: one email opening you like, one social post that sounds like you, and one that doesn't. Examples teach far faster than adjectives.

Share it, then keep it alive

Put the guide where work actually happens: a pinned link in your team chat, a printed copy by the printer, and a mention in your induction checklist. Walk new starters through it in their first week — ten minutes is plenty — and ask them to flag anything confusing.

Review it twice a year, or whenever you change your logo, website or main print supplier. Give one person the job of owning it, with a note on the first page saying who to ask. Before anything customer-facing goes out, a quick sanity check helps: right logo version, right colours, approved fonts, tone that sounds like you. Thirty seconds of checking saves a reprint, a redesign, and a slightly awkward conversation with your best customer.