A brand style guide is a single reference document that tells everyone in your firm, and any external designer, developer, or copywriter you hire, exactly how to represent your brand. It covers your logo, colours, fonts, tone of voice, and the rules for putting everything together. Without one, every new piece of material produced by a different person drifts slightly, and the cumulative effect is a firm that looks and sounds inconsistent.

Creating one does not require an agency or a big budget. A functional style guide for a small accounting firm can be a well-organised PDF or shared Notion page built in an afternoon if you already know what your brand is. The value is in having the decisions written down, not in how beautifully they are presented.

What to include in a firm style guide

A complete guide covers seven areas. Scale back for a smaller firm; add depth for a firm with multiple offices or external creative suppliers.

1. Logo usage rules

Show the primary logo, any alternative lock-ups (horizontal, stacked, monochrome, reversed), and the rules around each. Specify minimum size, clear space (the area around the logo where nothing else can sit), and what is never allowed: stretching, recolouring, adding drop shadows, placing on a clashing background.

Include download links to master files in SVG, PNG (transparent background), and PDF. If designers have to recreate your logo from a JPEG because no one saved the originals, the guide has already failed.

2. Colour palette

List every brand colour with its hex code, RGB values, and CMYK values (for print). Show each colour in context: which is the primary, which is the secondary, which is the accent. Include the functional colours for digital use (success green, warning amber, error red) separately.

Show which combinations are approved and which are off-limits. Dark text on dark background, light text on light background: these creep in constantly without written rules.

3. Typography

Name the typefaces, where they are licensed, and what they are used for. Primary heading font, body font, and any monospace or display variant. Show examples at different sizes. Specify weight, letter-spacing, and line-height for the most common uses: page headings, subheadings, body copy, captions, call-to-action buttons.

If you use Google Fonts, link to the embed code. If you have licensed fonts, explain how staff download them.

4. Photography and imagery

Describe the photographic style: real people or stock, location or studio, specific mood or lighting direction, what is off-limits. If you have a preferred stock library or a pool of approved images, say so. A firm that uses polished corporate photography in the brand but someone's phone-photo on the newsletter has an inconsistency problem a style guide will prevent.

If you use icons or illustration, describe the style and point to the approved library.

5. Tone of voice

Summarise the brand voice in three to five adjectives and give examples. Two or three example paragraphs showing "we would say this, not that" are worth more than a paragraph of adjectives on their own. See the brand voice guide for a full walkthrough; reference it here with a link.

6. Templates and touchpoints

List every template your firm uses and confirm which version is current: email signature, email footer, newsletter, engagement letter, invoice, proposal cover, presentation deck, letterhead, social media post sizes. Point to the files. If the templates are in a shared folder, link to it. If they are in the design tool, share the project.

7. Usage questions

Add a short FAQ covering the scenarios that come up repeatedly: "Can I use the logo on a dark background?", "What font do I use in PowerPoint?", "What do I do if I need a version of the logo that is not here?" Include a contact for brand questions, usually the person who owns marketing or the managing partner.

Who should have access to the style guide

Everyone. Put it on the intranet, in Notion, in the shared Google Drive, or wherever your team actually goes for reference. Send it to every freelancer or agency before they start a project. Add it as an attachment to your design and copywriting briefs.

The number one reason style guides fail is that they exist in a PDF on the managing partner's desktop and no one else has ever read it. Make it findable and link to it from your onboarding materials.

How often to update it

Review the guide whenever you rebrand, change a supplier, add a new channel, or notice the same inconsistency appearing more than once. A minor annual review is enough for most firms. The guide does not need to be a living document updated weekly; it needs to be accurate when someone reaches for it.

Key takeaways

  • A style guide writes down every brand decision so that every piece of material produced by anyone looks and sounds like the same firm.
  • Seven areas to cover: logo usage, colour palette, typography, imagery, tone of voice, templates, and usage FAQs.
  • Include actual files and download links, not just descriptions of assets.
  • Put it somewhere everyone can find it; a guide no one reads is the same as no guide at all.
  • Review it after any rebrand and briefly once a year to keep it accurate.

Frequently asked questions

How long should a brand style guide be?

For a small accounting firm, eight to twenty pages covers everything you need. Larger firms with multiple services, offices, or product lines may need forty or more pages. Length is not the goal; completeness and clarity are.

Do we need a professional designer to make the guide?

Not necessarily. If you already have your brand assets sorted, you can build the guide in Canva, Notion, or a basic PDF. You may want a designer to create the final layout if it will be shown to clients or high-value prospects, but for internal use a clean Notion page works just as well.

What is the difference between a brand style guide and a brand guidelines document?

The terms are used interchangeably. Some agencies use "brand guidelines" for the visual-only rules and "style guide" for the writing rules. In practice, keep everything in one document and call it whatever you like.

What file formats should we provide for the logo?

At a minimum: SVG (vector, for digital and web), PNG with transparent background (for digital layouts), and PDF or EPS (for print). Do not distribute JPEG logos — they degrade with each resave and cannot be resized without quality loss.

Can we keep the style guide as a Notion page rather than a PDF?

Yes, and for many firms Notion is better because it is always live, easy to link, searchable, and can embed files directly. The format matters far less than whether people can find and use it.

For more on building your firm's identity, see our branding guides for accounting firms.