I have a very important question to ask you to kick this off: you're a nationally known brand, your products are phenomenal, and you've got world-class IP you represent,… but the style guide you send to licensees is 40 meandering pages and was put together by an intern?

I don't blame you, or the intern. You're busy, licensing is a fast-paced business, products need to be shipped yesterday, and on and on. So, your style guide was put together a couple years back, you added to it a bit this year (thank you new intern!), and the world is still turning.

Your Style Guide is as Important as Your Website

Let's take a deep breath together and go on a little learning journey where I'll tell you something a little bit transformative. Your style guide is one of the single most important assets you have as a company/brand. It's the face and reputation of every single thing your company does. I'm not going to say it's more important than your website, but I will say it is equally as important.

The bad news here, is that you could have been strengthening your licensee relationships, your brand awareness, cutting phone calls and emails left and right, and that's just the beginning.

The good news: style guides aren't rocket science. If they're done right the first time, that's the foundation for expanding your campaigns indefinitely. They can be made (mostly) foolproof to practically remove file hand-holding. They can spark expanded product pushes for holidays, SKUs, and even help a licensee sell more in the long run.

That might sound extravagant, but it's all the truth. Go ask any fan-first creative team like ours what brands should be doing more of. I'll put $20 on style guides being one of the first answers from each.

And the thing is, this is literally a post about style guides and making them sound important, but I'm not even trying to make crazy claims. I just know there are brands out there, big ones, that don't realize the importance of these. So hopefully I don't sound too much like a snake oil salesman. Brother, I'm just trying to spread the style guide gospel, lol.

Our Approach

When we tackle a style guide we're looking to understand both where the client has been and where they want to go. Style guides are absolutely not just laying out assets, they are the foundational stepping stone from which practically every successful licensed product starts. Are we prepping new artwork to expand offerings, or is there a wealth of original assets we can breath new life into as well? Who is flipping through these, and how can we help guide them to clarity and even spark a new idea? These are what we're looking to dive into.

Authenticity is Pretty Cool

Whether it's time for a style guide refresh, a complete revamp, or starting from scratch, we're here to help make your brand a style guide that not only understands the end consumer at their core (through their connection to the IP or product), but also understands your licensees and how we can quite literally completely remove pain points and friction in prepping for a release.

At Ultrakind, our approach is agile and experienced, because our team is probably a lot like yours: small but mighty, looking to make a joyful dent in this world. Our superpower is fandom, and translating that into creative that represents belonging, passion, and authenticity.

If your brand is looking to level up your style guide, we'd love to chat.