How To Apply Your Brand Style Guide To Your Company Merchandise

A lot goes into developing specific guidelines to ensure a consistent, cohesive - and unique - experience around a brand. From market research, to design expertise, to the use of language, and more, brand books are the holy grail of keeping a brand's identity intact across an organization.

With that said, company merchandise is sometimes treated as if it falls into a separate category, with its own set of standards, compared to the rest of the company's marketing collateral. Even with the initial intent to stay aligned with the company's branding, browsing through online catalogs of promotional products, with limited print-space and color options, can leave you feeling as if following the style guide is an unrealistic goal to execute on. Companies often end up compromising certain elements of their brand's identity when ordering their merch because they feel limited to the options they see online.

While the purpose of these items is to promote your company and to keep your brand top-of-mind, if your merchandise isn't consistent with the rest of your branding, it can actually be more damaging than useful. These inconsistencies can be confusing for your audience, and, as a result, hurt your brand recognition. Fortunately, your options don't have to be restricted to what you see online. Creating custom merchandise gives you the power to reinforce the brand identity you've invested so much in creating.

Whether you stick with items off the shelf or decide to go custom, here are four elements of your style guide you shouldn't disregard when it comes to creating your company merchandise.

1. Voice

The voice and tone of how your brand is supposed to be talked about, whether by employees or in marketing material, etc., can help guide the types of items included in your merchandise collection. Say, for example, a professional, informative, matter-of-fact tone is used across your marketing material. Designing apparel with puns, or offering light-up novelties or toy figurines could convey an unfamiliar message to your consumers. Whereas, if a more conversational, playful tone is used in your collateral, items of that same nature would work in your favor by reinforcing the voice of your brand.

2. Moodboards

Moodboards are often included in style guides to showcase the inspiration and vision behind the brand direction, and to help the reader visualize the energy and emotional reaction sought to be achieved from the brand's target audience. This can also be a powerful tool to use when selecting items for your company's merchandise, to ensure that each piece aligns with the audience your brand is speaking to.

Typically presented in a collage-style layout, try placing the promotional product in question into the moodboard (literally or using your imagination). Does it feel like the item makes sense with the other images, or does the addition of the item disrupt the cohesive flow of the board? If your answer is the latter, it's a telling sign that your consumers likely won't understand the connection with that particular promotional product in association with your brand.

Consider the moodboard below, for example. An item like a scented candle could be great for a brand like Barre & Soul to merchandise, while something like a flask or flannel might be too masculine and probably not the best choices for their brand.

3. Color Palette

Color is an integral part of a brand identity. A consistent use of colors not only reinforces the cohesiveness of your identity, but furthermore, the selection of colors serves a psychological purpose by communicating a certain feeling to your audience in association with your brand. These colors are defined to the exact hue in your style guide for a reason. And, while trying to find promotional items in a catalog that are an exact match can be nearly impossible, substituting new variations of colors into your palette can have a negative impact on the strength of your brand's identity.

Consider McDonald's brand, for example. Their colors play a significant role in their brand identity, so much so that their business is even universally recognized when referred to as, "The Golden Arches." Imagine if their marketing team was tasked with ordering branded t-shirts for an event they were sponsoring, but were limited to 8 standard color options to choose from, and the only shade of red was maroon, and the closest option to their gold was a neon-yellow. Producing the shirts in these colors (see below) feels almost like it's a knock-off design.

Opting for custom pieces gives you a better opportunity to produce items in the correct color hue, so your palette is consistent across all of your branded material.

4. Logo Dimensions

Another key element established in a brand book is the minimum clear space that should be used around the logo. These specs are included to ensure legibility, and to eliminate the negative impact that competing graphics or copy can have on the mark. As one can imagine, restricting the design of your apparel and merch to a predefined box can make it challenging to abide by these valuable specifications.

Rather than minimizing the graphic size so small that it's hard to make out, or eliminating additional design elements you wanted to feature on your item, creating custom merchandise opens the door to larger print areas, and creative opportunities to incorporate surprise-and-delight details into the design. Added touches like interior taping in a hat, or lining and hang tags on hoodies and vests are just a few great ways to brand your pieces without overcrowding or compromising the visual aesthetic of the design.

When it comes to company merchandise, don't compromise everything you've invested in building your brand's identity. Use your brand book to guide your selection and design of merchandise and apparel to best reinforce your brand. Need help? Contact us to speak to one of our branding experts!