I’ve talked about the importance of having style guides for the office and the thought of preparing one can be quite daunting after all, it’s a big job. But you can make yourself a cheat sheet to keep close to your computer when you are proofing documents and presentations or to provide to new team members. Use some of the below hints to give you some ideas on creating your own.

You could include:

  • Always capitalise after a bullet
  • don’t capitalise after a bullet
  • Include full stops only if you capitalise.
  • don’t include full stops if you don’t capitalise
  • The Company name is always typed like this JMJ – EA for a Day never JMJ  EA for a day
  • Company correspondence is always typed using Arial 11pt
  • The Company logo is always placed top right of a document
  • The Company logo always appears bottom left of presentations | keynotes
  • Always use the company colours
  • Presentation font for headings is Arial 36pt
  • Body text is Arial 24pt

There is a lot to consider when creating your cheat sheet, what are the most current documents you use, ie, if your business is about preparing presentations but little correspondence, then your cheat sheet should focus heavily on how the core of how your presentations must look.

The above is just an example of some of the points you should consider for your style guide cheat sheet. Make it fun and creative, you are more likely to use it then if it is easy to look at and find information. Your cheat sheet will be great for new starters or if you have a temp working for you and I am sure would be a welcome addition to any HR starter pack.

By creating your cheat sheet you will ensure that your company or business branding is always consistent no matter who is working on the document; after all nothing looks worse than a document with that has been created by many and not one of them has been consistent in their approach. Sound familiar?