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By Yvonne Meacham
Graphical Style Guide
The graphical portion of the style guide includes decisions about a company's typeface choices, size of the company name in relation to the logo, appropriate logo colors, logo positioning, where and for what purposes company letterhead is to be used, a consistent facsimile transmittal format, positioning of addresses on envelopes, etc.
Word-Choice Style Guide
The word-choice style guide will include definitions of company abbreviations, and instructions as to whether each abbreviation should be spelled out for external documents. It also defines lingo, and may include common misspellings. It's a good idea to select a reference source for your word choice style guide such as The Associated Press Style Book or the Chicago Manual of Style. Either resource will give you plenty of additions to your word-choice style guide, and you'll find yourself saying over and over, "Ah! That's how you're supposed to do that …"
A corporate style guide may be in electronic format, in a three-ring binder, or in any other format that works for your company. Whichever format you use, make certain that each person responsible for creating external documents has ready access to this important tool.
About the author: Yvonne Meacham is a public relations columnist based in Portland, Oregon. She has been a public relations writer, editor and freelancer for more than 20 years.
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