Most organisations invest real thought into how they look. Logos, colours, fonts. The visual side of the brand gets attention. How they sound in writing? That often gets left to chance.
A communication style guide takes care of the written side of your brand. Not logos and colour palettes, but the small decisions that add up to a consistent, professional voice: how you format times, whether you use “organise” or “organize”, how you handle abbreviations, capitalisation, and punctuation.
It’s the details that give you away
Consider something as simple as the time. Should it be 9am, 9AM, 9 a.m., or 9:00am? Any one of these might appear across your emails, newsletters, social posts, and website if nobody has decided. None of them is technically wrong. But all of them appearing together signals something: that nobody is paying attention.
The same applies to spelling. “Organisation” or “organization”? British English uses -ise; American English uses -ize. Either is defensible, but mixing them in the same document is not. If your organisation is Australian, defaulting to American spelling is a small but telling inconsistency.
A style guide makes the decision once. Then everyone benefits from it.
What goes in one?
A communication style guide doesn’t need to be long or complicated. It might cover things like date and time formatting, number conventions, capitalisation rules, preferred spellings, how to handle abbreviations at first mention, and punctuation preferences. Some organisations include approved terminology, tone guidelines, and a short list of common errors to avoid. The more specific it is, the more useful it becomes.
Why it matters more now
This is worth getting right now that many teams use AI writing tools as part of their communications workflow. AI will produce consistent text, but it will default to its own conventions unless you tell it otherwise. Leave it without guidance, and you’ll get American spelling, arbitrary formatting choices, and a tone that sounds generic rather than like you.
A style guide becomes an essential prompt. Paste your preferences into any AI tool before asking it to write on your behalf, and you’ll get output that sounds like your organisation, not a generic AI assistant. It is one of the most practical things you can do to maintain brand consistency when using AI.
A worthwhile investment
Commissioning a communication style guide is a one-time effort that pays for itself every time someone new joins the team, every time a piece of content goes out, and every time an AI tool is asked to write something. It sets a standard. And standards, once set, are easy to maintain.
Let’s talk about your next project. Get in touch with Simon Bailey Design to find out how good design can work for you.