How brand guidelines made Stiles Machinery look like one company
Wit & Craft built the brand guidelines that gave Stiles Machinery, the official U.S. HOMAG dealer, one look and one voice. Its sales, service, education, leasing, and marketing teams had each been showing the brand their own way. The guidelines cover the identity Stiles already had, from logo rules to what service teams wear. Stiles kept its logo and Stiles Dark Blue. Once the guidelines were in place, its trade show booth, mailers, and landing pages looked like they came from one company.
The challenge
Stiles Machinery has been the first call in American woodworking since 1965. As the official U.S. HOMAG dealer, it sells more than 2,000 SKUs and backs every one with training, financing, parts, and field service.
Wit & Craft had already led Stiles through brand discovery and key messaging. The company knew who it was, but nothing told anyone how to apply it. Sales, service, education, leasing, and marketing each made their own material, and Stiles had become several brands at once.
The logo showed up with and without the HOMAG mark, at whatever proportion the last file used. Typography drifted. Trade show and service teams wore whatever the last apparel order produced. Videos opened differently depending on who cut them. Marketing spent more time fixing files than making them. That happens when a brand is built but never written down.
Why not a rebrand?
Stiles already knew who it was, and the core of its look was fixed. The logo couldn't change, and neither could Stiles Dark Blue. Kentwood and Ironwood had identities of their own and were out of scope. And everything had to sit beside HOMAG's brand without becoming a HOMAG field office.
Stiles needed rules for the brand it already had. We built them into an operating manual for the coordinator laying out a mailer, the tech ordering a polo, and the editor cutting a customer story.
What the brand guidelines cover
Positioning, personality, & voice.
Stiles as a solutions resource, much more than a distributor. Four attributes written as a marketing manifesto, four personality traits, and a voice that's knowledgeable but never stuffy, enthusiastic but never silly. And yes, the Oxford comma.
Logo system.
A fixed relationship between the Stiles name plate and the HOMAG mark, minimum sizes, clear space, an approved alternate for apparel and small placements, and an improper-use page that ends the arguments.
Color and type.
Two primary blues, a six-color secondary palette with usage ratios, Helvetica Neue for design, HOMAG Sans for web, Arial for everyone else.
Imagery in two modes.
Engage (real people, real environments) and Inform (full product, detail, result), each with a stated philosophy so shoots start with a brief.
Iconography.
A set of simple line icons with matching line weights.
Writing style guide.
Rules based on AP style, written for the people who draft spec sheets and service emails.
Large signage logo.
A version made for big signs, with capital letters one inch tall for every ten feet of viewing distance.
Video style guide.
Framing, text margins, standard intros and outros, and where name titles sit on screen.
Apparel style guide.
Approved garments by department, logo placement, and one place to order, down to the dark gray pants and black belt.
What Stiles made with the guidelines
Trade show exhibit
Signage sized to the viewing-distance formula, graphics in the approved imagery modes, and teams in the uniforms the guide specifies. Booth, people, and literature finally looked like they came from one place.
Marketing collateral
Mailers, brochures, and spec materials on the type system and color ratios, with the icons doing the wayfinding.
Landing pages
Campaign and event pages in the same type, imagery, and voice, so a visitor coming from a show or a mailer sees the same brand that sent them.
The results
Departments beyond marketing adopted the guidelines. Stiles looked cleaner and more recognizable at trade shows. The marketing team spent less time fixing files and answering logo questions, and more on work that moves the business.
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Brand guidelines should say who the company is and how to show it. The first part covers what the company stands for, its personality, and its voice. The second covers the logo, colors, fonts, photo style, icons, and writing style. The Stiles guidelines also set rules for large signs, video, and work clothes.
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If people already know your company and the logo still works, guidelines may be all you need. Stiles kept its logo and Stiles Dark Blue. It lacked written rules for using them, so each team made its own version. If the brand no longer fits what the company has become, that calls for a rebrand, which is a bigger job.
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Write them for the people who will open them. The Stiles guidelines speak to the coordinator laying out a mailer, the tech ordering a polo, and the editor cutting a customer story. Each finds a plain answer, like one place to order work clothes or a page that shows the wrong ways to use the logo. Departments beyond marketing adopted them.
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Set co-branding rules once and write them down. Stiles is the official U.S. HOMAG dealer, so its guidelines fix how the Stiles name plate and the HOMAG mark sit together, with minimum sizes and clear space. That lets Stiles stand beside HOMAG without looking like a HOMAG field office.
Services
Brand discovery · Key messaging · Brand guidelines · Writing style guide · Video style guide · Apparel standards · Trade show exhibit design · Marketing collateral · Landing pages
Have a brand nobody can quite apply? Guidelines let you stop re-explaining it.
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Wit & Craft is the brand agency for owner-led manufacturers and trades, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, since 2015.
