One of the keys to successful brand messaging and brand voice, and one that supports your proofreading and editing process, is formalising your house style. At Profound, we’re always banging the drum for better, simpler words, so we’re here to explain what that actually means. (It’s an irony of the copywriting world that it should be filled with so much jargon. Even the word ‘copywriter’ tends to be confused with ‘copyright’ and it’s easy to see why).

So – what is house style? It’s your brand’s bespoke set of rules when it comes to writing – whether that’s blogs, web copy, social media posts, pitch decks or anything else for that matter. Once everyone knows what the writing rules are, they’ll find it so much easier to stick to ‘one brand voice’. And what does that deliver? Consistency. That’s what it delivers. That’s another drum we bang, for good reason.

It’s a super-valuable document that really doesn’t need to be much work; in fact it actually reduces workload and builds more efficiency into your business. It’s a place to signpost someone to if a) their writing is not up to scratch, and/or b) they have lots of questions about how to write for your brand.

What’s included in a good house style document?

It’s different for every brand, but yours could include:

• Do you write in US or UK English?
• Rules on things like capitalisation, acronyms, and punctuation conventions (e.g. hyphens, which always cause confusion!).
• Do you sanction the use of contractions, e.g. ‘you’re’ as opposed to ‘you are’?
• Rules on use of industry-specific terminology and conventions.
• Do you write your titles and subtitles in title case or sentence case (e.g. ‘What Is House Style?’ vs ‘What is house style?’)?
• Rules on formatting (e.g. bold, italics, underlines) and layout.
• Tiny details that make the difference, like do you add full stops to every point in a bulleted list? Do you add a full stop at the end of a heading? What’s your stance on the divisive Oxford comma (in the right context, I love an Oxford comma, for what it’s worth).
• How do you deal with widows and orphans?
• How do you add sources in various contexts? E.g., hyperlinks? In a footnote?
• Info on fonts, font sizes, bullet points, numbered lists etc.
• Guidance on best practice, and approved/unapproved language to use around equality, diversity and inclusion.
• Guidance on use of swear words, emojis etc.
• A ‘bin’ for unapproved words and clichés you want to sack off.
  

This attention to detail might seem insignificant, but it’s all stuff that proofreaders toil over. It’ll really help you maintain consistency across all platforms – and that aids readability and digestibility, and is subconsciously reassuring to your audience.

It doesn’t have to be an epic document (but it’s worth checking out some that are, such as the BBC News Style Guide).

It can be kept to a couple of pages, but there are some important things to remember:

1. It should be ‘owned’ by one person – your Brand Guardian – who is responsible for maintaining and updating it.
2. It should be reviewed and recirculated every quarter.
3. It should be kept in a central place so everybody has access to it.
4. It should be given to anyone proofreading or copywriting for your business. They will likely have further questions as they get to know your brand, and this can be helpful for developing the document further.
   

At Profound, we see over and over again the value of formalising and developing a brand’s house style – it just makes life easier for everyone. It can be used as an extension of your brand voice guidelines, to be incorporated into your overall brand guidelines.

Not sure how to start developing your own house style guidelines? Give us a shout.