What Is A Brand Stylescape?

Why are stylescapes important?

Both branding agencies and digital agencies use stylescapes to help you understand any design decisions that they chose for your website (or logo).

A stylescape is the perfect opportunity for an agency to show you how your brand will look and feel once the project is completed.

Essentially a stylescape is a collection of brand assets including:

• Colours
• Typography
• Images
• Language tone
• Design elements
• Logo design

These assets are combined together in a visual to show off the aesthetic of your brand. This shows you how your brand will look and feel when it’s executed across your website, social media, and other mediums (including signage, staff uniforms, and business cards).

In the branding and design process, stylescapes are created before the mockups of your website and after the brand strategy session. They can only be created properly after research has been gathered from you by the designers. This lets them create and craft the perfect stylescape for your company to connect with your target audience.

By gaining an understanding of what you do, why you do it and who you do it for the team can align your brand messaging and come up with:

• Taglines
• Slogans
• Brand Voice
• Colours
• Design Ideas
• Typography

What are the core processes of a stylescape?

The core processes of a stylescape vary from project to project but it often relies heavily on:

• Collecting information
• Researching your business
• Crafting the message and strategy
• Driving the approach to design your identity

Usually, a team will start by designing the logo and then combine it with the brand attributes to help put together a detailed stylescape.

This, along with other inspiration and input from you, will be incorporated into the final stylescape design.

Collaboration between an agency and you, their client, is key for the success of a stylescape. You’ll often be presented with three different directions and then the agency will take your opinion and make a note about what you like and dislike about each. Then your opinion and choices will be taken into account before a final draft of the stylescape is drawn up.

The newly revised stylescape will more closely represent how your finished brand will look and feel.

As soon as your final stylescape is approved website mockups can be designed, using the finalised stylescape as a guide. The stylescape demonstrates how the brand will look when it’s applied throughout your touchpoints.

These brand touchpoints can include:

• Your website
• Social media banners
• Social media posts
• Business cards
• Print media
• Email signatures
• T-shirt designs
• Vehicle wraps

What is the goal of a stylescape?

Remember, a stylescape is not an advanced moodboard. Moodboards are used for inspiration where the goal of a stylescape is to help highlight design decisions that support your goals as a client.

A stylescape is there to elicit an emotional response about how the brand looks and feels. It makes it possible to create mockups that will elicit the desired feelings about your brand. It also helps with design decisions throughout all assets including business cards, banners, your logo, social media and your website.

Building a brand doesn’t stop with the creation of assets though. Branding is who you are, what you stand for and how you want to be perceived online. All brands require good marketing to build awareness and your design won’t be able to do this alone.

With these assets in place thanks to your stylescape you can start taking the steps towards crafting a brand that shows your customers how unique your business is.