Complying Consistently with House Style

Complying Consistently with House Style

Understanding House Style

  • Become familiar with the term house style. This refers to guidelines used by businesses to keep their documents consistent. Understanding and adhering to these is crucial.
  • House style covers a range of elements including font style and size, use of images, use of colours, tone, text layout, and logo placement.
  • Ensure you recognise the purpose of a good house style - it sets a consistent brand image, ensures professionalism, and improves readability.

Implementing House Style in Text

  • Remember how significant the style, size, and colour of text are. Companies usually have specific guidelines for these.
  • Implement paragraph formatting according to the house style guide. It may specify alignment and line-spacing rules.
  • Follow the house style for headers and footers, which might include specific information or layout.

House Style and Graphics

  • Understand that use of logos, colours, and images have house style rules too for consistency.
  • Insert images and logos as the style guide instructs. Size, placement, and use of borders are typical considerations.
  • Use colours for text, backgrounds and graphics that align with the house style. Incorrect use of brand-associated colours can cause inconsistency.

Proofreading to Ensure House Style Adherence

  • Remember the critical role proofreading plays, particularly in ensuring house style consistency.
  • Use automated tools for checking spelling and grammar. However, these tools cannot ensure house style compliance - manual review is necessary for this.
  • Look for consistency in the overall layout and design. The document not only needs to be readable, but it should also mirror the company’s brand image.

House Style In Relation to Printing and Document Finalisation

  • Ensure that the document looks good when printed, not just on screen. The colours and layout might look different in a physical copy.
  • Be careful of print settings. Incorrect ones can affect the final look of a document and break house style rules.
  • Save and export documents in the correct file formats according to house style.