Style Guide
A quick reference guide for designers within the international beauty corporation.
OVERVIEW
My content strategy team created a style guide for Sephora, an international corporation known for its wide range of beauty and self-care products. We chose Sephora because they’ve continued to evolve alongside the changes in the cosmetics industry while maintaining their personal image. A style guide is hugely important in ensuring that stability for their brand and serves as a great example to us as future designers.
Note: This style guide was made for the purpose of a Content Strategy course at Michigan State University, and was not used by the actual brand itself.
RESEARCH
We focused solely on Sephora’s main website, so our reference guide was not created with the inclusion of anything like Sephora’s app or mobile site; however, the style and structure are very similar between their platforms. We found Sephora’s official Style Guide online, which offered a lengthy and cohesive map of Sephora’s style. Using this in combination with analyzing the website, we were able to create a condensed version of a style guide. We did not illustrate examples to further explain points made in the guide. Rather, we hoped we gave the impression that the style guide itself is the example.
Sephora’s style includes the utilization of vibrant, chic colors in combination with language that conveys a feeling of inclusion. Sephora uses empowering and inclusive language to accomplish a sense of connectivity with their audience which is mainly women who highly value things like makeup, skincare, and hair care. Some of their language includes phrases like their mission statement which reads as “A leader in prestige omni-retail, our purpose at Sephora is to create a welcoming beauty shopping experience and inspire fearlessness in our community”. Vocabulary such as prestige, welcoming, fearlessness, and community work in Sephora’s favor to enhance their shoppers’ experience. Sephora’s platform stretches internationally because their range of products and services create huge followings and loyal customers.
ROLES
To start this project, I initiated an outline, broke up tasks in communication with the other team members, and created a schedule for the project, and completed the “tone” section of the style guide. Savannah undertook the development of the “voice” section and really guided the rest of us with her thorough research of the brand itself. Brittany produced the “style” section and helped with the “tone” as well, while communicating the goal for the “style” section later with Justice. Justice, who joined the team a bit later, was really helpful in taking over the design of our style guide itself, and acting as a “finisher” to oversee the completion of our project.
Overall, we felt that our communication was really strong in addressing everyone’s understanding of their role/tasks and understanding that we would have to accommodate our varying schedules. This worked really well because we hit the ground running, which actually gave us more time to extend our deadlines and spend more time revising the style guide rather than creating it. In the future, we might want to have a longer conversation about the specific needs of each role/task, because we did have to re-divide tasks after some people had already finished their part. In the end, we adjusted really well after throwing in another member last minute and luckily were able to ensure that everyone contributed equal efforts.