How to Style Your Brand: Everything You Need to Know to Create a Distinctive Brand Identity

Fiona Humberstone is a brand styling guru. Her book How to Style Your Brand is authoritative, full of advice and exceptionally well set out and well structured. From the outset, Fiona offers clarity. She'll help you focus your ideas, explore your brand identity, she'll help you think about your message, your strengths, your selling point, as well as discussing logos, colours, fonts, illustration and design. How to Style Your Brand is almost like a brand styling consultation, in book form, and you can carry out the consultation at any time - preferably at the outset, though this book is also relevant for anyone re-branding or changing direction, too. You can dip in and out or follow the book from beginning to end. I wish I had read this book when I first started out in my journey as a food writer and blogger, because I think I would have had more focus from the start and would have saved costly mistakes with designers. However, it's never too late to take on board Fiona's advice and even just a few tweaks here and there (perhaps with colours, font or your message) can make all the difference. I am not surprised that How to Style Your Brand has become a best-seller and it is perhaps the strongest example of successful self-publishing in its genre and indeed, across many more.

Preparing to update my business' website and wanting to take the opportunity to re-evaluate how my business is presented, Fiona's book could not have come at a better time. It is very well organised and easy to read, guiding you through the process of defining what underlies your brand and how to translate that visually into an authentic style. I found the excercises that help you to get to the essence of your brand hugely enjoyable, and very insightful - I learned a lot about why I'm in business and felt motivated to make changes to how I do business, not only to what my business looks like. It's very powerful to be able to articulate this clearly and concisely, and it will help me a huge amount when the time comes to brief my graphic designer. If you're mystified by what shapes, colours and fonts might suit your brand and how to build that into a clear brand style, this book will show you how if you're willing to put in some work.

This book is pure gold. I am barely starting Chapter 3, but it has helped me so much to get clarity in my business already. I am switching from freelancing slowly into business ownership, and I have been struggling for the past 6 months to create a brand. Every time I came up with a new design (which happened 3 times), I would leave it for a few days, come back to it, look at it and wonder why I came up with it. In this book Fiona mentions this issue, why it can happen and all the solutions and methods to get back on track and start again with a real work process. I am finding clarity and I am so grateful for this. I cannot wait to see what I will really come up with this time! PS. The only slight disappointment was that I was hoping it would have been printed in the UK from recycled paper or sustainable source which it was not, but that is only linked to my personal principles and has nothing to do with the author or publication house rules.

Fabulously helpful book. Easy to navigate, it takes you on a simple, logical and surprisingly enjoyable, journey to the heart of your brand. By asking a series of questions Fiona gets you to think hard about your business and really really focus. This together with a new take on colours is all presented in a fresh engaging way making it a quick read. Though takes a bit longer to work through the exercises! Ideal for small businesses wanting to achieve a meaningful brand perspective without spending vast sums of money - even better if you are up for doing creative yourself as there's loads of guidance there too. So Heard the talk, read the book and applied the thinking; now the acid test - we brief an agency in 2 weeks time and will be using the brief and stimulus recommended by Fiona. I will report back as to whether they deliver a brand beyond our expectations!

I recently discovered Fiona's blog 'The Brand Stylist' and stalked it for a whole 2 days reading every post. When I saw she had published a book it was a no-brainer. The book is beautiful, inspiring and well written. I've recently started a small business and had become a little overwhelmed with trying to create a strong brand message. Whilst I can't yet afford to work with a designer this book gives me all the tools I need to break the process down and look at it clearly step by step. It also includes lots of helpful resources, great examples of what other brands have achieved and very encouraging advise and ideas from Fiona. I'm not at all surprised this is a bestseller, well done Fiona and Thanks!

This book helped me clarify where I stood with my brand and where I wanted to go next. There were a few bits that were not applicable to my brand needs. I would highly recommend to fellow small biz creatives.

Yes, it's a styling book. It's not a brand strategy book in the proper sense. It will not help you to establish the true strategic aspects of branding which you need to do, using models from people like Keller, Aaker, Kapferer (Luxury branding) or Heine (Luxury Branding) However that does not take away from the fact that Humberstone has excelled in writing a really easy to get you going guidebook. It's very practical. It gets you thinking about style in a very "I can do this myself" way that many agencies fail to explain. I know this because I teach branding at Undergraduate and Postgraduate level and its either the formal academic texts which give the strategic stuff or nothing. Humberstone's really filling a gap. She is generous with her tone. Remember brand style is a reflection of the brand strategy, but if we do not get on with the styling and leave it up to someone else we never really control our own brand and our relationship with our target market. Humberstone's book gives you,us, me the tools to be directly in control of the 'mystery of brand styling'.You may still use a graphic designer or agency but now you are much more in control. I did not think it was going to be so useful, but within the context that its really a practical handbook that if you complete all the exercises you will be far more along with your brand development than many. I am using the book for sure and will put it onto my reading list for my Undergraduate students to use, so they can leave with practical skills-that they can explain to ordinary SME's who do not always get to grips with the strategic vocab. You might want to use this text along with reading material from Hought who deals with branding and Icon making. Another important writer of today. Yes I am preparing my reading list for next semester so am looking around.

This is a genuinely inspirational book . Fiona not only has a great creative brain and a real eye for detail but also has an inherent and genuine understanding of the challenges of starting and sustaining a small business. It encourages you to think about your business and how to express its personality and yours too. It takes you through the whole creative process of developing a brand in a coherent and flowing way. It can help you if you want to be creative and develop your own brand but equally important it can help you be a intelligent client if you wish to buy in creative services. This book will inspire you and make you feel good about your business and indeed yourself too