Corporate style guides: the key to consistent multilingual communication

A corporate style guide isn’t just a branding document ─ it’s a powerful tool for strengthening your voice, improving language consistency in business, and accelerating content creation throughout departments and markets.

At SwissGlobal, we go beyond translation to help your brand communicate with precision. Our tailored style guides capture your identity across languages, platforms, and audiences.

What is a corporate style guide?

A corporate style guide is a reference document that outlines your organisation’s writing and formatting rules. It defines grammar, punctuation, tone, word choice, branding terms, and other elements that shape how your organisation communicates. It also includes locale-specific preferences such as date formats, currencies, and spelling variants.

Unlike generic writing manuals, a corporate style guide is tailored to your brand and your audience. It brings clarity and alignment by helping all contributors, from content writers to translators, follow a consistent editorial approach.

A detailed corporate style guide also complements your terminology management efforts by reinforcing preferred vocabulary and reducing ambiguity.

Why do you need a corporate style guide?

A well-developed corporate style guide delivers measurable value:

• Clearer communication: Reduces mixed messaging across platforms and departments.
• Faster content creation: Less guesswork means your teams can focus on writing instead of deciding how to write.
• Improved translation quality: When your source content adheres to a defined style, it gives better translation memory (TM) matches and facilitates machine translation.
• Unified brand voice: Whether your content is written in-house or externally, a corporate style guide ensures consistency in tone and structure.

For organisations operating in multiple markets or languages, the benefits are even greater. Every version of your message becomes easier to manage and more effective.

What to include in your corporate style guide

Every corporate style guide should be built around your organisation’s specific needs. It doesn’t need to be long, but it should be practical. Here’s what to include:

• Audience definition: Are you speaking to technical experts, casual users, or senior executives? The language and tone should match.
• Tone of voice: Define whether your brand voice should be formal, friendly, persuasive, instructional, or informal.
• Formatting rules: Specify how to present dates, times, numbers, phone numbers, and units of measure in different locales.
• Spelling and capitalisation: State your preference for British versus American spelling and how to treat acronyms and titles.
• Approved terminology: Include core subject-specific terms, product names, trademarks, and preferred phrasing to support consistency.
• Do’s and don’ts: Offer examples of correct and incorrect usage of terms, phrases, inclusive language and formatting to make expectations concrete.
• Reference materials: Link to well-written internal content or existing glossaries to reinforce expectations.

Less is more. A concise corporate style guide that addresses your everyday issues will outperform a lengthy document nobody reads.

Style guide creation for translation and localisation

A style guide for translation is essential when adapting content for different audiences. It builds on your main corporate style guide, addressing language and locale-specific challenges and is consistent with your Corporate Identity/Corporate Design (CI/CD). These guides help translators preserve your brand’s personality and intent, even as words change from one language to another.

SwissGlobal specialises in creating style guides for translation. We tailor guides for each target market, considering regional language norms, cultural sensitivities, and preferred writing styles.

The result? Content that doesn’t just translate but resonates.

How to approach corporate style guide creation

Creating a corporate style guide is easier when you break it down into manageable components. Here’s how to get started:

1. Begin with your source language: Build your main style foundation first. This becomes the baseline for future translation style guides.
2. Localise for each market: Don’t assume one guide fits all. Create separate versions for each target language and region.
3. Engage internal stakeholders: Marketing, legal, and product teams should all have input. Their feedback will help fine-tune your approach and ensure all bases are covered.
4. Avoid unnecessary rules: Focus on issues that have caused confusion or inconsistency. Skip obvious grammar lessons.
5. Use real examples: Visual examples and past errors clarify your expectations more than explanations alone.
6. Keep it current: Language evolves, and so should your guide. Review and update it regularly.

How SwissGlobal helps you standardise communication

We recognise that style and terminology are inextricably linked. Our team can:

• Review and refine your existing content for clarity and consistency.
• Develop a multilingual corporate style guide tailored to your brand and industry.
• Create dedicated translation style guides to support accurate, market-specific localisation.
• Align your tone, vocabulary and formatting across departments and languages.

We also offer professional terminology management and glossary creation to strengthen your message across channels. Together, these services reduce content review time, support faster translation, and increase the impact of your business communications.

Ready to define your organisation’s voice? Contact us today to build a corporate style guide that improves clarity, speeds up production, and unifies your message in every language you operate in.