2. Why are house styles needed?

There are an infinite ways of laying out presentations, letters, reports or advertising material.

For instance one employee might like the colour purple and she would love to have that shade in all the material she produces. Another might like to use weird and whacky fonts and yet another loves to write long complicated prose.

Imagine a company having a thousand such creative people. What would a customer see every time they come across the company's promotional material? Answer: Never the same thing twice!

This is not what most companies want - a customer must have a predictable and consistent experience no matter where, how or when they come across the company.

This is the main purpose of a 'House Style'. It ensures consistency. House style enhances the 'brand image' of the company.

House styles are needed:

- To ensure consistency across all documents

- To support brand recognition (people know the documents belong to a particular organisation)

-To reduce the amount of time staff spend setting up and formatting documents

- To reduce the risk of mistakes e.g. address being mispelt, logo being omitted