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The brand is defined across six workbooks. Each one covers a different layer, and none of them repeats another. Start here to find the right one.

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The documents

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Order to work in

1

Positioning

Settle the strategic claim before writing a word of copy. Messaging that ladders up to nothing has to be redone.
2

Messaging and voice

Messaging sets what the brand says. Voice sets how it sounds. They’re filled in together because each one exposes gaps in the other.
3

Visual identity and logo

These can run in parallel with the verbal work. Logo usage needs a final logo, so it usually lands last of the two.
4

Brand assets

Once the other five are decided, the register catalogs the files they produced and sets the rules for using them.

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When something isn’t covered

No set of guidelines anticipates every case. When a question falls outside all six documents:
  1. Check whether an existing rule answers it by analogy. Most edge cases are variations on something already written down.
  2. If it doesn’t, take it to the brand lead through the brand approval process.
  3. If the same question comes up twice, it belongs in one of the six documents. Add it there.
The brand system is the stable layer. Everything produced against it is the changing layer, and the two stay in sync only because the changing layer points at the stable one instead of copying it. A brief that pastes in the positioning statement creates a second copy that drifts within a quarter, and after a year nobody can tell which version is current.

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Keeping it current

A rule changed here changes everywhere at once, which only holds if the documents stay accurate.
  • Positioning and messaging: review annually, or when the product, the category, or the buyer changes.
  • Visual identity and logo usage: review annually, or at a rebrand.
  • Brand assets: review on the cadence recorded per asset in the register.
  • Voice and tone: review annually, or when a new channel is added.
Last modified on August 10, 2026