brand-style-guide

Files (4)

• SKILL.md
• _claude-frontmatter-extras.yaml · references/
• maintenance-playbook.md · references/
• style-guide-template.md · references/

SKILL.md (first lines)

# Brand Style Guide

Document the brand system so other people can use it without ambiguity. This is the artifact that lives longest. Designers, developers, agencies, and vendors will reference it for years. Build it like a reference manual, not a presentation.

This skill assumes the brand identity is designed (run `brand-identity` first if not). The output of this skill is the canonical reference document.

---

## When to use

- Creating brand guidelines for a finished identity
- Documenting an existing brand that has no formal guide
- Auditing an existing style guide for gaps or inconsistencies
- Building a brand book to hand to vendors, partners, or new team members
- Updating a guide after a major brand evolution

## When NOT to use

- The brand identity is not yet designed (use `brand-identity`)
- Brand voice work specifically (use `brand-voice` for the voice doc, then integrate)
- Building UI components (use `design-standards` or `design-system`)

---

## Required inputs

- Finished brand identity (logo, colors, typography, imagery direction, motion principles)
- Brand voice and tone documentation (or sufficient inputs to write a voice section)
- Application examples that show the brand in real contexts
- Decisions on what is mandatory vs flexible vs forbidden

---

## The framework: 8 sections

A complete style guide has eight sections. Most guides skip 2 or 3 of them and create downstream confusion. Build all 8 from the start.

### 1. Story
The narrative behind the brand. Why it exists, what it stands for, what it rejects.

- Origin / founding story
- Mission and vision
- Values (3 to 5, with what each means in practice)
- Positioning statement
- Audience (with the level of specificity from the brief)
- What we are not (the things we explicitly reject)

### 2. Logo system
Every variant of every mark, with rules.

- Primary logo (with construction grid showing relationships)
- Wordmark
- Symbol / glyph
- Lockup variations (horizontal, stacked, etc.)
- Monogram (if part of system)
- Clear space rules (minimum spacing around logo)
- Minimum sizes (smallest acceptable size for print and digital)
- Acceptable color treatments (full color, single color, knock-out, reverse)
- Forbidden treatments (stretching, rotating, recoloring, drop shadows, gradients - whatever is forbidden)
- File formats and where to find them

### 3. Color
The full color system with rules.

- Primary palette (signature colors)
- Secondary palette
- Neutrals scale
- Semantic colors (success, warning, error, info)
- Light mode and dark mode variants
- Per color: hex, RGB, HSL, CMYK, Pantone (if print-relevant)
- Contrast ratios documented
- Allowed pairings
- Forbidden pairings
- Usage hierarchy (primary first, secondary supporting, neutrals dominant)

### 4. Typography
The full type system.

- Display typeface (with sample sizes)
- Body typeface (with sample sizes)
- Monospace (if applicable)
- Type scale (specific sizes used)
- Weight and style usage (which weights for which contexts)
- Line height ratios
- Letter spacing standards
- Web fallback stacks
- Open-source alternatives for licensing-restricted contexts
- Forbidden treatments (all caps overuse, fake italics, etc.)

### 5. Imagery and illustration
What pictures look like in this brand.

- Photography direction with example library
- Illustration style with example library
- Iconography system with the full icon set (or rules for adding to it)
- Forbidden imagery (stock photo cliches, specific things never to show)
- Photo treatment rules (color treatment, crops, composition)

### 6. Voice and tone
How the brand sounds. (Pulled from `brand-voice` work if done separately.)

- Voice attributes (3 to 5 adjectives with "we are X, not Y" framing)
- Tone shifts by context (onboarding, error, marketing, support, legal)
- Vocabulary preferences (words we use, words we avoid)
- Grammar and style rules
- Examples (good and bad copy side by side)

### 7. Applications
The brand applied to real contexts.

- Web (homepage, product pages, blog template)
- Email (template, signature, transactional)
- Social (post templates, profile imagery, story formats)
- Print (business cards, letterhead, print ads)
- Packaging (if applicable)
- Signage (if applicable)
- Internal documents (slides, reports, proposals)
- Each with examples showing what good looks like

From rampstackco/claude-skills, MIT.

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