--- name: Brand Guidelines slug: brand-guidelines category: Writing description: Brand Guidelines helps document and apply a brand system across new work. Use it to extract colours, type, spacing, imagery, and voice from existing assets, then audit for drift and consistency. github: "https://github.com/nimadorostkar/Claude-Skills-collection/tree/main/skills/design/brand-guidelines" language: Python stars: 25 forks: 3 install: "npx degit https://github.com/nimadorostkar/Claude-Skills-collection/tree/main/skills/design/brand-guidelines ~/.claude/skills/brand-guidelines" installs_to: ~/.claude/skills/brand-guidelines source_path: skills/design/brand-guidelines/SKILL.md collection_size: 50 category_size: 1012 collection_url: "https://dirskills.com/collections/nimadorostkar/Claude-Skills-collection" added: 2026-08-12T04:44:18.964Z last_synced: 2026-08-12T04:44:18.964Z canonical_url: "https://dirskills.com/skills/brand-guidelines" --- # Brand Guidelines Brand Guidelines helps document and apply a brand system across new work. Use it to extract colours, type, spacing, imagery, and voice from existing assets, then audit for drift and consistency. **Install:** ```bash npx degit https://github.com/nimadorostkar/Claude-Skills-collection/tree/main/skills/design/brand-guidelines ~/.claude/skills/brand-guidelines ``` ## README # Brand Guidelines ## Purpose Apply a brand consistently, and document it well enough that someone else can too. A brand that exists only in one designer's judgment is not a brand; it is a taste. ## When to Use - Applying an existing brand to new material. - Documenting a brand that has never been written down. - Auditing material for brand consistency. - Extracting a system from a set of existing assets. ## Capabilities - Extracting colour, type, spacing, and voice from existing assets. - Documenting a usable brand system. - Applying a brand across media. - Auditing for drift. ## Inputs - Existing brand assets, or a brand guideline document. - The material to be produced or audited. - The medium and its constraints. ## Outputs - A documented system: colour, type, spacing, imagery, voice. - Material that is on-brand and can be verified as such. - A list of the places the brand has drifted. ## Workflow 1. **Extract before inventing** — If a brand exists in assets but not in a document, derive it: sample the colours, identify the typefaces, measure the spacing, read the copy for voice. What is consistent across the assets is the brand; what varies is drift. 2. **Document the decisions, not just the values** — "Primary blue #2563EB, used for actions and links only. Never for large fills." The constraint is the useful part. 3. **Cover the cases people get wrong** — Minimum logo size, clear space, what to do on a dark background, what happens when the brand colour fails contrast. 4. **Document the voice** — It is half the brand and it is nearly always omitted. Give examples of on-brand and off-brand copy. 5. **Apply, then audit** — Check the output against the system rather than against instinct. ## Best Practices - A brand guideline without a "do not" section is not usable. The prohibitions are what prevent drift. - Colour is where drift starts. Two similar blues in circulation becomes five within a year. - The brand's primary colour frequently fails accessibility contrast for text. Document what to use instead, before someone ships an unreadable button. - Voice examples do more than adjectives. "Confident, not arrogant" means nothing; a before-and-after pair of sentences means something. - Logo misuse — stretching, recolouring, placing on a busy photograph — is universal and is prevented only by showing the wrong version explicitly. - A brand that cannot survive being applied by a non-designer is not documented well enough. ## Examples **A brand system documented so that it can be applied:** ```markdown ## Colour | Token | Hex | Use | Never | |----------------------|----------|------------------------------------------|------------------------------| | brand/primary | #2563EB | Primary actions, links, active states | Large fills; body text | | brand/primary-dark | #1D4ED8 | Hover and pressed states only | Anything else | | brand/ink | #111827 | Body text, headings | — | | brand/paper | #FFFFFF | Backgrounds | — | | brand/accent | #F59E0B | Warnings, highlights. Sparingly. | More than one per screen | **Contrast:** `brand/primary` on white is 4.6:1 — it passes for body text but only just. For text below 16px, use `brand/primary-dark` (7.1:1). Never place `brand/accent` text on white: it is 2.1:1 and unreadable. ## Type Display : Söhne, 600 weight. Headings only. Tracking -0.02em above 32px. Text : Söhne, 400/500. Body, UI, everything else. Never : a third typeface. Hierarchy comes from size and weight. ## Voice We are direct and specific. We do not hedge, and we do not perform enthusiasm. | Off-brand | On-brand | |----------------------------------------------------|---------------------------------------------| | "Oops! Something went wrong." | "We couldn't save your changes. Try again." | | "We're thrilled to announce an exciting new..." | "Exports now include line items." | | "Please kindly note that you may wish to consider" | "You can also..." | ## Logo - Minimum width: 24px (digital), 20mm (print). - Clear space: the height of the mark, on all four sides. - On photography: use the white version, on an area of the image with low detail. Never on a busy background. - Never: stretch, rotate, recolour, add effects, or place inside a shape that is not part of the mark. ``` ## Notes - The contrast note above is the kind of detail that separates a usable guideline from a decorative one. A brand colour that fails contrast for small text will be used for small text unless the document says what to use instead. - Voice tables with a wrong/right pair are the most effective format for the writing half of a brand. Adjectives are not actionable. - Audit quarterly. Brand drift is gradual, and it is only visible when the current material is placed next to the guideline.