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SKILL.md

Brand Voice

Define how a brand sounds in writing. Document it in a way that anyone (writer, designer, founder, AI assistant) can apply it consistently.

This skill produces a standalone voice document that can either live in the brand style guide or feed into it.

When to use

  • Defining brand voice for the first time
  • Auditing existing copy for voice consistency
  • Training a team, freelancer, or AI assistant on the brand voice
  • Refining a voice that exists but is inconsistent across applications
  • Adapting voice when a brand evolves (new audience, new positioning)

When NOT to use

  • Writing specific copy (use content-and-copy)
  • Brand visual identity work (use brand-identity)
  • Documenting a complete brand system (use brand-style-guide, which incorporates voice)
  • Initial brand exploration (use brand-ideation)

Required inputs

  • The brand and its positioning
  • The audience and what they need to hear
  • 5 to 10 examples of existing brand writing (if any)
  • 3 to 5 reference brands whose voice resonates with where this brand should go
  • Any voice attributes already specified in the brief

The framework: 4 layers

Voice has four layers, stacked. Each layer constrains the one below it.

Layer 1: Voice attributes

The constants. The personality traits that define how the brand sounds across every context.

Pick 3 to 5 attributes. Pair each with what it is NOT (the failure mode if overdone).

Common attribute pairings (NOT a menu - generate your own):

  • Confident, not arrogant
  • Direct, not blunt
  • Warm, not saccharine
  • Witty, not sarcastic
  • Smart, not academic
  • Honest, not harsh
  • Playful, not silly
  • Practical, not boring
  • Bold, not loud
  • Curious, not unfocused

The "not" half is what saves writers from overshooting. "Confident" alone produces swagger. "Confident, not arrogant" tells writers where the line is.

Layer 2: Tone shifts

Voice is constant. Tone adapts to context.

Map the major contexts the brand writes in. For each, document how voice expresses differently.

Common contexts:

Context Tone shift
Onboarding Warmer, more enthusiastic, slightly slower pace
Hero / marketing Confident, signature voice fully on
Product copy / UX Direct, helpful, brief
Error messages Calm, matter-of-fact, no apology theater
Success states Brief celebration, redirect to next action
Empty states Helpful, slightly playful, suggest action
404 / not found Self-aware, light, points the way home
Account deletion / cancellation Quiet, respectful, no jokes
Pricing Direct, transparent, confidence-inspiring
Legal / TOS Plain language version sits next to the legal version
Support / help center Patient, thorough, no condescension
Crisis communication Calm, factual, accountable
Product announcements Excited but not breathless
Email subject lines Specific, never click-bait

Voice stays consistent across all of these. Tone is what shifts.

Layer 3: Vocabulary and grammar

The granular dial settings.

Vocabulary preferences:

  • Words and phrases the brand uses
  • Words and phrases the brand avoids
  • Words the brand has redefined (if any) - e.g., a SaaS product calling its features "huddles" instead of "meetings"
  • Industry jargon: keep it (signals expertise) or strip it (signals approachability)
  • Sentence-opening preferences (some brands lean on imperatives, some on questions, some on statements)

Grammar and style:

  • Contractions (use them = casual, avoid them = formal)
  • Sentence length default (short = punchy, medium = considered, long = literary)
  • Punctuation marks favored or avoided (em dash is famously polarizing)
  • Pronouns ("we" / "you" / "I")
  • Capitalization style (title case, sentence case, all-lowercase deliberate)
  • Number formatting (spell out under ten, or always digits)
  • Oxford comma (use or skip)
  • Active vs passive voice (most brands prefer active)

Layer 4: Examples and patterns

Voice is taught through examples, not rules. Build a library.

For each major content type, show:

  • Bad example (off-voice)
  • Good example (on-voice)
  • Brief note on what changed

Common content types to cover:

  • Headline
  • Subheadline
  • Hero CTA
  • Feature description
  • Testimonial intro
  • Email subject line
  • Email opening
  • Push notification
  • Error message
  • Success message
  • About page paragraph
  • Social post
  • Sales page paragraph

Aim for 15 to 25 paired examples. This is the most-used part of the voice doc in practice.

Workflow

  1. Audit existing copy if it exists. Identify what is on-brand, what is off, what patterns recur.
  2. Layer 1: Voice attributes. Generate 5 to 8 candidates with "we are X, not Y" framing. Pick 3 to 5.
  3. Layer 2: Tone shifts. List 8 to 15 contexts the brand writes in. Note the tone shift for each.
  4. Layer 3: Vocabulary and grammar. Define preferences. Skip default rules unless they actually distinguish the brand.
  5. Layer 4: Examples. Build the paired-example library. 15 to 25 minimum.
  6. Stress-test. Pick a fresh writing brief and apply the voice doc. Does it produce on-voice copy? If not, the doc is incomplete.
  7. Document. Use the template in references/voice-document-template.md.
  8. Distribute. Voice docs only work if they get used. Make the doc easy to reference inline (link to it from CMS templates, brief templates, AI assistant prompts).

Failure patterns

  • Generic attributes ("friendly, professional, approachable"). Every brand says this. Means nothing. Pick attributes that genuinely distinguish.
  • No "we are NOT" pairings. Without the rejection, attributes drift toward extremes.
  • Voice doc with no examples. Rules without examples cannot be applied.
  • Examples that are obviously bad and obviously good. Real voice work shows nuanced shifts, not cartoonish before/after.
  • Skipping tone shifts. Treating voice as one-size-fits-all leads to a brand that sounds wrong in error states or legal contexts.
  • Documenting aspirational voice. If the brand does not actually sound this way today and has no plan to shift, the doc is fiction.
  • Voice without distribution. A perfect doc that no one references is worth nothing.

Output format

Default output is a markdown document at voice.md in the brand folder. Sections:

  1. Voice attributes (with we-are-not pairings)
  2. Tone shifts by context
  3. Vocabulary preferences
  4. Grammar and style rules
  5. Paired examples library (the most-used section)
  6. Anti-patterns (specific phrases or constructions to avoid)
  7. References (the brands and writers we are inspired by)

This doc can stand alone or feed into brand-style-guide.

Reference files