Brand Core · Brand Identity · Module
Verbal system
Name, tone of voice, vocabulary and how things are named beneath the brand — the half of identity that is used most and documented least.
The idea
How it works
Far more brand encounters are words than images — support replies, error messages, invoices, contracts — and almost none of them go past a designer. A verbal system is the only thing governing them.
Tone of voice documents fail in a predictable way: they describe an aspiration and give no examples. What makes them usable is pairs — this, not that — drawn from the organisation’s own material.
Working with it
In practice
- 01
Write it as before-and-after pairs
Real sentences rewritten. A principle nobody can apply to a sentence is not a guideline.
- 02
Fix the vocabulary
Decide what the organisation calls its own things. Three names for one feature is a brand problem before it is a documentation problem.
- 03
Cover the unglamorous surfaces
Error messages, out-of-office replies and form labels are read more than the campaign is.
- 04
Set naming rules before you need them
A naming convention decided in advance is a decision; decided per launch it is an argument.
One level in
The components of verbal system
A component is something that exists afterwards which did not exist before — a deliverable or a mechanism, not an intention.
Write tone of voice as before-and-after pairs from your own material. Principles without examples are not applied.
The other modules in brand identity
Brand personality
The traits the brand behaves as if it had — chosen deliberately, with things it is explicitly not, because that is what governs the judgement calls no guideline covers.
LearnVisual system
Logo, colour, typography, imagery and layout — specified precisely enough to be reproduced by someone who has never spoken to anyone about it.
LearnConsistency
How the system is actually held: where the assets live, who can approve a departure, and how often real output is checked against the intent.
Learn