Definition
What is a brand guide?
A brand guide is the document that sets what a brand says and how it says it: its positioning, its offer, its vocabulary, its tone, then the graphic standards that follow from them. It goes further than a graphic charter, which covers the visual side only. On a site edited through written instructions to an AI, it serves as a shared framework: the person writing and the machine carrying out the change both refer to it.
What a brand guide contains
- Positioning: the difference that makes customers choose the business, phrased in one sentence a customer could repeat.
- The offer: the services as they are named, always the same way.
- Vocabulary and tone: the words used, the ones avoided, the way the reader is addressed.
- Graphic standards: logo, colours, typography and how they are used.
A good guide also says what the brand does not do. A rule that lets you refuse no phrasing and no visual guides nothing.
Why it matters more when an AI edits the site
When an AI such as Claude or ChatGPT applies an instruction across hundreds of pages, it reproduces at scale whatever framework it is given. Without a guide, each change risks pulling the tone, the service names or the colours in a different direction.
The brand guide gives the machine the same reference as the person writing. The request can then stay short: “add a section on our delivery service” is enough, because the service name, the tone and the layout are already set.
The planned exception
A guide is not a cage. A seasonal campaign colour or a turn of phrase outside the usual style can be intentional. The departure is then decided knowingly, for one page or one period, without rewriting the guide.
What changes for good (a new service, a word you drop) goes into the guide instead. Otherwise, the next instruction will bring back the old version.
Suppose a fictional renovation company names its offer “turnkey renovation” in its brand guide and writes that the site addresses readers directly as “you”. A team member asks the AI to add a page about kitchens.
The page produced uses the exact service name, the same form of address and the site's colours, without the request having to spell them out. For a spring promotion, the company decides to depart from the guide with a campaign colour on a single page.
Every AI-managed website project starts with a brand guide. We first define your offer, your competitors and the architecture that converts. If you already have one, we start from yours; if not, our strategists establish it with you.
We keep it active after launch. Claude or ChatGPT carries out each of your instructions inside that framework. A guide kept up to date is therefore worth more than a perfect guide filed away in a folder.
Not to be confused with
- Graphic charter
- A graphic charter covers the visual side: logo, colours, typography. A brand guide adds what the brand says, its offer, its vocabulary and its tone.
- Brand platform
- A brand platform brings together purpose, values and tone in a few pages. A brand guide turns them into rules that apply to every text and every page.
- AI usage policy
- An AI usage policy sets what the team may hand to a tool and who checks the result. A brand guide sets what the brand says and how.
Related concepts
Further reading
- Branding: how to build your brand and measure its impact
- AI usage policy for small businesses: what should it include?
- Generative AI: how to adapt your content marketing strategy
- Website design for visitors, search engines and AI
- Website redesign: defining goals before you begin
Related services
Frequently asked questions
I don't have a brand guide: do I need one before rebuilding my site?
For a site edited through instructions to an AI, yes: it is the framework the machine applies to every change. It does not need to be long. Your offer, your vocabulary, your tone and your graphic standards are enough to start. It then grows as decisions are made.
Is a brand guide the same as brand guidelines?
In practice, yes: brand guide, brand guidelines and brand book are names for the same kind of document. What matters is its content: what the brand says, how it says it and the graphic standards that follow from them.
