How to write a brand book an AI can actually follow

Most brand books are written to inspire. That is fine for people, who can read between the lines. AI tools can’t. They need rules they can check against.

Write rules, not vibes

“Friendly but professional” means nothing to a model. “Use contractions. Never use exclamation marks in headlines. Say the crew, not customers.” Those it can follow.

Show the wrong version

Every rule gets sharper with a counter-example. Put the off-brand version next to the right one, and both people and models learn the edge faster.

If a rule can’t be checked, it isn’t a rule. It’s a mood board.

The rest of this guide walks through colour, type, imagery and voice, with a template you can copy into Brandbook or any doc.

Colour: values, roles and shares

Give every colour a hex value, a name and a job. “Matcha #6F8F3E, primary” is a rule. A swatch in a PDF is a picture of a rule. Then say roughly how much of a layout each one covers: a ground colour at half, a primary at a third, an accent used sparingly. Models love to spread every colour evenly unless you tell them not to.

Write the pairings down too. Which text colour goes on which background, and which never do. If your orange fails contrast with white text, say so in the book, not in a design review three weeks later.

Type: name the face and the job

Name the headline face, the body face and the fallback when neither is available. Then give each a job and a size range. “Headlines in Bricolage Grotesque ExtraBold, tight tracking, sentence case” tells a tool everything it needs. “Our type is confident and modern” tells it nothing.

Imagery: describe the photo you’d pick

Imagery is the hardest part to put into words, so use examples. Choose six photos you love and six you’d never run, and write one plain sentence about the difference. “Real people mid-moment, natural light, never looking at the camera.” Then add the rules that are easy to break: no stock handshakes, no logos on busy photos without an overlay.

Voice: words, limits and examples

Voice is where checkable rules pay off most. A few patterns cover most of it:

• Words to use and words to avoid, as pairs. “Say cold-pressed, not juiced.”
• Banned punctuation and formatting. No exclamation marks in headlines, no emoji, no capitals for shouting.
• Length limits. “Headlines under eight words.”
• Required words, where you have them. “Afterpay terms on every price.”
• Three or four example headlines that are exactly right.

A template to copy

Here’s the shape we use. It works in a doc, and it’s the same shape Brandbook stores, so you can paste it in or let a scan fill it for you.

# Late Club

## Colour
- Club Violet #6B3BFF · primary · ~30%
- Bone #F3F0E8 · ground · ~50%
- After Black #121016 · text
- Acid Lime #D4FF3A · accent, on After Black only
- Never: Acid Lime on Bone

## Type
- Headlines: Druk Wide Bold, sentence case
- Body: Inter Regular, 16–18px

## Voice
- Say “the crew”, not “customers”
- No exclamation marks in headlines
- Headlines under 8 words

## Imagery
- Real crews mid-moment, flash or warm practical light
- No logo on a photo without a 40% overlay

Each of those lines is something a person can follow and a checker can test. That’s the bar. If you can’t imagine a tool telling you that you broke a rule, rewrite the rule until you can. Then show the book to the newest person on your team and ask them to make something with it. Where they hesitate is where a rule is missing.