Brand Voice Guide Writing

Parent: Writing and Documentation · researched 2026-05-29T19:32:17.893Z· 9 sources · 10 concepts · skill brand-voice-guide-writing

Authoring craft for the brand voice guide as an artifact. The output is a document other writers will open, reference, and apply.

Authoring craft for the brand voice guide as an artifact. The output is a document other writers will open, reference, and apply. [source]

Overview

A brand voice guide answers four questions for every writer who opens it: [source]
Who do we sound like? (Voice - the constant.) [source]
How do we shift in different situations? (Tone - the variable.) [source]
Which words do we use, and which do we never use? (Vocabulary.) [source]
What does this look like in practice? (Examples - usually do/don't pairs.) [source]
If a guide doesn't make these four questions answerable in under 10 minutes of reading, it will be ignored. [source]

Voice - three to five attributes that describe the constant personality. State each as "We are X. We are not Y." (Bloomstein's BrandSort framing: include the not.) [source]
Tone - a matrix showing how voice flexes by situation. [source]
Vocabulary - preferred words, banned words, and grammar/style decisions specific to the brand. [source]
Examples - at least 5 do/don't pairs spanning the highest-traffic surfaces. [source]

The canonical format: [source]
> Confident, not arrogant. We make declarative claims when we know we're right. We don't oversell, hedge with weasel words, or talk down to readers who know less than us. [source]
> Warm, not saccharine. We sound like a competent colleague who likes their job. We don't use exclamation marks to perform enthusiasm or call readers "friend." [source]
Three to five attributes is the sweet spot. [source]

The Nielsen Norman Group axes: formal↔casual, serious↔funny, respectful↔irreverent, enthusiastic↔matter-of-fact. [source]
Anti-pattern: Putting all markers in the middle. "Moderately formal, moderately serious, moderately enthusiastic" is no voice. [source]

> Do: "We paused your build. Resume it when ready." [source]
> Don't: "Oops! Looks like your build got paused. No worries - just click Resume whenever you'd like to keep going! 🚀" [source]
The don't side teaches more than the do side. Pick don'ts from real drafts your team has actually shipped. [source]

Preferred - words that carry the voice. ("ship" not "release"; "you" not "the user".) [source]
Banned - words that break the voice. ("leverage", "synergy", "seamless", "robust", "delightful", "passionate".) [source]
Decisions - product-name capitalization, oxford comma, contractions allowed, em dash vs en dash. [source]

No "we are not." Lists three positive attributes with no opposites. [source]
Spectrum markers all centered. "Moderately formal" is no guidance. [source]
Don't-side strawmen. Don't pairs that are obviously bad teach nothing. [source]
No date, no owner. Writers won't trust an undated guide. [source]
30+ page voice guide. Anything past 10 pages won't be read. [source]
Banning words without preferring others. "Don't say leverage" without "say use" leaves writers stuck. [source]
No tone matrix. Writers can match personality but not situation. [source]