Most brand style guides are written for people: mood boards, values and a page about “our personality”. Models don’t do well with personality descriptions, but they follow clear rules reliably. The writing prompts in our text collection use a short rules block instead of the full brand book.
This post shows how to turn a style guide into ten rules or fewer that you can check in every output. It works especially well together with a well-written persona.
Why the full brand book doesn’t work
A long style guide mixes rules with inspiration. The model can’t tell which sentences are hard requirements and which are background. The result reads roughly on-brand: the right mood, the wrong details.
From description to rule
Go through the guide and rewrite every statement as something you could verify in the output:
- “We’re friendly but professional” → Use “you” and “we”. No slang, no emojis.
- “We value clarity” → Sentences under 25 words. One idea per paragraph.
- “We’re confident, not arrogant” → No superlatives such as “best” or “leading” unless backed by a source.
A rules block you can reuse
Brand voice rules:
1. Address the reader as "you". Refer to us as "we".
2. Sentences under 25 words. Paragraphs under 4 sentences.
3. No exclamation marks, emojis or ALL CAPS.
4. No superlatives (best, leading, revolutionary) without a source.
5. Use "sign up", never "register" or "join now".
6. Numbers as digits: 3 steps, 10 minutes.
7. End with one clear next step, never two.Keep the list short
Past ten rules, models start dropping some, and so do the people reviewing the output. If a rule is rarely broken, remove it. If it is broken all the time, move it to the top.
If two writers can read a rule and disagree about whether it was followed, it isn’t a rule yet.
Content lead
Store it once, include it everywhere
Save the rules block as a reusable snippet and include it in every writing prompt. When the brand changes a term, you update it in one place, and every prompt in the library follows.