frankxai Brand Strategy To Identity
Create identity from evidence, not taste adjectives. This workflow precedes logo, typography, color, imagery, motion, templates, and product implementation.
Hard Stops
Do not create identity directions when any required input is missing:
- canonical product/repository and accountable owner;
- what the product does now, its business model, and its real offer;
- primary audience and the job or consequence that matters to them;
- market/category and the competitors or substitutes people actually compare;
- existing names, domains, trademarks, assets, decisions, licenses, and constraints;
- real proof that may appear near claims.
Do not imply that a domain search or agent research is legal trademark clearance. Naming and final identity promotion require named-human approval; qualified legal review owns clearance where material.
Workflow
- Recover prior truth. Search canonical repositories, Git history, product surfaces, shared drives/DAM indexes, design files, exported assets, and decision records. Classify each artifact as canonical, approved application, draft, experiment, generated source, or export.
- Write the situation. State the product, business objective, recipient, recipient's current belief, desired belief/action, market tension, credible proof, and constraints.
- Map the category. Document competitor codes in names, marks, typography, color, imagery, language, motion, and product behavior. Record sources and capture dates.
- Choose the difference. Define one category position, one promise, three reasons to believe, one emotional consequence, and explicit anti-references. Reject claims that are not supported by product truth.
- Create the verbal core. Write positioning, one-sentence definition, short/medium descriptions, message hierarchy, voice dimensions with paired extremes, proof style, naming grammar, CTA grammar, and forbidden language.
- Create exactly three territories. Each territory must have a thesis, category tension, composition, type posture, color/material logic, imagery, iconography, motion posture, signature memory, anti-reference, and implementation risk.
- Visualize with evidence. Each board cites source references and labels what is reference, licensed production material, captured product evidence, or generated exploration. Translate principles; do not clone assets or compositions.
- Compare before combining. Score distinctiveness, credibility, audience fit, category legibility, extensibility, accessibility, production feasibility, rights risk, and ownability. Select one territory or restart; do not average three directions into generic compromise.
- Write the identity brief. Hand off one selected system with decisions for logo, type, color, space, imagery, icons, motion, product behavior, templates, and governance.
- Record approval. Store decision owner, selected artifact hash, reasons, rejected alternatives, open risks, and next review date.
Required Deliverables
BRAND-BRIEF.md: situation, audience, offer, market, proof, constraints.POSITIONING.md: category, promise, reasons to believe, differentiation, anti-references.VOICE.md: message hierarchy, voice dimensions, examples, forbidden language.DIRECTIONS/: three source-led visual territory artifacts and comparison matrix.IDENTITY-BRIEF.md: selected direction and implementation requirements.SOURCES.md: URLs/paths, owner, rights state, capture date, observed principle, intended use.DECISION.md: named decision owner, selection, rationale, risks, and status.
Quality Gate
Block promotion when:
- the product or recipient could be swapped without changing the work;
- directions differ only by palette or font;
- references have no provenance or are copied literally;
- identity relies on an unverified story, fake proof, or category cliché;
- naming/legal or font/image rights are ambiguous;
- the selected system cannot extend from logo to product, content, motion, and templates;
- the maker is also the only verifier and approver.
Handoff
After selection, use logo-system, font-licensing-gate, typography-art-direction, brand-constitution, and the applicable product/release skills. The strategy document remains authority over downstream style recommendations.