A small brand kit: colours, type, voice and logo directions

A one-page brand kit: a short brief, a tested colour palette, two typefaces, a voice guide and logo directions.

Best for: Founders and small teams who need a consistent look without hiring a full identity project.

• A clear sentence about who you serve and what you do.
• Three brands you admire and a few you do not want to resemble.
• A design tool such as Figma or Canva, and a text assistant.

1. 1

   Write the brief

   Answer who you serve, what you do differently, three words you want people to say and three words you never want to hear. Keep the brief to about 120 words. Every later choice is judged against it.

2. 2

   Choose mood words, not styles

   Pick three to five mood words (for example calm, precise, warm). Use them to search and to prompt. They are more useful than copying a trend, and they make your decisions explainable.

3. 3

   Build and test a palette

   Choose a background, a text colour, one main accent, one secondary accent and a highlight. Test text and background pairs for contrast (WCAG AA is a good minimum for body text). A beautiful palette that cannot be read is not a palette.

   ✦Tip. Keep your accent colour rare. If everything is an accent, nothing is.

4. 4

   Pick two typefaces

   One for headings and one for reading is enough. Choose fonts with a licence that matches your use (print, web, app) and that cover every language you need, including accents and, if relevant, Cyrillic.

5. 5

   Explore logo directions

   Use image models for directions and mood boards, not for the final mark. Redraw the chosen idea as clean vector shapes, check it at 16 pixels and in one colour, and make sure it is not too similar to an existing mark.

6. 6

   Write a short voice guide

   Three voice traits, words you like and avoid, and the same message in a few situations such as a welcome, an apology and a price change. This is what keeps copy consistent when several people or tools write for you.

7. 7

   Put it on one page

   Collect palette, type, logo rules and voice into one page you can share. Add do and do-not examples. Review it after three months of real use and adjust.

Replace anything in [square brackets]. Prompts are starting points: results vary between tools and versions, so review every output.

Prompts are written in English because image, video and most text models follow English instructions best. To get answers in your language, add “Reply in English.” to a prompt for a text assistant.

Interview me to define my brand in 10 short questions, one at a time. Cover: who I serve, what I do differently, three words I want customers to say about me, three words I never want to hear, and one competitor I respect. After my answers, write a 120-word brand brief and list 3 design directions with mood words for each.

Propose 3 colour palettes for a [type of business] aimed at [audience] with the mood [words]. Give each as 5 hex codes with a role (background, text, main accent, secondary accent, highlight). Then check contrast: tell me which text and background pairs pass WCAG AA for body text and which do not.

Write a one-page brand voice guide for [business]. Include: 3 voice traits with a "we are / we are not" line each, 5 words we like, 5 words we avoid, and the same message written in 3 situations: a welcome email, an apology and a price change. Keep it practical and free of buzzwords.

• ✕Choosing colours by taste alone and never testing contrast.
• ✕Using a generated logo as final without redrawing and checking it.
• ✕Picking fonts that lack accents or other alphabets you will need.
• ✕Writing a brand voice made only of adjectives, with no examples.