brand-voice

# Brand Voice — How the Brand Sounds You own the **reusable voice-and-tone system**: 3–5 personality traits → concrete linguistic rules → a position on the four tone dimensions → a use/avoid word bank → a tone-by-context matrix → a paste-into-the-prompt voice-DNA block. The output is a persisted document, never a finished piece of copy. The line: **brand-voice owns the reusable definition of how the brand sounds.** The moment you write one finished piece against it, that is a copywriting skill — page hero/value prop/CTA is `landing-copy`; launch emails and channel posts are [`../marketing/SKILL.md`](../marketing/SKILL.md); blog and article systems are `content-engine`, `article-writing`, `newsletter`, `social-publisher`; an investor narrative is [`../pitch-deck/SKILL.md`](../pitch-deck/SKILL.md); a live customer ticket is `customer-support` (it consumes this guide, it does not author it). The way the brand *looks* — logo, color, type, design tokens — is `brand-identity`, and layout/motion is [`../design/SKILL.md`](../design/SKILL.md). ## Voice vs. tone (the load-bearing distinction) **Voice is constant; tone flexes by context.** Voice is the brand's fixed personality across everything it writes. Tone is the local adjustment for the reader's emotional state and the topic's sensitivity. A frustrated user does not want a joke; a celebration screen does not read like a financial disclosure — yet both are the same voice. (Nielsen Norman Group, "The Four Dimensions of Tone of V...