Voice

Voice is the sixth standard section. It contains how the brand sounds in writing. Tone, owned vocabulary, banned vocabulary, examples and counter-examples, and the channel-specific guidance the team needs to keep the voice consistent across web, email, social, support, and sales.

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What lives here

A complete Voice section has six block groups:

1. The tone statement. Three to five adjectives that name the brand’s voice, with a sentence on each explaining what the adjective means in practice. “Considered” alone is not useful; “considered, meaning we choose precise words over fast words” is.
2. Owned vocabulary. The words and phrases the brand uses deliberately. The owned terms the team should reach for when the situation calls for them. Includes any made-up or repurposed terms, with definitions.
3. Banned vocabulary. The words and phrases the brand does not use. The explicit list, with brief reasons. The banned list is more useful than the owned list for new team members.
4. Examples and counter-examples. Real writing in the brand’s voice and real writing that misses it, paired. The team learns the voice faster from comparison than from rules.
5. Channel-specific notes. How the voice adjusts (and what does not adjust) across web, email, social, support, sales, internal communication. Tone shifts with audience; voice does not.
6. The grammatical and punctuation rules. The brand’s stance on the Oxford comma, em-dashes, exclamation marks, contractions, and any house-style choices that affect how the writing reads.

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Who edits this section

The brand owner, usually with senior copywriting or editorial input. Editors with Voice edit rights, often a head of marketing or content. MadeBy_ during a maintenance retainer. Team members raise Update Requests when they have written something that the current voice rules do not cover, when they spot inconsistency between the rules and the brand’s actual outputs, or when a new channel emerges that needs its own guidance.

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What team members see

The section is text-heavy, organised for scanning. Tone adjectives at the top. Vocabulary as two columns: owned and banned. Examples and counter-examples in side-by-side pairs. Channel notes by tab. Voice is the second-most-referenced section after Logo & Identity. Most team members consult it before a piece of difficult or unfamiliar writing.

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How this section changes

Voice changes for three reasons:

1. The brand evolves and the voice with it. A strategic shift produces a new tone register; a new audience requires a new way of addressing.
2. A new channel appears. The brand starts publishing on a platform it previously did not use; the channel needs its own guidance.
3. A pattern emerges in production. The team has been writing in a way that is not yet documented; the pattern is canonised or, sometimes, refused.

Major rewrites are brand evolution work. Most edits are additions to the vocabulary lists or the example library.

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Common mistakes

Five mistakes show up repeatedly in Voice sections:

1. Tone adjectives with no operational meaning. “Bold, modern, friendly.” The team has no idea what to do with these. Replace with adjectives that imply specific writing choices.
2. No banned vocabulary. Only owned vocabulary is documented. The team knows what to use but not what to refuse. The banned list is shorter and more decisive than the owned list; write it.
3. Examples without counter-examples. The team learns what good writing looks like but not what almost-good writing looks like. Counter-examples sharpen judgment.
4. No channel adjustments documented. The voice is described as if the brand only ever writes in one channel. The team improvises every time the channel changes. State explicitly what shifts and what does not.
5. A voice that flatters the founder rather than the brand. The voice section ends up describing the founder’s writing rather than the brand’s. Test the voice against work produced by people who are not the founder. Adjust until the voice belongs to the brand.

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