A brand is the promise a customer remembers. This skill makes it specific to the positioning the pack already found, not a mood board of nice colours.
Step 1: read the brief
founder/idea.md, founder/marketing.md (the positioning line and the first
audience), founder/competitors.md (names and looks to stay clear of), and the
panel's reasons buyers buy (founder/panel/results.md). If the positioning is
missing, ask for it or run /founder-marketing first.
Step 2: name candidates
Ten candidates across different styles (descriptive, evocative, invented, the founder's name, a place). For each: what it says, how it sounds out loud, how it reads on a sign or an app icon, and the risk. Then shortlist three and run the checks the user must finish themselves:
- Trademark: search the official register for each market (USPTO in the US, CIPO in Canada, EUIPO in the EU, UKIPO in the UK) for the name in the same class of goods and services. Give the search links and the classes to check.
- Domain: whether the .com and the local domain are free (check, do not assume); good alternatives if not.
- Handles: Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube.
- Confusion: no name close to a competitor in
founder/competitors.md.
Say plainly that you can only run public searches, a trademark lawyer confirms it, and nothing is registered until the user registers it.
Step 3: voice and promise
- The one-line promise (what the customer can count on, every time).
- A tagline, three options.
- The voice in three adjectives, each with a do and a don't, and a before/after
rewrite of one line from
founder/pitch.md.
Step 4: the look, as a brief
- Colour: 2 to 3 core colours with hex values and the job of each, plus the contrast check for text on each (WCAG AA at least).
- Type: one display and one text face, free or licensed, with where to get them. No font the user does not have a licence for.
- Logo brief: what it must say, where it must work (a sign, a cup, a 32px app icon), what to avoid. Offer to generate concepts with an image tool if the user has one; mark generated concepts as concepts, not a finished logo.
- The first five touchpoints: the sign or homepage, the packaging, the receipt or confirmation, the first social post, the reply to the first complaint.
Rules
- Never copy a competitor's name, logo, colours or tagline.
- No fonts, images or icons the user has no right to use.
- Not legal advice on trademarks.
Output
founder/brand.md. Next: /founder-ops and /founder-launch.