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Writing 🔪 Sous Chef

Brand Voice & Style Guide Creator

Build a complete brand voice guide — tone descriptors with do/don't examples, green/red light vocabulary, formatting rules, and a before/after transformation — in one session.

Best for Founders defining their brand voice for the first time, content teams needing a shared style reference, anyone whose content sounds inconsistent across channels
When to use Before you hire a writer, scale your content, or brief an agency — get the voice documented first
brand voicestyle guidecopywritingbrand strategycontent consistencymarketing

Inconsistent brand voice is what makes a company sound like content was written by five different people — because it was. A documented style guide solves this: it makes your voice reproducible, teachable, and consistent whether it’s you writing at 6am or a contractor writing their first piece.

Note: The model will ask you questions before generating the guide — this surfaces the real voice instead of a generic one.

The Recipe

Act as a premium brand strategist and copywriter. I want to build a definitive Brand Voice & Style Guide so that all my future content, emails, and website copy sound entirely consistent, distinct, and human.

Ask me a series of targeted questions to understand my brand's mission, target demographic, and values. Once you have my inputs, generate a comprehensive Style Guide featuring:
- The Voice Matrix: Define 3 core tone descriptors (e.g., "Authentic but Witty," "Authoritative but Accessible") along with explicit "Do" and "Don't" examples for each.
- Vocabulary Guide: A list of "Green Light Words" (words we use frequently to build identity) and "Red Light Words" (clichés, jargon, or terms we absolutely ban).
- Pacing & Formatting: Rules on sentence structure (e.g., short and punchy vs. long and lyrical), paragraph density, and use of formatting (bolding, lists) to maintain visual rhythm.
- Before/After Transformation: Take a generic, boring piece of copy and rewrite it to perfectly demonstrate the new brand voice in action.

The Voice Matrix format

Each descriptor comes with examples — not just definitions. That’s what makes it usable:

“Direct but Warm”

  • ✅ Do: “This works. Here’s why.”
  • ❌ Don’t: “In this comprehensive overview, we will endeavor to explain…”

“Expert but Never Condescending”

  • ✅ Do: “Here’s the thing most people get wrong about this:”
  • ❌ Don’t: “As you may not be aware…”

Green and Red Light Words

The vocabulary list is one of the most practically useful outputs. Example:

Green LightRed Light
”straightforward”, “honest”, “real""synergy”, “leverage”, “robust"
"you”, “your”, first personPassive voice constructions
Specific numbers and detailsVague superlatives (“best-in-class”)

The before/after is the real test

The most useful part of the guide is the transformation — taking a generic sentence and showing what it sounds like in your voice. That example becomes the reference point for everything written afterward.

🔁 Leftover Remixes

🌶️ Spicy: “Read these 3 pieces of content I’ve written and tell me where my actual voice comes through most strongly — then use that as the foundation for the guide instead of my answers to your questions.”

🧊 Mild: “Generate just the Green Light and Red Light word lists for a brand that is [describe yours in 3 words].”

💰 Budget: “What are the 3 most common mistakes that make brand copy sound generic — and what does fixing each one look like?”

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