brand-blueprint-builder

name	brand-blueprint-builder
description	Builds a comprehensive brand blueprint for any business — personal brand, founder brand, agency, product company, or service business. Produces a multi-document brand system covering identity, narrative, visual identity, messaging, services & revenue, content engine, and AI operating manual. Use when the user asks to 'build a brand blueprint', 'create a brand book', 'document our brand', 'set up brand foundation', 'do a brand audit and lock decisions', 'write our positioning', 'create brand guidelines', 'redo our brand strategy', or starts a new venture and needs a complete brand foundation. Walks through the work in eight ordered sections with explicit prompts; outputs both supporting documents AND a master blueprint that synthesizes them. Generic across personal vs. commercial brands.
license	MIT
metadata	{"version":"1.0.0","author":"Daniel Gonell","repo":"https://github.com/danielgonell/brand-blueprint-builder","sources":"Field-tested on a real personal-brand build (April 2026); StoryBrand SB7 framework; brand-archetype canon (Margaret Mark / Carol Pearson); Marty Neumeier brand-strategy lineage"}

Brand Blueprint Builder

You produce a complete brand blueprint — a multi-document system that locks every brand decision in one place so the brand can be operated by anyone (humans, agents, agencies, freelancers) without drift.

Run discipline:

• The blueprint is built in eight ordered sections. Earlier sections feed later ones. Don't skip ahead — the visual identity (Section 4) doesn't make sense if the archetype (Section 3) isn't locked, and content pillars (Section 7) don't make sense if services (Section 6) aren't defined.
• Every section produces a written deliverable. Nothing stays in your head. The deliverables are the blueprint.
• For each section, you ask the user the right questions, draft proposals, and the user locks each decision before moving on. You never advance a section while a prior decision is still open.
• Apply the human-voice skill (if installed) to every piece of copy you draft.
• Filter {{EXCLUDED_ENTITIES}} from any client-facing copy.
• The blueprint is project-agnostic. It works the same whether the brand is a person, an agency, a product company, or a service business.

---

Brand-config integration

If brand-config.yml exists, the blueprint reads it for owner.name, brand.primary, brand.excluded_entities, and owner.timezone. Otherwise the skill collects those values inline at the start of Section 1.

The skill also writes its outputs to paths.brand_playbook (or defaults to brand-blueprint.md at the project root) plus the supporting docs listed below.

---

Output structure

You produce these files in this exact order:

brand/
├── 01_founder_story_and_values.md          ← Section 1
├── 02_brand_identity.md                     ← Section 3 supporting doc
├── 03_visual_identity.md                    ← Section 4 supporting doc
├── 04_services_and_offers.md                ← Section 6 supporting doc
├── 05_messaging_framework.md                ← Section 5 supporting doc
├── 06_content_strategy.md                   ← Section 7 supporting doc
├── 07_brand_narrative_core.md               ← Section 2 supporting doc
└── 99_brand_blueprint.md                    ← THE master blueprint (synthesis)

The master blueprint at 99_brand_blueprint.md is the deliverable the brand owner shares with every collaborator. The numbered supporting docs are the source-of-truth files those decisions live in.

---

The eight sections

Section 1 · The Person / The Entity (foundation)

What you're capturing: who is behind the brand, what they actually love, what they refuse, what they're optimizing for. A brand that doesn't know who's behind it produces vague copy.

Questions to ask:

• Who founded / leads / IS this brand? (For personal brands: the person. For commercial brands: the founders, the parent entity, key leadership.)
• What's the legal entity architecture? (LLC / Inc / DBA / parent → subsidiary → DBA chains.) For multi-entity owners, name every entity and which surfaces use which.
• What does the founder / leadership ACTUALLY love about this work? Not the marketing answer.
• What's the founder optimizing for? (Money, freedom, legacy, mission, craft, mastery — usually a mix; rank them.)
• What's their aesthetic sensibility? (Minimalist / maximalist, modern / classical, technical / warm — name three reference brands and why.)
• What are their privacy tiers? (What's public-facing, what's internal-only, what's never-mentioned.)
• What entities/ventures must NEVER appear in client-facing copy? (brand.excluded_entities)

Output: brand/01_founder_story_and_values.md, structured as:

• The person/entity (1–2 paragraphs)
• What they love (life + work)
• Aesthetic sensibility (with three reference brands)
• Mission / why
• Entity architecture (full diagram in markdown)
• Privacy tiers (public / contextual / never-mentioned)
• How this shapes the brand (about-page narrative voice, mission-level copy register)

This document is the soul of the brand. Everything else flows from it.

---

Section 2 · Narrative Core (Purpose / Mission / Vision / Values)

What you're capturing: the abstract layer above tactics. Why the brand exists, where it's going, what it refuses to become.

See references/narrative-core.md for the full structure and per-section prompts. At the high level, you produce:

• Purpose — the why. The reason the brand exists beyond making money. One sentence.
• Mission — the what. What we do for whom and how we measure it. Two sentences max.
• Vision — the where. What the world looks like if we succeed. One paragraph in present tense (as if it's already here).
• Values — typically 5. Each value gets a full treatment: name, one-line definition, three behaviors that make it visible, three anti-behaviors (what violates it), one example moment.
• Principles — how we decide. Decision rules derived from the values.
• Promise — what every client experiences. The "if-this-isn't-true-the-brand-is-broken" commitment.
• Anti-vision — what we refuse to become. Names 3–5 specific brands or archetypes the brand will never imitate.
• North Star Metric — one number that, if it grows, the brand is healthy.
• Elevator pitches — four lengths: 10s, 30s, 60s, 2-min.
• Manifesto — the rallying declaration. 200–400 words. The thing that lives on the About page or in the speaker intro.
• Positioning statement — one sentence in the form: "For [audience], we are the [category] that [unique thing] so that [outcome]."
• Tagline hierarchy — primary tagline + 2–3 alternates for different contexts.

Output: brand/07_brand_narrative_core.md

Critical: don't draft these in isolation. Each item informs the next. Purpose anchors mission; mission frames vision; values constrain principles; principles produce the promise; promise + anti-vision define positioning; positioning produces the tagline. Walk it in order.

---

Section 3 · Positioning, Voice & Identity

What you're capturing: how the brand sounds and what category it claims.

Read brand/01_founder_story_and_values.md and brand/07_brand_narrative_core.md first.

Sub-sections:

3.1 Positioning statement (locked from Section 2)

Restate it. Add the target client profile (ICP) — the person who reads this and says "yes, that's me":

• Demographic (industry, role, size, geography)
• Stage (revenue range, employee count, lifecycle phase)
• Psychographic (what they value, what they fear, what they've tried that didn't work)
• Decision criteria (how they buy, who else they consider, what closes the deal)
• Anti-ICP (who is NOT a fit — name them so the brand doesn't drift toward them)

3.2 Brand archetypes (Margaret Mark / Carol Pearson)

Pick primary + secondary from the 12 archetypes:

• Sage, Creator, Hero, Rebel/Outlaw, Magician, Lover, Jester, Caregiver, Ruler, Innocent, Explorer, Everyperson

Document why those two and what each contributes. Worked examples in references/archetype-canon.md.

3.3 Voice pillars (3–5)

Each pillar has a one-line definition + 3 behaviors that demonstrate it. Common pillar shapes: direct, practitioner-grade, generous, contrarian, systems-thinking, playful. Name yours from the archetypes + values, not from a list of adjectives.

3.4 Signature phrases

3–8 phrases the brand owns. Each phrase: the phrase itself, when to use it, an anti-version (what NOT to say that's close).

3.5 Write / Don't-write checklist

Two columns. Concrete examples of voice-on / voice-off lines. The list grows over time as drift gets caught.

Output: brand/02_brand_identity.md

---

Section 4 · Visual Identity

What you're capturing: the look. Done after voice so the visuals reinforce the voice, not invent it.

See references/visual-identity-system.md for the full per-section prompts and decision rubric.

Sub-sections:

4.1 Design philosophy

A 1-paragraph statement of the visual stance. Names the aesthetic family ("minimalist editorial," "maximalist tech," "warm artisanal"), the design heroes / reference systems, and the tradeoffs the brand is willing to make.

4.2 Mood board — reference brands

5–10 reference brands with one-line "what we take from them." Be specific about what — typography, color discipline, motion, photography style.

4.3 Color system

Three palettes, not one:

• Signature palette — the brand mark + product surfaces. 3–5 colors, every color named, every hex value locked, contrast ratios documented.
• Digital surface palette — typically the signature palette + 2–3 extension colors for blog images, social cards, email.
• Print / deck palette — what reproduces well in CMYK, what holds at small sizes.

4.4 Typography

• Display family — for headlines, marks, hero copy.
• Text family — for body copy.
• System fallbacks — for performance.
• Specific sizes/weights for h1 / h2 / h3 / body / small.
• One example for each.

4.5 Logo

• The mark itself, in lockup variations (full / monogram / favicon).
• Clear-space rules.
• Color applications (on light, on dark, on photography, monochrome).
• Forbidden treatments (don't stretch / don't recolor / don't add effects / don't combine with other marks).

4.6 Photography / imagery direction

Concrete: hero image templates per content pillar. Stock vs. custom rules. AI-generated rules. Crop ratios. Subject treatment.

4.7 Motion

Default easing curve. Default duration. What animates and what doesn't. Reduced-motion fallback.

4.8 Spacing & layout

Grid system. Vertical rhythm baseline. Section-spacing scale.

4.9 Iconography

Library + style + stroke-weight + corner-radius rules.

4.10 Do's and Don'ts summary

Side-by-side examples of correct vs. incorrect application. This catches 90% of agency drift.

Output: brand/03_visual_identity.md plus a separate visual brand-hub artifact (brand-hub.html or equivalent) if the brand wants a clickable reference.

---

Section 5 · Messaging Framework

What you're capturing: the actual copy that lives on the homepage, in the email signature, in the pitch deck. Done after voice + visual so the copy fits the rest.

See references/messaging-framework.md for the full template.

Sub-sections:

• Hero headlines — 3–5 options for the homepage hero. Pick one as primary.
• Homepage copy framework — section-by-section copy: hero, sub-hero, value props, services teaser, social proof, secondary CTA, footer.
• Service block headlines — one per service. Locked.
• CTA inventory — every CTA in the brand, where it appears, what action it triggers.
• Key brand phrases — the lines that appear across many surfaces: signatures, decks, social bios.
• Newsletter / social proof copy — testimonial templates, case-study lede patterns, subscription pitch.
• Copy do / don't quick reference

Output: brand/05_messaging_framework.md

---

Section 6 · Services & Revenue Architecture

What you're capturing: what the brand sells, at what price, to whom, and how the revenue actually compounds.

See references/revenue-architecture.md for the offers ladder and active/leveraged/passive model.

Sub-sections:

6.1 Service / offer pillars

Typically 3–5 pillars. Each pillar is a problem-shape, not a service. (E.g., "Brand foundation work" not "Logo design.") For each pillar: one-line description, when a client needs it, what the deliverable is.

6.2 Signature offers (the ladder)

3–7 offers organized as a ladder from low-commitment to high-commitment. Each offer has: name, format, length, price (or "request quote"), who it's for, what it produces.

6.3 The full revenue model

Three layers:

• Active revenue — trade time at high rates. (Consulting hours, retainer hours, custom projects.)
• Leveraged revenue — your time reaches more people. (Cohort programs, group coaching, paid speaking, courses delivered live.)
• Passive / automated revenue — builds once, runs without the founder. (Self-paced courses, books, products, license-able templates, software.)

For each layer, name the specific offers, the unit economics, and the constraints (max hours, max cohort size, max margin).

6.4 The automation architecture

Where the offers connect to the rest of the stack — CRM, scheduling, payments, fulfillment, follow-up. This is what makes revenue compound. Reference the actual MCPs / tools the brand uses (or plans to).

6.5 Revenue timeline (phased)

Quarter-by-quarter: which revenue layers are live, what's being built, what milestones unlock the next layer.

6.6 Lead → client journey

The exact path from "first awareness" to "signed contract." Every touchpoint named, every CTA mapped to a stage.

Output: brand/04_services_and_offers.md

---

Section 7 · Content & Growth Engine

What you're capturing: what the brand publishes, on what cadence, on which platforms, to what end.

Sub-sections:

7.1 Content pillars

Typically 5. Each pillar is a topic-territory the brand owns. For each pillar: definition, three example post angles, what topics fall OUTSIDE the pillar (so we don't drift).

7.2 Day-themes (if cadence is daily)

Mon/Tue/Wed/Thu/Fri primary themes. Each day = one pillar.

7.3 Platforms

3–4 primary platforms with platform-specific rules. (E.g., LinkedIn = thought leadership long-form, X = thread, IG = visual carousel, blog = canonical long-form.)

7.4 Repurposing flow

How one piece of canonical content (typically blog or podcast) becomes 5–10 platform-specific posts.

7.5 Publishing tooling

The actual tools — CMS, scheduler, email platform, analytics. Plus the agentic skills from this library that automate parts of it (newsletter-drafter, social-content-drafter, voice-drift-scanner).

7.6 Newsletter strategy

Cadence, length, structure, lead magnet, list-building strategy.

Output: brand/06_content_strategy.md

---

Section 8 · AI Operating Manual

What you're capturing: how AI tools should behave for this brand. Required because every AI tool a brand uses (Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Cursor, Cowork, internal agents) needs the same context to stay on-brand.

Sub-sections:

8.1 The three-step "always" checklist

What every AI agent does at session start: (1) read the brand playbook, (2) load the human-voice skill (if applicable), (3) check brand-config.yml for the active configuration.

8.2 Always use

The skills, prompts, and references the AI agent should default to. Reference the AI Agent Skills Library entries by name.

8.3 Never do

Banned behaviors: auto-publishing, naming excluded entities, inventing facts, etc.

8.4 When in doubt

The escalation path. Who decides what when the AI is unsure.

8.5 File hierarchy for AI context

The exact order of files an AI agent should read at session start. The blueprint itself is the highest-priority file; supporting docs follow.

8.6 Agentic stack

The actual MCPs, plugins, and skills the brand operates with. Reference the AI Agent Skills Library bundles by name.

Output: A section in the master blueprint, plus optionally a copy at AGENTS.md at the project root for IDE-based agents.

---

The master blueprint (Section 9 — synthesis)

After all eight sections produce their supporting docs, you write the master blueprint at brand/99_brand_blueprint.md. The master is not a copy of the supporting docs — it's a synthesis. It pulls the locked decision from each supporting doc and presents the brand as a whole.

Master blueprint structure:

# Brand Blueprint — {{PRIMARY_BRAND}}

> The single document anyone needs to read to operate this brand consistently.
> Each section links to the supporting doc where the decisions live in full.

## Table of Contents
[8 numbered sections as above + cross-references at the end]

## 1. The Person / Entity
[2-paragraph synthesis from 01_founder_story_and_values.md]

## 2. Narrative Core
[Purpose, mission, vision, values (one-line each), positioning statement, tagline.
Pulled from 07_brand_narrative_core.md.]

## 3. Positioning & Voice
[Positioning statement, ICP one-line, archetypes, voice pillars (one-line each),
signature phrases. Pulled from 02_brand_identity.md.]

## 4. Visual Identity
[Design philosophy in one paragraph, color system table, typography table,
logo lockup variations (linked images), 3 do/don't examples.
Pulled from 03_visual_identity.md.]

## 5. Messaging Framework
[Hero headline (locked), 3 service block headlines, primary CTAs.
Pulled from 05_messaging_framework.md.]

## 6. Services & Revenue Architecture
[Service pillars, offers ladder, active/leveraged/passive layers, current revenue phase.
Pulled from 04_services_and_offers.md.]

## 7. Content & Growth Engine
[5 pillars, day-themes, platforms, newsletter cadence.
Pulled from 06_content_strategy.md.]

## 8. AI Operating Manual
[The full content of Section 8 — this lives ONLY in the master blueprint.]

## Cross-references
[Table mapping every supporting doc to the section it backs.]

---

What this skill explicitly does NOT do

• Does not invent founder backstories, claims, statistics, or proof points. If the user can't answer a question, the skill flags it for the user to fill in rather than making it up.
• Does not pick the brand archetype for the user. It proposes options based on Section 1 + Section 2 inputs, the user picks.
• Does not draft visual assets (logos, photography). It documents the system and links to where assets live; design execution happens elsewhere (use the design-methodology skill in this library for the actual design work).
• Does not lock decisions. The user locks each section before the skill advances. The skill's job is to draft and structure; the user's job is to decide.
• Does not output the entire blueprint in one shot. The skill is iterative — it walks one section at a time so the user can absorb and decide.
• Does not skip sections. If the user wants to skip Section 4 (visual identity) because the visuals are still in flux, the skill stubs the section ("DEFERRED — see Section 4 in v2") rather than omitting it.

---

When to update this SKILL.md

• A new brand-strategy framework worth integrating (e.g., Jobs-to-be-Done layered into Section 5, or a new archetype canon).
• A section consistently produces low-quality output → tighten the prompts in that section.
• A new supporting doc is added (e.g., a "10_partnership_kit.md" for brands that do co-marketing).
• The master blueprint synthesis pattern changes (e.g., new platform-specific call-outs).
• The AI Operating Manual section needs a new always-load entry as the AI Agent Skills Library grows.

---

Examples

Example 1 — new personal brand from scratch

User: "I just left my agency to go solo. Build me a brand blueprint."

Skill:
  Section 1 — Asks 8 founder questions, drafts 01_founder_story_and_values.md.
              User locks. Skill commits.
  Section 2 — Walks Purpose → Mission → Vision → Values → ... → Tagline.
              Drafts 07_brand_narrative_core.md.
              User reviews each sub-section, locks. Skill commits.
  Section 3 — Proposes 3 archetype combinations based on §1 + §2.
              User picks. Skill drafts voice pillars + signature phrases.
              User locks. Skill commits 02_brand_identity.md.
  Section 4 — Asks for 5 reference brands. Drafts mood board.
              Walks color/typography/logo/photography/motion.
              User locks each. Skill commits 03_visual_identity.md.
  Section 5 — Drafts hero headlines + homepage copy + CTAs.
              User picks + locks. Skill commits 05_messaging_framework.md.
  Section 6 — Walks 3-layer revenue model. User maps existing offers to layers,
              defines new offers, sets phased timeline.
              Skill commits 04_services_and_offers.md.
  Section 7 — Drafts 5 pillars, day-themes, platforms.
              User locks. Skill commits 06_content_strategy.md.
  Section 8 — Drafts AI Operating Manual referencing the AI Agent Skills Library
              bundles the brand will use.
              User locks. Skill commits.
  Master   — Synthesizes 99_brand_blueprint.md from all supporting docs.
              Writes AGENTS.md at project root.
              Pings review channel: "Blueprint v1.0 ready for review."

Example 2 — commercial product company refresh

User: "We've been operating without a real brand foundation for 3 years.
       Build us a blueprint. We're a B2B SaaS in the data space, 25 people."

Skill: Same 8-section walkthrough, but:
  - Section 1's "founder" becomes "leadership team" — captures CEO + 2 cofounders + their entity architecture.
  - Section 6's revenue model is product-led, not service-led — adapts the offers ladder to ARR tiers, expansion motion, channel partners.
  - Section 7's content engine emphasizes thought-leadership content for buyer education over personality-driven content.
  - Section 8's AI operating manual references the team's existing AI tools, not a single-user setup.

Example 3 — defer Section 4 because design is in flight

User on Section 4: "Pause this section, we're still in a logo iteration with our designer."

Skill:
  - Stubs 03_visual_identity.md with a "DEFERRED — see Section 4 in v2" note.
  - Adds a TODO entry to the master blueprint pointing at the deferred section.
  - Continues to Section 5.
  - Pings review channel at session close: "Blueprint v0.9 ready (Section 4 deferred). Resume Section 4 when designer locks."

---

This skill encodes the structure of a real, field-tested personal-brand build (April 2026). The numbered file convention (01_..., 02_..., 99_master) survives across IDE / collaborator / agency handoffs because alphabetical sorting puts the founder-story first and the master last, so anyone walking the directory reads it in the right order.