brand-voice

name	brand-voice
description	Enforces the voice, tone, and style of Luke Leigh's personal IT blog and Leigh Services brand. Use when writing or reviewing any site content, blog posts, LinkedIn copy, or documentation to ensure British English, self-deprecating conversational tone, and correct structural patterns.
company_name	Leigh Services
platforms	{"notion":false,"confluence":false,"google-drive":false,"box":false,"microsoft-365":true,"figma":false,"gong":false,"granola":false,"slack":false}
discovery	{"search-depth":"standard","max-sources":15}
enforcement	{"strictness":"balanced","always-explain":true}
open-questions	{"share-with-team":false}

Brand Context

Company Name

Leigh Services (Leigh IT Services Limited)

Tagline / Descriptor

Infrastructure/Automation Engineer

Blog URL (Primary Voice Reference)

https://blog.lukeleigh.com — "Yet another IT Admin Blog" The subtitle is intentional. It signals self-awareness and active resistance to self-promotion.

Industry & Positioning

IT contractor specialising in infrastructure engineering, PowerShell development, and automation. Based in Essex, UK. Solo contractor — experienced, practical, deeply technical, and completely unpretentious about it.

Voice Summary

Luke writes like a senior engineer having a conversation, not like someone managing a brand. Posts meander through personal context before arriving at the point. He's self-deprecating, genuinely community-minded, and writes for other IT admins rather than to impress anyone. The voice is warm, occasionally dry, and very British. It shifts register naturally — informal and anecdote-heavy in intros, precise and structured in technical sections, then back to conversational at the close.

We Are / We Are Not

We Are	We Are Not
Conversational and genuinely human	Corporate, brand-managed, or polished
Self-deprecating and honest	Boastful or self-promotional
Technically precise when it matters	Jargon-stacking without substance
Community-minded — sharing freely	Gatekeeping or positioning as authority
Warm and personable	Cold, formal, or impersonal
British — language and cultural references	Mid-Atlantic or Americanised
Comfortable with tangents and anecdotes	Rigidly on-message
Willing to admit things went wrong	Polished to the point of being fake
Mildly irreverent when the moment calls for it	Sanitised or HR-approved in tone

Voice Constants — Priority Order

Apply these in order. Rules listed first take precedence if they conflict with later ones.

Critical (must not deviate)

1. British English throughout: colour, behaviour, organisation, whilst, licence (noun) etc.
2. Personal context comes FIRST. Set the scene before making the point:
   • Technical post? Open with what prompted the need.
   • Security post? Open with the incident story.
   • Module post? Open with the personal discovery/backstory.
3. Never oversell, never use superlatives about own work.
4. Attribute and link generously — quote sources, credit others, link to further reading.

Important (enforce unless there is a clear reason not to) 5. Write like a person talking, not a brand communicating. 6. Contractions everywhere — it's, I'm, didn't, wasn't, shouldn't, he'd, you'll. 7. Self-deprecation is a consistent feature, not occasional: "yes I am that old", "I can tell you are all on the edge of your seats", "there is still plenty more work to do there!" 8. Ellipses (……) used mid-sentence for conversational pauses, not just at sentence ends.

Permitted where it fits 9. Mild language where appropriate ("massive kick up the ass"). 10. Emoji used very sparingly and only where it adds something: 👌 ¯_(ツ)/¯ 1️⃣

Anti-Patterns to Avoid

Highest priority — always flag these

• American spellings: "color", "behavior", "organize", "license" (as noun)
• Overselling: "best-in-class", "industry-leading", "game-changing", "unique value proposition"
• Fake enthusiasm: "excited to share", "thrilled to announce", "I'm passionate about"
• Avoiding self-deprecation to sound more authoritative — the humility IS the authority

Also avoid

• Corporate buzzwords: "synergistic", "leverage", "cutting-edge", "world-class", "holistic"
• Overly polished phrasing that sounds like a press release or marketing copy
• Opening a post/email with a compliment or pleasantry before getting to the point
• Bullet lists instead of prose when context is conversational or narrative

Signature Stylistic Devices

The Self-Questioning Format

Pre-empt objections in a mock Q&A with yourself: "That's a bit strange. Is it? Yes, surely one blog would have been enough? Well, yes but there were, 'reasons'……honest 👌" Use this when introducing something that might seem unusual or needs justification.

The Knowing Aside

Acknowledge the audience with a wink: "I can tell you are all on the edge of your seats", "Anyone who knows me will find that statement very amusing"

The Parenthetical Aside

Slip in self-aware commentary mid-sentence: "(yes I am that old)", "(I think I laughed when he told me but I can't be sure)"

The Wry Footnote

Use numbered footnotes for humorous or affectionate asides that don't fit in the main text — e.g., attributing a purchase suggestion to a family member with a knowing comment.

Scene-Setting Before Technical Content

Never jump straight into code or instructions. A short personal paragraph first: where you were, what prompted the need, what you were doing. Even 2–3 sentences of context before the first heading makes a big difference.

Tone Flexes by Context

Context	Formality	Personality	Technical Depth
Blog post intro/outro	Very low	High — anecdotes, asides, humour	Low
Blog post technical sections	Medium	Low — let the content lead	High
LinkedIn post	Low-Medium	Moderate — human but not rambling	Low-Medium
Client proposal/brief	Medium	Low — rein in the tangents	High
Technical documentation	Medium	Minimal	High
Email to a client	Medium	Moderate — warm, direct, British	Medium
Social / informal	Low	High	Low

Structural Patterns

• Long posts use clear headed sections — but the section intros are always conversational
• Code blocks are clean, accurate, and preceded by a brief plain-English sentence
• "Further reading" / resource sections are a consistent feature — share the good stuff
• Lists are used for genuinely list-like things (accounts to check, commands), not as a substitute for prose

Colour Palette

Role	Hex	RGB	Pantone
Primary (Navy)	#233565	rgb(35, 53, 101)	19-3953
Secondary (Navy)	#233565	rgb(35, 53, 101)	19-3953
Accent (Mint Green)	#8BD8BC	rgb(139, 216, 188)	13-5714
Background (White)	#FFFFFF	rgb(255, 255, 255)	11-0601

Typography

Role	Font
Primary	Exo Medium
Display / Wordmark	Unica One Regular

Logo

• Primary: Enso (Zen brushstroke circle) in navy with icon cluster and wordmark
• Tagline under wordmark: "Infrastructure/Automation Engineer"
• Variants: Full primary, Wordmark only, Icon only
• On dark backgrounds: white version; on light: navy/standard

Approved Terminology

• "Leigh Services" (short) or "Leigh IT Services Limited" (formal/legal)
• "PowerShell Developer / Infrastructure Engineer" — both roles, in that order
• "IT Admin", "sysadmin", "admin" — plain language, not "IT Professional" or "Engineer"
• British spelling and idiom throughout

Known Brand Materials

• OneDrive: Images and style guides
• BrandBoard.pdf: Colour palette, typography, logo versions
• Blog: https://blog.lukeleigh.com (primary real-world voice reference — read before enforcing)