| name | brand-consistency |
| category | kumite-office |
| description | Apply your organization's brand - colors, typography, logo, and tone - consistently across Copilot-generated deliverables in Word, PowerPoint, Teams, and Viva. Use when polishing a deck, document, or post so it looks on-brand and accessible. Triggers: "make it on-brand", "apply our branding", "brand colors", "company template", "style this deck", "corporate identity", "match our style guide". |
Brand Consistency
On-brand work signals it came from your org, not from a generic template. Capture the brand once as tokens, then apply them the same way every time.
Quick Reference
| Element | Where the value lives | Apply to |
|---|
| Primary / dark color | Your brand style guide | Headings, dark backgrounds |
| Light / background color | Style guide | Page and slide backgrounds |
| Accent colors (2-3) | Style guide | Shapes, charts, callouts - cycle them |
| Heading font | Style guide (with safe fallback) | Titles 24pt+ |
| Body font | Style guide (with safe fallback) | Body text |
| Logo + clear-space rule | Brand assets | Title slide, doc header, footer |
When to Use
- Finishing a deck, document, or post that goes to customers, leadership, or the whole org.
- Converting a rough Copilot draft into something that matches the company template.
- Standardizing a set of deliverables so they look like one consistent family.
- Skip for internal scratch work and quick notes - brand polish is for things others see.
How to Use
- Capture your brand tokens once. From your org's style guide, record the exact color hex values, the heading and body fonts (with system-safe fallbacks), and the logo with its clear-space rule. Keep this token list where Copilot can read it (a SharePoint page or the project's reference doc).
- Start from the official template. Use the corporate Word or PowerPoint template rather than restyling a blank file - it already carries master styles.
- Apply the type hierarchy. Heading font for titles 24pt and up, body font for everything else. Let the fallback fonts apply automatically if the brand fonts are not installed.
- Apply color with intent. Primary for text and structure, accents only for shapes, charts, and callouts. Cycle the 2-3 accents rather than inventing new ones.
- Check accessibility. Verify text-to-background contrast meets WCAG AA (4.5:1 for body text). On-brand never overrides readable.
- Place the logo per the clear-space rule and keep it consistent across every deliverable in the set.
Examples
| Don't: Off-brand | Do: On-brand |
|---|
| Random hex colors picked by eye | Exact brand hex values from the style guide |
| Default Calibri everywhere | Heading font 24pt+, body font for text, per the guide |
| Five accent colors on one slide | The org's 2-3 accents, cycled consistently |
| Light gray text on white "because it looks clean" | Contrast checked to WCAG AA before shipping |
| Logo stretched into the corner | Logo placed with its defined clear-space |
Critical Rules
- Tokens come from the official style guide - never approximate brand colors by eye.
- Build on the corporate template, not a blank file.
- Accents are for non-text elements; primary/neutral carry the text.
- Accessibility wins ties. If on-brand color fails contrast, adjust until it passes.
- One brand, one set of tokens, applied identically across the whole deliverable set.
Common Pitfalls
- Hardcoding one project's colors as if they were the brand - read the current style guide.
- Forgetting font fallbacks, so the doc renders in a default font on other machines.
- Over-accenting until the deck looks like a color test page.
- Ignoring contrast and shipping text nobody can read on a projector.
- Inconsistent logo size or placement across slides in the same deck.
Anti-Patterns
- Treating "on-brand" as decoration applied last instead of structure applied throughout.
- Copying another company's palette (including a vendor's) instead of using your own.
- Letting brand styling degrade legibility or accessibility.
- Re-deriving the tokens from memory each time instead of reading the source of truth.
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