Brand & Voice

Marketing pages exist to make an impression; task screens exist to get a job done. On a results screen, flourishes compete with the content and brand color can be misread as meaning, so the brand shows through a few consistent touches.

Clear space is a protected margin around the logo, measured in a unit from the logo so it scales; minimum size is its smallest legible rendering. When a header cannot honour both, use a compact approved lockup, never a squeezed one.

A vision statement describes the future the product aims to create for its users; design principles are short, product-specific rules for choosing between options. The vision sets direction and priorities; principles settle everyday design decisions and review debates.

A failed payment leaves the guest stressed and at risk of losing the room. Humour there reads as not taking the problem seriously and slows them down; a calm, plain tone that helps them recover respects their state.

A verb-plus-object label tells people exactly what will happen before they act, still makes sense when read on its own, as in a screen reader's list of controls, and removes the need to reread the surrounding text to decide.

Describe each attribute as traits a user could observe, map each trait to a lever - color, type, shape, imagery, motion, density - and record each choice with its reason and what it rules out.

Keep constant what makes the product recognisable - color roles, illustration and photography style, voice, shape language. Follow each platform for navigation, standard controls, gestures and system dialogs, and always honour the user's text-size and motion settings.

Versions keep the logo recognisable on every surface and reproduction method: full color on light, calm backgrounds, reversed white on dark ones, monochrome or single-color where only one ink exists or the background fights the brand colors.

A useful principle settles a real disagreement: its opposite is something a reasonable team might choose, and it points to a specific decision. A platitude like 'easy to use' has no sensible opposite, so everyone agrees with it and it decides nothing.

Serious, neutral and direct: say plainly what will happen and what the guest loses, and present both choices evenly. Avoid guilt-tripping wording, alarmist language, cheerful softening and euphemisms that hide the consequence.

Voice is the product's consistent personality, the same on every screen. Tone is how that voice adjusts to the moment and the reader's state: brief in success, calm and plain in errors, encouraging in onboarding, serious before irreversible actions.

Inclusive language is wording that does not exclude or stereotype people by gender, age, disability, culture or family: gender-neutral defaults, no loaded metaphors, no assumptions about names or families, and plain words.

Set placement rules by emotional context - imagery in onboarding, empty states and marketing, never beside results or errors - plus one style spec, inclusive and accurate subjects, no information baked into images, and each asset marked informative or decorative.

Principles should carry an explicit ranking agreed in advance, so the higher one wins a conflict: medication safety keeps the confirmation step. The lower principle still applies, shaping the step to be as fast as safety allows.

Define the voice once as a few attributes with limits, then publish a tone map: per context - error, warning, success, onboarding, destructive action - the reader's state, the tone and a do/don't pair. Back it with review and audits.

Audit the terms in use, choose one term per concept from the words users and the law actually use, publish a glossary with definitions and rejected synonyms, update every surface, and add checks so new copy stays consistent.

Sentence case has one simple rule, so it does not drift between writers; it reads like natural speech and lets proper nouns stand out. Title case is a valid choice too - what matters most is applying one convention everywhere.

Make one vector master per lockup and color version the single source, generate every raster export from it at each size and screen density, distribute that set from the design system, and replace the screenshot copies teams made.

Build the principles into the review process: proposals state which principle they serve or trade off, reviewers cite principles rather than preferences, decisions are recorded as examples, and principles that never get cited are rewritten or retired.