Brand Voice Guides for Architects and Interior Designers
Imagine having a conversation with someone who was constantly changing their tone, going from professional to familiar, then back to being more buttoned-up and educational. It would be confusing, hard to follow, and not very enjoyable.
Now imagine having regular conversations with someone who is consistent, always conversational, but never oversharing, and generous with their resources, without making you feel like you’re getting CEU credits as a result of your chat. Sounds much more inviting, right?
Brand consistency is incredibly important; it inspires trust, elicits positive feelings, and ensures that your brand is recognizable across all channels and touchpoints — from your website and social media platforms to pitch decks and presentations.
Creating visual and verbal guidelines ensures that you and your team stay on-brand and on-message; as a result, your audience knows what to expect from you and looks forward to hearing from you.
As an experienced copywriter specializing in architecture and interior design, I always recommend a brand voice guide as the first step in the relationship. Brand voice guides lay out the language, tone, and personality of your brand. They’re designed to help you create clear messaging that attracts more of the clients you want and deters less-desirable clients from reaching out.
Each set of guidelines is broken into four sections: Core Brand Identity, Verbal Guidelines, Content Guidelines and Ideal Client Guidelines. Within each section we get clear on the details that make your brand; creating language, formatting and rules that you can refer back to again and again.
Drafting language for your projects and communications will be easier and more efficient. You can assign those tasks to a member of your team or outsource them with confidence knowing that you have a user-friendly brand voice guide to refer back to.
How We Create Your Design Firm’s Brand Voice Guide
The process is simple and the payoff is huge.
First, I create a custom brand voice questionnaire based on our alignment call and any additional information you provide like product information, sales and marketing materials, podcast appearances, press coverage, etc.
You then have one week to complete the questionnaire and return it to me for review.
We conduct a brand voice intensive via phone or video conference where I ask for additional details and clarification on your answers so that I have sufficient information to craft your brand’s voice and complete your guide.
In two-to-three week’s time you'll receive the first draft of your brand voice guide for review. Two rounds of edits are included for every project and we have a project close-out to review how you will implement your new messaging.
Using Your Design Firm’s Brand Voice Guide
Once we’ve created your brand voice guide, it’s time to put it to work. Most clients come to me for website copy and the brand voice guide is invaluable in this process. In many cases, we’ve done so much of the discovery work in the brand voice intensive that, after a brief meeting to review their website design and outline the necessary content, I can get writing to work on the first draft.
That being said, I encourage every architect, interior designer, and business owner that I work with to use their brand guides whenever possible. There is so much valuable information in there, and it would truly break my heart to know that it was languishing on a shared drive.
While each brand voice guide is unique to that particular client, I put together the following list of potential use-cases where I believe they bring the most value:
Website copy
Social media — bios, content creation and overall planning
Email marketing
Email swipe files — subject lines, template responses to common inquiries, sign-offs, etc.
Sales team communications — internal and external
Pitch decks and presentation prep
Networking prep and elevator pitches (this is a big one that i get asked about a lot)
Onboarding and new hire training
Working with outside agencies (like myself), freelancers and temps
Anywhere your brand uses words
While I believe there is value in the brand voice guide for solo entrepreneurs and larger firms alike — I review and update my own guide annually — this document is especially useful for larger firms and those that are growing their teams. The ability to refer back to an established brand voice guide helps to keep everyone on the same page, saving valuable time and effort.
If you are interested in learning more about how a brand voice guide can help your firm, please do not hesitate to reach out. This is an incredible tool, and I would be more than happy to brainstorm ideas with you.