# Brand > The entry point for any brand work. Gathers the brand's existing assets itself from just a URL (crawling the site, following its links to social and press), diagnoses how much should change, routes to the right path, and gets-or-makes the brand context document every other design skill reads. Use at the start of any design project, or when the user mentions 'brand context,' 'set up the brand,' 'b… - **Type:** Skill - **Install:** `agentstack add skill-zstvns-design-skills-brand` - **Verified:** Yes — security-reviewed for prompt injection and unsafe behavior - **Seller:** [zstvns](https://agentstack.voostack.com/s/zstvns) - **Installs:** 0 - **Category:** [Agent Skills](https://agentstack.voostack.com/c/agent-skills) - **Latest version:** 0.1.0 - **License:** MIT - **Upstream author:** [zstvns](https://github.com/zstvns) - **Source:** https://github.com/zstvns/design-skills/tree/main/skills/brand ## Install ```sh agentstack add skill-zstvns-design-skills-brand ``` Requires the [AgentStack CLI](https://agentstack.voostack.com/docs/cli). Works with Claude Code, Cursor, and any MCP-compatible agent. ## About # Brand This is the **front door** for any brand work, and it has two jobs: 1. **Understand what exists, diagnose how much should change, and route.** The depth of the work — a ground-up build, a refresh, or just better execution — is *your* diagnosis to make from the evidence. The user does not need to know the framework behind it. 2. **Own the record.** Get-or-make **`.agents/brand.md`** — the single source of truth for the brand's visual identity that every other design skill reads first, so the user never re-explains their colors, type, muses, or latitude. > `brand` always runs. `brand-strategy` is the deep generative path it *routes to* — and when the brand is already sound, it routes away from strategy entirely. That's why they're separate skills: one runs without the other. ## Step 1: Gather the Assets — Do the Legwork Yourself Start here, always — and **take this off the user's plate.** Don't hand them a homework assignment ("send me your logo files, your colors, your social links, your decks…"). Get the one thing you actually need to begin — **the website URL** (or, failing that, the company name) — and go find the rest yourself. **From just the domain, gather autonomously:** - **Crawl the key pages**, not only the homepage — home, product/features, pricing, about, blog. Each surface uses the brand differently. - **Extract real values from the rendered pages** — computed colors, `font-family` names, type scale, spacing, button/CTA treatment, radii, shadows. - **Capture the logo — and make sure it's the *current* one.** The source of truth for the live mark is the **navigation bar / header of the rendered site**, nothing else. Inspect the actual ``/`` and pull the exact asset it uses — the ``, the inline ``, or the CSS `background-image`. A plain text/markdown fetch strips this out, so read the raw HTML/DOM or screenshot the nav and confirm what you extracted matches what's on screen. - **Favicons, apple-touch-icons, manifest icons, OG images, social avatars, and press-kit downloads are frequently outdated** — teams refresh the nav logo and forget the rest. Treat them as *secondary*: useful for collecting the other implementations (small, square, reversed), but **reconcile every one against the nav logo**. If they disagree, the live nav wins as "current," and the mismatch is itself a finding (stale assets to fix). - You still want the full set — a mark's *simplicity* is judged by whether it's the **same** mark across all of them — but the **nav logo is the reference**, not the favicon. Don't let an old favicon or a stale press kit stand in for the current identity. - **Follow the footer.** Almost every site links its own social profiles, app-store listings, and sometimes a press or brand page down there. Harvest those links and follow them. - **Check the common brand/press paths** — `/brand`, `/brand-assets`, `/press`, `/media-kit`, `/about/brand`. Companies routinely publish logos, palettes, and usage rules there. - **Screenshot and actually *look* at the rendered design — don't score from tokens alone.** A brand's identity often lives in things a CSS/token dump or a product-UI Figma never expose: a recurring **graphic motif** (a radial, shape, or texture repeating across the hero, sections, and social), the **accent colors** used only in the hero or social art, and the **logo's symbol/glyph**. Examine the hero, feature graphics, and social posts directly. Never conclude "no pattern" or "wordmark-only, no mark" from tokens — confirm with your eyes. These feed Pattern & Texture, Color, and Logo, and missing them is how a strong brand gets mis-scored as weak. - **Read the codebase if you're in it.** A site repo's CSS / Tailwind config / design-token files are the most precise source there is — prefer them over anything inferred from a screenshot. - **Pull Figma** if a link or connected file is available. - **Source the competitor set from the marketing context — don't freelance it.** Identifying competitors by gut is hit-or-miss; pull the authoritative set instead, in this order: 1. **`.agents/product-marketing.md`** (from the marketing-skills library) — if it exists, use its **Competitive Landscape**: direct / secondary / indirect competitors, with why each falls short. The audit scores distinctiveness against the **direct** set; secondary/indirect inform the landscape but aren't the visual peer group. 2. **The `competitor-profiling` skill** — if there's no marketing context, run it (`/competitor-profiling`) to research and profile competitors properly, rather than guessing. 3. **Autonomous discovery** — fallback only: infer the direct competitors from the category, the positioning, and the brand's own comparison/alternative pages. Then capture each direct competitor's identity across the nine audit categories — the comparison set the Step 2 audit scores against (see [references/brand-audit.md](references/brand-audit.md)) — and confirm the list with the user (below). **Confirm the competitor set before any scoring.** Your idea of "direct competitors" is often wrong, and the entire distinctiveness verdict rides on it. Present the list you assembled — *"Here's who I'm treating as your direct competitors: … Anyone to add, remove, or swap?"* — and get the user's sign-off before running the Step 2 scorecard. Don't score against an unverified set. **Then show the user what you found, and ask only for the gaps you genuinely can't reach yourself:** - Private or internal material — a Figma you don't have access to, sales decks, print collateral, photography libraries not on the site - The **why** behind decisions you can only see the *what* of - Anything the Step 2 diagnosis hinges on that the assets don't answer **Build the asset inventory** from all of it — what you gathered, what the user added, and what's still missing. Gaps are findings: they show where the brand is undefined, and how much exists is the first input to the diagnosis. **As you ingest** (see [references/asset-intake.md](references/asset-intake.md)): - Extract concrete values — hex codes, named typefaces, spacing, logo lockups, photo treatment — not impressions - **Watch how the brand behaves across mediums.** The site may be buttoned-up while social runs loose — that contrast *is* data; it reveals what's truly **fixed** vs. what already **flexes**. - **Stated ≠ practiced.** A style guide claims one thing; the live assets often show another. Capture both and flag the drift. If little or nothing exists, that itself is the key finding — carry it into the diagnosis. ## Step 2: Diagnose How Much Should Change **This is your diagnosis, not a question for the user — and you make it with a critical eye, not a generous one.** A client has no idea what "Revolution / Evolution / Optimization" mean — never ask them to pick or lead with the jargon. Read the situation from the assets in Step 1 plus a few plain questions, then conclude. These are *your* internal scoping labels: **The verdict is a phased recommendation anchored to the client's appetite and timeline — not a single label derived from the scores.** Ask, plainly, how much they want to change *now* vs. later, and whether they want incremental polish or a transformational break; that appetite isn't visible in the assets and it's the *primary* driver. A brand can score low and still be **"Optimization now, deeper work later."** Diagnose honestly (competitor similarity + scores) to shape the *roadmap*, then recommend a path — often sequenced: - **Optimization** — the immediate design-fundamentals work on the *existing* assets (typography, hierarchy, contrast, layout, palette rationalization, consistency). The right starting point for **any client moving incrementally — even a generic-foundation one** — with deeper work teed up for later; also the terminal answer when assets are strong and only execution lags (the strong-assets-badly-built case). *(Or the low-scoring, genuinely generic brand whose client wanted "optimization now, bigger later" → Optimization now, refine what exists, sequence creative-direction later.)* - **Evolution** — keep the equity, do generative build-out (creative direction, motif, deploy missing pieces) — the equity-in-a-drawer case. - **Revolution** — rebuild the foundation: colliding/undifferentiated with little to keep (the lookalike case), or the client wants a transformational break and has the appetite for it. **Never override the client's incremental appetite with a diagnosis-driven verdict, and never argue against the depth they asked for.** Be honest about what each phase buys: Optimization-now makes a generic brand *tidier*, not *distinct* — distinctiveness comes from the creative-direction phase. Don't sell polish as distinctiveness; don't refuse polish because distinctiveness needs more. The common shape is **micro now (Optimization) → macro later (creative direction)**. **Optimization vs Evolution:** in an Optimization you change only *how existing assets are implemented* (design fundamentals on what's there); in an Evolution you also *create, define, or deploy* pieces that are missing, unanchored, or sitting in a drawer. At **moderate** similarity it's a genuine **fork the client chooses by appetite**: Optimization (content with the overlap → keep the assets, execute higher, shore the gaps) vs Revolution (want to break away → a wholesale shift, not incremental). Weigh their stated ambition; never assume it. **Hold a high bar — coherent is not the same as good** (see `design-principles` → Coherent Is Not the Same as Good): - Consistency, intentionality, and "not dated" are *table stakes*, not proof of a sound brand. A tidy brand is usually just *fine* — and "fine" is an **Evolution**, not an Optimization. - **Test distinctiveness, not just coherence.** Look outward — scan the category, the direct competitors, and the prevailing design trend. A brand is only distinct *relative to them*. With the logo covered, would anyone know it was them? - **Name the default.** A polished execution of the current category or AI-startup aesthetic — near-black canvas, high-contrast serif display, a single jewel-tone accent, parchment warmth, a tasteful mono — is *generic*, not sound. Reading as "deliberate" doesn't save it; everyone is deliberate in the same way. Flag the trend as a finding, not a strength. - **Assess the logo specifically** with `logo-design` against the SAD bar — **Simple** (it must hold in plain black & white; if it leans on color or a gradient to read, that's a failure), **Appropriate** (to the emotional target), **Distinct** (against the competitor logos you gathered, not in isolation). A weak or generic mark is a real part of the diagnosis — don't wave it through because it's "their logo." And **the mark is always on the table**: if the creative direction is shifting significantly (Revolution or serious Evolution), the logo is in scope for change too — flag that rather than treating it as untouchable equity. - **Lead with the critique — but separate diagnosis from recommendation.** Your value is catching "this is fine" dressed up as "this is good": a generic or competitor-colliding foundation is *not* a sound brand — don't declare it fundamentally fine. That's the honest *diagnosis* (the scores). It's separate from the *recommendation*, which is phased and appetite-anchored — you can diagnose a weak foundation *and* still recommend Optimization-now (fundamentals first), with the creative-direction work sequenced later. Don't confuse "the foundation is weak" (a scoring truth) with "so we must Revolutionize now" (a recommendation the client's appetite may not support). - **Don't be fooled by rank or drift.** "We're #2 in the category" is not distinctiveness if the category is a lookalike cluster — best-in-cluster is still generic (this applies to the logo too: least-plain wordmark in a plain set ≠ distinct). And finding execution problems (stale press kit, half-finished font migration, fragmenting color) does *not* mean the foundation is *sound* — drift routinely sits on top of an undifferentiated foundation, so don't let it inflate the foundational *scores*. (It's fine for those execution fixes to become the Optimization-now *phase* of the roadmap — just don't mistake them for evidence the foundation is strong.) - **Implementation flaws are not weak assets.** Look *through* a rough site. A distinctive pattern shown at blown-out contrast is a *strong asset, badly executed* — an Optimization signal — not a weak pattern; a great typeface buried in banded layouts is still a great typeface. Assess each asset's intrinsic quality and distinctiveness *separately* from how well the current site implements it. Slop-ish execution (banding, over-contrast, screenshot bleed) sitting on strong, distinct, *deployed* assets means fix the build (Optimization) — not a weak foundation. **Run the brand audit — don't eyeball it.** Work through the nine categories ([references/brand-audit.md](references/brand-audit.md)) against the **confirmed** competitor set, with named comparisons (whose palette/mark/motif it resembles or collides with). Score on **two axes**: the foundational categories (Creative Direction, Color, Logo, Pattern) on *distinctiveness* against the field; the craft categories (Typography & Layout, Graphics, Icons, Application, Style Guide) on *execution quality* — where well-made, consistent work reaches 4–5 even with a common typeface or stock icons. **Creative Direction does NOT cap the craft scores.** Then read **competitor similarity** — the heaviest-weighted pivot — and let it plus the client's appetite drive the path (split fork at moderate similarity). Present the recommended path with rationale **and the alternative's tradeoff**. Write the audit into `.agents/brand.md`. **Run the AI-slop check** ([../design-principles/references/ai-slop.md](../design-principles/references/ai-slop.md)) on the brand and the whole set. Tropes — a left accent rail, a purple-to-blue gradient, a cramped center container, no variety between section layouts, `rounded-lg` on everything — are findings that **cap a dimension's score**, however "clean" it looks. Name each one you find. **Diagnose from plain signals** (ask only what the assets don't answer): - Is the brand *wrong/off-strategy*, just *dated*, *coherent but generic*, or *genuinely strong and distinct but poorly applied*? - Is it actually distinct in its category, or a tidy version of the current trend? - What's real equity worth protecting, vs. what only *looks* finished? - How much exists, and how good is it, honestly? - **What's the appetite and timeline?** Do they want to change a lot now, or move incrementally — fundamentals now, bigger moves later? This drives the recommended path more than the scores do. *Ask it; don't infer it* — it isn't visible in the assets. This also sets your **mode**: a genuinely strong brand → *ingest and protect the equity*; an okay-or-absent one → *raise or generate it through discovery*. **Reflect your conclusion back in plain terms, honestly** — e.g., *"Your brand is coherent and clearly intentional, but right now it looks a lot like the rest of the AI-tools category — serif-on-black with a single green accent is everywhere this year. That's not a broken brand, but it's not a distinct one yet. So I'd treat this as an evolution: keep the name and the bones, push the look somewhere only you could own."* Don't flatter coherent-but-generic work into "sound." Use the REO word only if it helps; the honest read and the routing are what matter. ### Present the full assessment — don't skip to the verdict **The per-category breakdown is the deliverable, not a byproduct.** Always present it in the response — never collapse the audit into a one-line verdict or only write it to a file. Show, in this order: 1. **The scorecard table** — all nine categories with their scores, a blank **"Your score"** column for the user, plus the **Competitor si … ## Source & license This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code. - **Author:** [zstvns](https://github.com/zstvns) - **Source:** [zstvns/design-skills](https://github.com/zstvns/design-skills) - **License:** MIT Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above. ## Pricing - **Free** — Free ## Security capabilities Automated source analysis of v0.1.0 — what this tool can access: - **Network access:** no - **Filesystem access:** no - **Shell / process execution:** no - **Environment & secrets:** no - **Dynamic code execution:** no *"Yes" means the capability is present in the source — more access means more to trust, not that it is unsafe.* ## Versions - **0.1.0** — security scan: passed — Imported from the upstream source. ## Links - Listing page: https://agentstack.voostack.com/l/skill-zstvns-design-skills-brand - Seller: https://agentstack.voostack.com/s/zstvns - Browse the marketplace: https://agentstack.voostack.com/browse --- Listed on AgentStack — the marketplace for AI agent skills and MCP servers. 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