Voice and tone development
Sound like you,not like every other company out there.
Voice and tone development is the work of finding the language that fits your brand and setting it down so that everyone can use it. Voice is who you are and stays constant; tone is how that voice shifts with the moment, from a product launch to an error message. Done well, the whole company sounds like one brand, and that brand sounds like no one else. People sometimes call this verbal identity. We do this but don’t use the phrase necessarily because, for us, it doesn’t sound very pretty.
Questions.
- What is the difference between voice and tone?
- People use these interchangeably. Sometimes people say tone of voice. For us, voice is part of the brand’s character, what your brand sounds like, the words you favour, the words you avoid. It doesn’t change. Tone is how that voice adapts to the situation: warmer in a welcome, plainer in a warning. There’s one brand, one voice, several tones.
- What is in a voice and tone guide?
- A description of the voice in a few traits, each with what it means and what it doesn’t; principles for tone across situations; before-and-after examples from your own material; a word list; and guidance for the people and tools who will write in it, and yes, including AI when you use it.
- How is this related to brand strategy?
- Voice is an important part of brand strategy, and the one people meet most often. We can develop it as part of a wider strategy, or on its own when the strategy is set and the brand still sounds flat.
- How long does it take?
- Usually about two weeks: listening to how you sound now, workshops to find how you’d like to sound, then writing, testing and training. We’ll always tell you the cost before we start.
- Will our team actually use it?
- We keep the guide short, build it around your real material and train the people who write most. A guide nobody uses is decoration. We’ve built our own platform to make it easy for your colleagues to apply your brand voice.
Talk to usabout it.
Do you have a challenge with your brand you just can’t figure out?
hello@studiojunction.ioAlso: Brand positioning · Brand strategy · Category design · Content design and UX writing · Brand story · Verbal identity