Chapter 06 · Brand and voice
Writing the brand brief
The brief is the one form you fill before Serpio writes your Brand Book. Field by field: presets, suggestion rows, what belongs in Must avoid, and what the generating screen really shows.
Updated Sep 19, 2026 · 5 min read
On this page
Serpio has already read your site by the time you reach the brief. The form exists for the things a crawler cannot infer: the mood you want, the brands you admire, the visual cliches you refuse. The page says as much under The brief: it already read your domain, add the direction, then generate. Every chapter stays editable afterwards, so the brief is a starting point, not a contract.
Open Brand Book in the sidebar on any paid plan. Until a book exists you see the brief on the left and two cards on the right: Your cover, built from your logo and description with grey placeholder swatches, and Six chapters. The cover note says palette and type fill in from your site on generate. Nothing on this screen has been generated yet.
The form, field by field
- Starting vibe
- Six preset chips: Editorial, Premium, Playful, Technical, Soft, Bold. Each shows a two-colour swatch. One tap adds that preset's keywords to the field below. Tapping a second preset adds its keywords too; nothing is replaced.
- Visual style keywords
- Free-text chips. Type a word, then press comma or Tab. Serpio pre-fills this field with your voice cues and up to four target keywords from settings. Up to eight keywords are kept.
- Reference brands
- Brands you admire visually. The placeholder suggests the kind of answer: Linear, Stripe, Arc. Up to six.
- Must avoid
- Visual and tonal things to steer away from, such as cliche stock photos or jargon. Pre-filled from your forbidden topics. Up to eight.
- Extra notes
- Optional free text, up to about 1,200 characters. Mood, audience nuance, no-go aesthetics, anything that does not fit a chip.
What each preset seeds
| Preset | Keywords added |
|---|---|
| Editorial | editorial, high-contrast, considered, long-form, type-led |
| Premium | premium, minimal, elegant, spacious, monochrome |
| Playful | playful, bold colors, rounded, energetic, expressive |
| Technical | technical, precise, data-led, neutral, diagrammatic |
| Soft | soft, warm, human, organic, approachable |
| Bold | bold, expressive, high-energy, saturated, graphic |
A preset lights up once all five of its keywords are present. Remove a chip and the preset dims again. Because presets only add, pick one, look at the chips, and delete what does not fit, rather than stacking three presets and hoping the model averages them.
Suggestion rows
Under two of the fields you may see rows of dashed chips with a plus sign. From your site lists your saved voice cues and target keywords. Voice cues repeats the cues on their own. Forbidden topics under Must avoid lists the topics you banned in brand voice settings. Click a chip to add it; chips you have already added disappear from the row. If a row would be empty because you have not set those values yet, it is hidden.
Must avoid versus forbidden topics
These look similar and do different jobs.
| Must avoid (brief) | Forbidden topics (settings) | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it lives | Brand Book brief | Workspace settings, Brand voice, question 3 |
| What it affects | Visual direction, ad creative, negative image tokens, and a hint to the writer | Every article prompt |
| How it is enforced | Guidance. The model is asked to steer away. | Drafts containing these topics are rejected server-side. |
Put subjects you never want written about in settings. Put aesthetics and tonal tics you dislike in the brief.
Generate
- 1
Check the seeded chips
Remove anything that describes your SEO targets rather than your look. Target keywords are useful hints, not design language.
- 2
Click Generate brand book
The button is labelled Generate brand book. It reads Generating… while the request runs and is disabled until it finishes.
- 3
Wait on the generating screen
The heading is Setting your brand book with a running clock. Three stages are listed: Read the site analysis is already done, using the report stored for this domain. Write the six chapters is active. Ready to edit is pending.
- 4
Land on the ready view
The page swaps to the cover and chapters. Confetti fires the first time a book is generated for a site.
When it fails
If the call does not return usable chapters, the stepper marks the second step in red, a rose banner shows the error, and the brief form returns with your chips intact. The button now reads Try again. Failures are usually transient. Try once more before changing anything; if it fails again, shorten Extra notes and retry.
Common questions
Can I generate a second Brand Book for the same site?
No. Once a book is ready the server refuses a new generate request for that site. Use Regenerate brand book on the ready view instead, which rewrites the chapters from your saved brief.
Do I have to fill in the brief?
No. Every field can be empty. The site analysis alone is enough to generate a book. The brief improves the parts a crawler cannot see.
Is the brief saved?
Yes. The brief is stored with the book and shown again as Generation brief on the ready view, where it autosaves for the next regeneration.
Related guides
What the Brand Book is and how Serpio uses it
The Brand Book is a six-chapter system Serpio writes from your saved site analysis, then reuses on every article and hero image. What it holds, who can use it, and what it is not.
Read guideSetting your voice: audience, cues, and forbidden topics
The three voice questions in setup, where the suggestions come from, the rules for cues and forbidden topics, optional audience targeting, and how Serpio uses all of it.
Read guideEditing and regenerating your Brand Book
The ready layout, how autosave works chapter by chapter, the colour and type tools, what Regenerate brand book overwrites and keeps, and how machine guidance reaches hero images.
Read guide