# Brand

URL: /business/brand · Id: `page:business/brand`

> A Brand is derived once from the Startup's definition, stored as one record, and read by every surface, so the Site, emails, and invoices never drift.

A [Brand](/business/nouns/brand) is the name, voice, logo, and style under which a [Startup](/business/nouns/startup) makes [Offers](/business/nouns/offer). [SiteBuilder](/code/builders/site) derives it once from the Startup's definition, stores it as one record, and renders every surface from that record.

## Identity is a label, not a key
Every Startup has a permanent id. Its name, slug, and [Domains](/business/nouns/domain) are labels on that id, and money, records, and [Customers](/business/nouns/customer) key to the id alone.

So a rebrand is a relabel. The Startup takes a new name, makes a new Domain canonical, and turns the old one into a redirect. No record moves, no [Invoice](/business/nouns/invoice) changes hands, and every old link still resolves.

## Where a Brand binds
A Brand binds at the Offer and the Domain, never at the [Product](/business/nouns/product). One Product can sell under two Brands to two audiences. A contract-review [Agent](/business/nouns/agent) sells to law firms as `Clausewise` and to developers as `contractcheck.dev`, with one codebase, one set of records, and two voices.

A Startup has one primary Brand, and a Brand can serve several Startups. A Brand can also extend another Brand: it inherits the voice, logo treatment, and [Theme](/business/nouns/theme) tokens, and overrides its name and its own tokens. Extending is a style relationship, never ownership.

## Naming
The name follows the primary Customer of the Offers:

- **A real name** where the Customer is an [Organization](/business/nouns/organization) or a consumer who returns: `Kestrel`, `Marlow`.
- **A self-describing name** where the buyer is an Agent, a developer, or a one-time buyer who arrives from search: `permitfeed.com`, `api.contractcheck.dev`.

SiteBuilder generates candidates across several name styles, such as coined, compound, and descriptive. Each passes three gates: no word that generated names overuse, a clear [trademark](/systems/legal-and-corporate/trademarks) search in the classes the Offers sell in, and an available Domain.

The owner picks one, and the pick is a [Decision](/business/nouns/decision) with the rejected candidates attached.

## Derived from the story
A Brand starts from the customer story compiled from the founding [Hypothesis](/business/nouns/hypothesis), not from a mood board. Four fields derive from it: an archetype, a tone, a palette intent, and an icon concept. A bookkeeping [Service](/business/nouns/service) for dental practices reads as calm and exact; a deal-alert Agent for sneaker resellers reads as fast and loud.

The tone then sets the Theme tokens:

| Tone | Accent | Type pair | Radius | Transitions |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Calm, exact: the dental books | Desaturated teal, `oklch(52% 0.08 200)` | A book serif display over a humanist sans body | 6px | 200ms ease-out |
| Fast, loud: the sneaker alert | High-chroma red, `oklch(60% 0.22 25)` | A condensed grotesk display, with a mono for prices | 0px | 120ms linear |

The type pair comes from a licensed open set, chosen by archetype. No archetype defaults to the platform's own faces.

The logo is an idea from the buyer's world: a permits API takes a stamp, a tide-chart app for charter captains a wave line. A rubric picks the form: a wordmark, a lettermark, a symbol, or a wordmark with a cut. Gradients and generic sparkles fail the rubric.

## Imagery
Images come from the buyer's world, as the logo does: the chart note, the permit stamp, the grinder's burr set. [Media production](/systems/media) generates them under the Brand's `imagery` field and checks each against its `never` list.

No generated person appears as a Customer, reviewer, or team member. Stock scenes of handshakes, laptops, and abstract 3D shapes fail the check. Where no real artifact exists to show, the [Page](/business/nouns/page) renders type and data with no picture.

## One record, every surface
The Brand record holds everything a surface needs:

```json
{
  "name": "Kestrel",
  "voice": {
    "tone": "plain, exact, unhurried",
    "vernacular": ["chairside", "recall", "write-off"],
    "never": ["revolutionary", "AI-powered", "seamless"]
  },
  "logo": { "form": "lettermark", "concept": "a ledger tick inside a tooth outline" },
  "imagery": {
    "subjects": ["a reconciled ledger page", "a dental chart note", "a recall card"],
    "never": ["generated people", "handshakes", "abstract 3D shapes"]
  },
  "theme": "theme_kestrel",
  "extends": null
}
```

The [Site](/business/nouns/site) header, favicon, social card, [Portal](/business/nouns/portal), email signatures, and every [Document](/business/nouns/document) from a quote to an Invoice read this one record. Nothing regenerates a logo or palette per surface, so the surfaces cannot drift apart. A change to the Brand is a [Change](/business/nouns/change) like any other: previewed on every surface, reviewed, then merged.

Brand named is a [Building](/business/lifecycle/states/building) entry check: the record holds a name, a voice, a logo, and a Theme. A Startup passes it before its Site goes Live, and every later surface inherits the result.

## Voice is enforced
[Guards](/business/nouns/guard) enforce the Brand's `voice` on every [Page](/business/nouns/page) and [Message](/business/nouns/message). Copy speaks the buyer's vernacular, states what the Product does in present tense, and computes its numbers or leaves them out. It makes no comparisons with named companies, and the words in `never` fail the Change that uses them.

The Agents that write Messages and [Ads](/business/nouns/ad) read the same voice. A Customer hears one Brand whether it reaches them through the Site, a renewal email, or an Agent's reply.

## Next
- [Domains](/products/site/domains/site-domains): the addresses a Brand answers at.
- [Design system](/code/builders/site/design-system): how a Theme turns the Brand into Pages.