Writing a Good Brand Identity

Your Brand Memory is the text Brandmachine reads before it proposes a scene, casts a model, or completes a look. A vague one produces generic photography. A specific one produces photography that looks like yours.

This page is about what to actually write in the two text boxes on the Brand Identity page.

The one rule

Write things a photographer could act on.

Everything that reads your Brand Memory is building an image. It can act on a colour, a fabric, a backdrop, a kind of face, a quality of light. It cannot act on a value.

Compare these two lines. Both describe the same brand:

We believe in authenticity, timeless quality, and craftsmanship that lasts.

Garments are shot with the weave visible and the retouching light, on models with unstyled hair and natural skin, against worn concrete and painted brick rather than seamless studio backdrops.

The first one is true and says nothing an image can be built from. The second one produces a photograph. Write the second kind.

You don't have to drop your values, but every value should be followed by what it looks like. "Sustainable" becomes "undyed and low-wash fabrics, visible mending, muted natural colours." "Premium" becomes "deep shadow, single-source light, no props competing with the garment."

What to cover

Aim for roughly 250 to 350 words in Core Values & Identity, organised under a few headings. Cover these four areas:

Who the brand is. Two or three sentences on where it comes from and what it stands for. Keep it short. This is the part that grounds the rest, not the part that does the work.

The clothes. Name your actual silhouettes and fabrics. "The boxy chore jacket, the wide-leg trouser, the ribbed tank." "Heavyweight organic cotton, washed linen, undyed merino." Named garments are what let Brandmachine style a complete look that looks like your catalogue instead of a generic one.

Casting and setting. Who wears the clothes and where they're shot. Not demographics, but a picture: "women in their thirties with unstyled hair and minimal makeup, more artist than model." For setting: "coastal light, weathered timber, empty interiors with big windows." These lines carry the most weight in campaign and set-location work.

Colour and light. Name colours, not moods. "Bone, oatmeal, deep navy, a rare rust accent" beats "a warm, earthy palette." Say how it's lit: overcast daylight, hard midday sun, a single warm lamp. Say how it's graded: cool and slightly desaturated, or warm with lifted blacks.

Name your staple basics

This is the single highest-value sentence in your Brand Memory, and most brands leave it out.

When you shoot a skirt with no top, or trousers with no shirt, Brandmachine has to complete the outfit so the model isn't half-dressed. The complement it adds is always neutral and unbranded so your real product stays the hero. Left to itself it will pick something sensible. Told what you'd pick, it picks yours.

So write the line:

Bare bottoms are completed with a plain white ribbed tank. Bare tops go with straight-leg indigo denim. Footwear is a low leather sneaker in bone, never a dress shoe.

That one sentence changes what comes out of Shot Planner on every product you upload with a single photo. It's used as a fallback, so anything you say in chat or save as a Skill still overrides it. See the priority order in Shot Planner.

A worked example

A short, complete Brand Memory for a made-up label:

Nordlys

The brand. Nordlys makes everyday wardrobe pieces in Copenhagen, cut for wear rather than for the season. The clothes are meant to be kept for years, so nothing is trend-loud and nothing is disposable.

The clothes. The core is the oversized poplin shirt, the pleated wide-leg trouser, the ribbed knit tank and the unstructured wool coat. Fabrics are washed linen, heavy poplin, undyed merino and organic cotton with visible texture. Fits are generous and hang away from the body.

Casting and setting. Models read as real people rather than fashion mannequins: women and men from mid-twenties to mid-forties, unstyled or loosely tied hair, minimal makeup, hands and skin left natural. Locations are quiet and unpeopled: bare Nordic interiors with tall windows, pale wood floors, coastal dunes, concrete stairwells. No studio seamless, no props that compete with the garment.

Colour and light. The palette is bone, oatmeal, stone grey, deep navy and black, with rust or moss as the only accents. Light is soft overcast daylight from one side, with long shadows rather than fill. Grading is cool and slightly desaturated, blacks left soft, skin kept warm.

Staple basics. Complete a bare bottom with a plain bone ribbed tank. Complete a bare top with straight-leg indigo denim. Shoes are a low bone leather sneaker or a bare foot, never a heel.

That's about 240 words and every line of it can be photographed.

Fashion Model Casting Instructions

The second box on the page is narrower. It applies whenever Brandmachine casts a model for you, and it's the right home for rules that should hold on every model regardless of the shoot.

Good things to put there: age range, grooming and beard rules, makeup level, hair, jewellery and accessories, body types you want represented, anything you never want to see. Write it as short direct rules, and split by gender where the rules differ.

For all models: skin left natural with visible texture, no heavy smoothing. Hair loose or simply tied, no elaborate styling. Men: clean-shaven or short stubble, no full beards. No jewellery. Women: minimal makeup, no strong lip. Small studs only.

Leave it empty and Brandmachine applies a sensible default grooming standard, so this box is optional. Fill it in if you have opinions about faces.

Common mistakes

Marketing copy. Your About page, your brand deck, and your tagline are written to persuade a customer. They tend to be all values and no surface. Rewrite them into what the camera sees before pasting them in.

Too long. Past roughly 400 words the important lines start competing with each other. If you catch yourself writing a fourth paragraph about heritage, cut it and spend those words on colour and casting.

Contradictions. "Minimal and clean" in one paragraph and "maximalist, layered, chaotic" in another leaves Brandmachine to pick one, and it may not pick the same one twice. Read the whole thing through and resolve the fights.

Naming the brand as a visual. Your brand name is stored for your reference but it's deliberately kept out of generated scenes: no logos, signage, or labels are invented into a shot. Describing your logo or your packaging won't put them in an image.

Copying a reference brand. Naming another label as shorthand ("like Toteme but cheaper") gives Brandmachine nothing to work with, since it can only use what's actually written down. Describe the look directly instead.

Keeping it current

Brand Memory is read live, at the moment you generate. Editing it changes everything you make from that point on and leaves what you already generated untouched.

That makes it worth revisiting. If a season shifts your palette, or you keep correcting the same thing in chat, put the correction into your Brand Memory so you stop repeating it. A rule you've typed into chat three times belongs either here or in a Skill.

You can also just ask the agent in chat to update your Brand Memory. Describe the change in plain language ("our palette moved to warmer neutrals this season") and it will revise the text for you.

FAQs

How long should it be? Roughly 250 to 350 words for Core Values & Identity. Long enough for four short sections, short enough that no line gets lost.

Can I include hex codes, fonts, or my logo? You can write them, but they won't be used. Brand Memory drives photography, not graphic design, so colours are best given as names ("bone, deep navy, rust") rather than hex values, and generated images never contain your logo or brand name.

Does it override what I ask for in chat? No, it's the opposite. What you type in chat wins, then your saved Skills, then Brand Memory, then Brandmachine's defaults. Brand Memory is what fills the gaps when nothing more specific applies. See Shot Planner for the full order.

Why doesn't my Product Studio shot follow my Brand Memory? Product Studio perspectives are driven by their own settings and instructions rather than by Brand Memory, so styling rules for catalogue shots belong in your Product Studio settings. See Product Studio.

Do I have to write it myself? No. Brandmachine drafts one from your store name when you first set it up, and that draft is a reasonable starting point. It's written without ever having seen your product, though, so it will be generic until you replace the abstract lines with your real garments, colours, and casting.

For further help, contact support@brandmachine.shop.