'47 Internal Brand Book

Challenge

'47 didn't have a single source of truth for its brand. New employees learned the brand by absorbing it over time. External partners and marketing resources got whatever deck happened to be floating around. There was no consistent reference point for the company's history, values, voice, positioning, or audience. Leadership wanted a brand book that could onboard new hires, align the existing team, and serve as a reference for external collaborators. The catch: it had to be something people would actually pick up and read. Not a 60-page PDF that lives in a shared drive and collects dust. If it felt like a corporate manual, nobody was going to use it.

Approach

I creative directed the project in collaboration with a copywriter, working from existing content across the company: brand frameworks, value statements, positioning docs, and consumer research. The raw material was there, it just hadn't been pulled together into one cohesive, designed piece. The book covers company history, brand framework, values, brand statement, positioning, voice, mission, and consumer profiles with ICPs. The structure moves from story to strategy to application, so a reader builds context before getting into the specifics of how to use the brand. The design challenge was making all of that feel approachable rather than dense. I treated it like an editorial project, not a guidelines document. The pacing, layout, and visual treatment were all designed to keep someone turning pages. If it looked and felt like something you'd want on your desk, people would actually reference it.

Internal brand book

Results

The brand book became the go-to reference across the company. Leadership gave consistent positive feedback, and the team repeatedly requested reprints, which is about the best signal you can get that something is actually being used. It gave '47 a single, definitive brand resource for the first time, one that worked equally well for a new hire on day one and an external agency kicking off a campaign.