How to create brand experience principles that actually guide your brand
(The part of governance that teams never get right)
Most companies claim they have experience principles. They write a set of words that sound inspirational and place them in a deck. Then everyone ignores them. The problem is not that experience principles do not work. The problem is that most companies create principles that are meaningless. They read like corporate wallpaper.
A real experience principle does one thing. It shapes decisions.
If a principle cannot help a team choose between two real options, it is not a principle. It is a decoration.
Here is how to create experience principles that actually guide behavior across a modern brand system.
1. Stop writing adjectives. Start writing instructions.
Most experience principles read like personality traits. Confident. Human. Authentic. Empowering. These words help nobody. They create no tension. They do not tell the team what to do differently.
A good principle gives direction. It should replace vague traits with actions. For example. Instead of “human,” say “talk to people like peers, not targets.” Instead of “innovative,” say “reduce friction in every step of the journey.” Instead of “premium,” say “remove anything that feels unnecessary.”
Principles that are verbs get used. Principles that are adjectives get framed on walls.
2. Tie each principle to a tension the brand must resolve
Principles must respond to something real. A brand in a regulated industry solves a different tension than a brand in consumer tech. If your principles do not address the actual challenges your teams face, they will ignore them.
Ask three questions.
What does our market fear?
What does our customer expect?
What does our culture naturally get wrong?
Your principles should exist to solve those tensions. That is what makes them operational.
3. Test principles against real decisions
Most companies finalize principles without ever checking if they work. Run them through real scenarios.
How would this principle change the onboarding flow?
How would it influence the chatbot script?
What does it do to a complaint email
How would it show up in a product release?
If the principle does not change anything, delete it.
4. Make them short enough to memorize
If people cannot remember the principles, they cannot use them. Limit yourself to three or four. Make them short enough that anyone in the company can repeat them without checking the brand book.
A principle is only useful if it can leave the room with someone else.
5. Show them in use before rolling them out
A principle without examples is academic. Show teams what the principle looks like in a website module, a social post, a script, a call center guideline, or a presentation slide. This moves the principle from abstraction to practice. Teams adopt things they can visualize.
6. Build the principles with the people who will use them
Top-down principles fail because they feel imposed. Bring in designers, product managers, writers, customer service leads, and marketing. They know where the brand breaks down and where decisions become unclear. They can help shape principles that solve real problems, not theoretical ones.
7. Treat principles as the center of governance
The old model said governance was about logos, grids, typography, spacing, and templates. The new model says governance is about how the brand behaves. The visual system supports the principles, not the other way around.
Principles are the spine. Design is the expression.
A brand that governs itself with rules becomes rigid. A brand that governs itself with principles becomes coherent. Rules control execution. Principles guide decisions.
