How we use AI to go from brand guidelines → production-ready ad creative — and how you can too.
Most people use AI for creative one asset at a time. Write a LinkedIn post. Generate an image. Repeat. Every time, they re-explain their brand from scratch — and every time, the output drifts further from their identity.
We built a system that fixes this. It's three stages, each feeding the next:
The key insight: Stage 1 is the investment. Stages 2 and 3 are the payoff — forever. Once your brand tokens exist, every production run loads them automatically. No re-prompting. No drift.
Below are the exact prompts we use internally. Copy them. Adapt them. Run them in ChatGPT, Claude, or whatever you prefer — and use Gamma, Midjourney, or Flux for imagery.
Once you run it one time, edit your prompts to refine them for your tools and workflow; then, capture the big unlock— turn it into a skill.md file and just run them as a /command going forward. I have mine setup to pull and push information from the places I use most, like Pencil.ai. Once you do that… that’s when the real magic happens. 🪄
Brand tokens are your entire visual identity as structured data — colors, type, textures, buttons, voice rules, and (critically) your business context. Think of it as a machine-readable brand guide.
You only do this once per brand. Everything downstream reads from it.
Prompt 1A: Brand Token Generator
Copy this into your AI tool. Replace everything in [brackets].
I need you to help me build a brand token file — a structured reference document that captures my entire visual identity and business context in one place. I'll use this to brief every future creative task so the AI never needs me to re-explain my brand.
Here's my information:
## Brand Identity
- Brand name: [YOUR BRAND NAME]
- Tagline: [YOUR TAGLINE]
- What we do: [ONE SENTENCE — what you sell and to whom]
- Brand personality: [2-3 sentences — how should people feel when they encounter your brand?]
## Visual References
- Brands I admire visually (and why): [LIST 2-5 — e.g., "Hex.tech — their paper textures feel tactile and premium" or "Linear — clean, dark, developer-focused"]
- Brands I do NOT want to look like (and why): [LIST 2-3 — e.g., "Generic SaaS — gradient blobs and stock photos feel hollow"]
## Existing Assets (if any)
- Current colors: [LIST HEX CODES if you have them, or describe — "warm earth tones" / "cool minimalist" / "bold and saturated"]
- Current fonts: [LIST or describe — "we use Inter for everything" / "no established fonts yet"]
- Logo style: [Wordmark / icon / combination / "we don't have one yet"]
## Business Context
- Our positioning: [How are you different from competitors? What's your strategic angle?]
- Our ideal customer: [Who specifically — role, company size, pain point]
- Our proof points: [Results, metrics, testimonials, credentials — anything that builds trust]
- Key messages (top 3): [The three things you want every piece of creative to reinforce]
---
Now generate a brand token document with these sections. For each section, give me specific, concrete values — not generic placeholders:
1. **Color Palette** — 6-8 core colors with hex codes, names, and usage rules (background, text, CTA, accent, dark sections). Include 3-4 extended/functional colors (success, warning, info, categories). Show contrast ratios for text on backgrounds.
2. **Typography** — Display font, body font, mono/label font. Full scale from H1 to caption with sizes, weights, line-heights, and letter-spacing. Include web-safe fallbacks.
3. **Textures & Surfaces** — What surface treatments make this brand feel tactile? (Options: paper grain, noise, dot grid, line grid, gradients, solid, glass.) Define opacity and layering order.
4. **Buttons & Shape Language** — Border radius, primary/secondary/ghost button specs, hover states. Shape language: rounded? square? pill? mixed?
5. **Imagery Rules** — What subjects appear in imagery? What composition style? What to always avoid? Write these as "always/never" rules.
6. **AI Image Prompt (Locked)** — A reusable prompt prefix I can paste into ANY image generator (Midjourney, Gamma, Flux, DALL-E) that captures the visual style. Should be ~30-50 keywords covering aesthetic, texture, lighting, composition, and color mood.
7. **AI Image Negative Prompt** — Keywords to always exclude from image generation.
8. **Voice-Visual Alignment** — Map 3-4 brand voice traits to specific visual executions. Example: "Direct → bold headlines, minimal decoration" or "Warm → cream backgrounds, soft lighting."
9. **Anti-Patterns** — 8-12 specific things this brand should NEVER do, with brief "why not" for each.
10. **Business Context Block** — Structured version of: positioning statement, 3 USPs, 3 customer personas (name, role, pain, hook), proof points, key metrics, credentials. This block gets pasted into every production prompt.
Format the output as clean markdown I can save as a reference file.
A complete brand reference doc — typically 3-5 pages — that captures everything an AI needs to produce on-brand creative without re-briefing. Save it somewhere permanent. You'll paste sections of it into every prompt below.