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Skill · Creative brief selector

Creative brief selector.

A brief grounded in references and checked against your last build.

A starting-point selector for brand and microsite builds. Given a business spec, it produces a brief grounded in three things: an archetype position chosen to be distinct from the demos you have shipped, a small set of live reference sites for that archetype-and-vertical, and a divergence check that flags palette, voice, structure, and section-shape overlap before handoff.

The brief lands as concrete tokens rather than abstract families, with explicit hero-shape and footer-shape choices as first-class outputs. It is meant to be the single creative artifact the downstream build skills load.

Audience: studios and teams shipping multiple brand builds, where the second through nth build risks coming out as a sibling of the last.

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The framework

Five steps, two divergence checks.

The process locates a design space, diverges from what is already shipped on both the input and output sides, and renders a concrete brief.

  1. 01Locate the design space: pick one to two candidate archetypes from brand-archetype-system that fit the vertical and shape.
  2. 02Run input-side divergence: read the shipped-demo signatures, discard candidates that would land sibling to anything shipped, and record what was rejected and why.
  3. 03Pull references: load the reference-bank file for the chosen archetype-and-vertical, and augment with one or two discovered live references when the bank is sparse.
  4. 04Adapt: shift the archetype's defaults (palette, type, voice, layout, imagery) toward the business spec, landing the brief as concrete tokens.
  5. 05Render and verify: render the brief from the template, run output-side divergence, and output the brief plus the references list plus the divergence result.

What it prevents

The systemic fix for look-alike builds.

When a studio ships many builds, they drift toward a house style: the same palette family, the same voice, the same hero shape, build after build. Copying an archetype's default palette straight into a new brand is the specific failure this skill exists to prevent. The brief shifts the archetype's defaults toward the business spec instead.

Divergence runs in two directions. Input-side divergence discards candidate archetypes that would land sibling to something already shipped, before any reference work. Output-side divergence re-checks the finished brief against the shipped signatures before handoff. Both reference the same signature schema.

References come from a hybrid bank that grows with each build. Each file under the reference bank covers one archetype-and-vertical combination and holds three to six live URLs with a one-line reason for each. When a build draws from a sparse combination, it commits the references it discovered back to the bank, so the bank gets denser with use.

The signature schema

Seven fields per shipped demo.

Each shipped demo carries a signature. The overlap rules compare a candidate against every shipped signature and return SIBLING (block) or WARN.

  1. 01

    archetype

    The canonical archetype name from brand-archetype-system.

  2. 02

    dominant_hue_family

    The recognizable color family, for example leather-bone-saddle or dawn-navy-coral.

  3. 03

    voice_register

    The voice posture, for example story-forward third-person or fitment-first technical.

  4. 04

    primary_structural_pattern

    The dominant page structure, for example shoppable-grid-product-forward or arc-timeline-hero.

  5. 05

    hero_shape

    The hero composition, for example dual-column-image-and-text or full-bleed-image-with-overlay.

  6. 06

    footer_shape

    The footer composition, for example single-line-strip or multi-column-sitemap.

  7. 07

    slug

    The demo identifier, so each signature is traceable to a shipped build.

Reference files

The process, the schema, and the reference bank.

A curated reference bank lives under references/reference-bank/, seeded with three archetype-and-vertical combinations and extended by each build that draws from it.

  • references/01-process.md

    The five-step process, each step concrete enough to execute end to end.

  • references/02-brief-template.md

    The fillable brief template, section by section, that the rendered brief follows.

  • references/03-divergence-check.md

    The signature schema and the full set of overlap rules that mark a candidate SIBLING (block) or WARN.

  • references/05-section-shapes-vocabulary.md

    The canonical open vocabulary of hero and footer section shapes, with archetype affinities.

Browse all reference files on GitHub

Bridges to other skills

What it picks from, and what it feeds.

The selector sits between the archetype catalog and the build skills. These are the skills on either side.

  • The catalog

    brand-archetype-system

    The archetype catalog this skill picks from. It names the archetype in the rendered brief and shifts its defaults toward the spec, without redefining the archetype itself.

  • The axis vocabulary

    creative-direction

    The four-axis vocabulary the archetypes reference. Run it first when the consumer needs the full axis brief; this skill's output consumes it.

  • Positioning from zero

    brand-ideation

    Defining brand strategy from no positioning at all happens here first. Return to the selector once there is a direction to give an aesthetic position to.

  • Downstream identity

    brand-identity

    Once the brief is approved, brand-identity turns it into a finished identity system.

  • Downstream creative

    art-direction

    Briefs specific creative deliverables (photo, illustration, video) against the aesthetic this skill's brief establishes.

Open source under MIT

Read the SKILL.md on GitHub.

The skill source lives in the rampstackco/claude-skills repository alongside dozens of other skills covering the full lifecycle of brand and product work. This page is a structured overview; the SKILL.md is the source. MIT licensed.

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Frequently asked questions.

What problem does this skill solve?
Sibling builds: when a studio's brands start coming out looking like each other, build after build. The selector produces a creative brief deliberately distinct from the demos already shipped, grounded in a chosen archetype and a set of live reference sites, with a divergence check that catches palette, voice, structure, and section-shape overlap before the brief is handed off. After a portfolio audit surfaces sibling builds, this is the systemic fix.
How does the divergence check work?
Each shipped demo carries a signature with seven fields: slug, archetype, dominant hue family, voice register, primary structural pattern, hero shape, and footer shape. The overlap rules compare a candidate against every shipped signature. Sharing an archetype and a hue family blocks as a sibling; sharing an archetype, a voice register, and a primary structural pattern also blocks. Sharing only a hue family across different archetypes warns, as does a hero shape that matches two or more shipped demos. A hero shape matching three or more demos that share an archetype family blocks.
What does the brief output?
Concrete tokens, not abstract families, including explicit section-shape choices: the hero shape and the footer shape are first-class outputs alongside palette and voice. The brief is meant to be loaded by the downstream build skills as the single creative artifact for the build, which is why it commits to specific values rather than describing aesthetic families in the abstract.
Where do the reference sites come from?
A curated reference bank under references/reference-bank/. Each file covers one archetype-and-vertical combination and holds three to six live reference URLs, each with a one-line reason and optional palette or type observations. The bank ships seeded with three combinations (a western-boot maker, a heritage barbershop, and a balloon-ride experience). When a build draws from a sparse combination, it is expected to commit the live references it discovered back to the bank in its build PR, so the bank gets denser with use.
How does it relate to brand-archetype-system and creative-direction?
It picks from the brand-archetype-system catalog and names the chosen archetype in the brief without redefining the archetype's defaults. It references the four-axis vocabulary from creative-direction; if the consumer needs the full axis brief, run creative-direction first and this skill's brief consumes its outputs. The selector sits upstream of the build-time skills (brand-identity, landing-page-copy, content-and-copy, art-direction), each of which references its brief.
When should I not use it?
When you want pure aesthetic methodology guidance (use creative-direction), when you already have a finished archetype and brief and just need execution (skip to the build skills), when you want a logo or a finished identity (use logo-design or brand-identity), or when you are defining brand strategy from zero positioning (use brand-ideation first, then return here).