BrandForge — Staff Guide

BrandForge — Staff Guide

BrandForge turns a client's website into a reusable brand kit and a stream of on-brand marketing creatives. You give it a URL, it extracts the brand's DNA (voice, colors, fonts, messaging), and from there you generate campaign concepts, ready-to-use social creatives, and a polished Brandbook PDF that attaches straight to the project so it can be emailed to the client. It lives inside a project, so everything you create is tied to that client's work.

1. Where BrandForge lives

BrandForge runs as a tab inside a Project. Open the project for the client you are working on and select the Studio tab. Everything below happens on that tab, top to bottom: capture the Brand DNA, upload the logo and images, generate campaigns and creatives, then generate the Brandbook.

Read the flow as a sentence: Analyze a site into Brand DNA, then generate [campaigns and creatives] and a [Brandbook] from it.

2. Step one — capture the Brand DNA

1. In the Analyze a website URL box, paste the client's homepage URL and click Generate.
2. BrandForge reads the site and fills in the Brand DNA: brand name, tagline, value proposition, target audience, industry, tone of voice, brand personality, key messages, primary and secondary colors, and fonts.
3. Review every field and edit anything that is off. The colors and chips (tone, personality, key messages) are all editable — add, remove, or recolor as needed. This captured DNA is what every later step draws from, so it is worth getting right.
4. Click Save Brand DNA. Saving reveals the rest of the Studio: uploads, the campaign feed, the Brandbook layout, and the Generate Brandbook button.

If analysis comes back thin: the module reads the site's HTML by default, which is reliable but text-only. A rendered screenshot step can sharpen color and vibe accuracy — see section 8 on settings — but HTML-only is the solid default and you can always fill gaps by hand.

3. Step two — upload the logo and brand images

• Brand Logo (required for the Brandbook): upload the client's real logo. An uploaded logo always takes priority over anything auto-detected from the site, and it is what appears on the Brandbook cover and logo page. The Brandbook will not generate without a logo.
• Brand Images (optional): add a few representative images. These render as a Brand Imagery page in the Brandbook, and the first one can be used as a cover background.

Size limit: keep each image under about 8 MB (the server caps uploads near 10 MB). If a file is too large, BrandForge warns you by name and asks you to resize it — resize and re-upload.

4. Step three — generate campaigns and creatives

1. In the Campaigns area, click New Campaign. A fresh form appears.
2. Pick a Campaign goal — Product launch, Lead generation, Brand awareness, Engagement, Thought leadership, or Direct sales.
3. Optionally add a Creative direction — a short steer for the AI, for example "focus on cost savings for fleet managers" or "lean into the safety angle." Leave it blank to work from the Brand DNA and goal alone.
4. Click Generate. BrandForge produces a set of concepts for the campaign, each with a title, theme, hook, key message, and call to action.
5. On any concept, pick the platforms you want creatives for (for example Instagram Feed, Instagram Story, LinkedIn Post) and generate the assets. Each platform gets copy and an image sized and toned for that placement.

Campaigns stack newest-on-top as collapsible blocks — click a header to expand its concepts and creatives. Older campaigns stay intact, so a brand can accumulate many campaigns over time. Everything you generate is saved and restores when you return to the tab.

5. How creative generation runs

Assets are produced through a queue rather than all at once, so a batch of creatives does not block the page. When you request assets they are queued and drained in the background (and nudged along on demand), then appear on their concept as they finish. If an image provider is misconfigured or hits a limit, the affected asset surfaces an error rather than failing silently — see section 8 for provider setup.

6. Step four — the Brandbook PDF

The Brandbook is the client-facing deliverable: a landscape PDF built from the saved Brand DNA. It includes a cover, brand overview, logo page, typography, a color palette with full Hex/RGB/CMYK/HSL values, your uploaded brand imagery, and a brand voice page.

1. Make sure a logo is uploaded (required) and the Brand DNA is saved.
2. Click Generate Brandbook.
3. The PDF is created and attached automatically to the project's Files tab — no separate download-and-upload step. From Files it can be emailed to the client through the normal project flow.

7. Customizing the Brandbook — the Layout panel

The Brandbook Layout panel lets you tailor the PDF per brand:

• Show/hide sections: tick or untick Cover, Brand Overview, Brand Logo, Typography, Color Palette, Brand Imagery, and Brand Voice.
• Reorder sections: use the up/down arrows to set the order they appear in.
• Cover background: choose White (default), Navy, a Brand color, or the First brand image. The logo is placed directly on whatever background you choose, so pick one that reads well with that client's logo.
• Click Save Layout, then generate the Brandbook to see the result.

A brand with no saved layout uses all sections, in the standard order, on a white cover — so you only need to touch this panel when you want something different.

8. Settings — AI providers and the screenshot step

BrandForge's AI providers are configured once in the module Settings, and per deployment:

• Text and vision (reading the site, writing copy): OpenAI by default, with Claude available as an option.
• Images (generating creatives): set per deployment; providers include Gemini and OpenAI. Whichever you choose must have valid billing on its own account, or image generation returns a limit error.
• Screenshot (optional): leave the ScreenshotOne key blank to run reliable HTML-only extraction. Add a key to enable a rendered-screenshot vision step that improves color and vibe accuracy. After entering a key, save and reload Settings to confirm it persisted.

9. Practical examples

• New client kickoff: analyze their homepage, tidy the Brand DNA, upload the real logo plus three brand photos, and generate the Brandbook to send as a first deliverable.
• Launch push: New Campaign with the goal "Product launch" and a direction like "emphasize the limited-time offer," generate concepts, then produce Instagram Feed and Story creatives from the strongest concept.
• Ongoing content: add a new campaign each month against the same brand; the feed keeps every prior campaign so the history stays in one place.

10. Good to know

• Save the DNA first. Uploads, campaigns, and the Brandbook only appear after the first Save Brand DNA.
• The logo is required for the Brandbook and always overrides any auto-detected logo — upload the client's real one.
• Resize big images. Anything over ~8 MB is rejected with a clear message; shrink it and re-upload.
• Edit freely before generating. The AI gives you a strong starting point; the fields are yours to correct so the Brandbook and creatives reflect the real brand.
• The Brandbook auto-attaches to Files, ready to email — you do not need to download and re-upload it.
• Layout is per brand. Section choices, order, and cover background are saved against that brand and do not affect any other.