Cross-Medium Brand Coherence Contract

Duolingo Design's strongest transferable lesson: one declared personality propagates into words, shapes, color, imagery, assets, and hard production constraints — not a palette + logo kit.

The contract (required fields)

Every product brand system in AwesomeDS must define:

Layer	Must answer	Example artifact
Personality	3–5 verbs, emotional range, anti-personas	brand personality sheet
Narrative	Why we exist, promise, taboo claims	brand narrative
Voice	Stable qualities (always true)	voice checklist
Tone	Context matrix (error/success/onboarding/marketing)	tone matrix
Verbal character	Who speaks, what they never say	character contract
Visual identity	Logo, color roles, type roles, clear space	identity tokens
Imagery	Photo/3D direction, cropping, lighting	imagery rules
Illustration	Geometry, complexity budget, silhouette	shape language
Iconography	Stroke, grid, metaphor rules	icon system
Motion	Personality of movement	motion recipes
Sound (optional)	Sonic brand limits	sound tokens
Accessibility	Contrast, motion, language clarity	a11y gates

Operational sequence (documentation pattern)

1. Principle (why)
2. Concrete rule / token (what)
3. Good / bad examples (show)
4. Production constraint (min size, clear space, complexity budget)
5. Related guidance (link)

Agents must not invent a brand personality mid-UI. Load this contract first.

Linked rules

• rule.brand.personality-system
• rule.brand.cross-medium-coherence
• rule.brand.content-design