Brand-family architecture

Principle

Sub-brands are governance decisions before they are lockups. Visual novelty is not a reason to fragment recognition.

Architecture choices

Choose and document one relationship per offering: master-branded, endorsed, or independent. The decision considers audience overlap, trust transfer, legal ownership, reputation risk, lifecycle, distribution, and recognition.

Each family member declares parent, public name, purpose, audience, relationship type, inherited tokens/rules, permitted overrides, endorsement text, naming pattern, lockup strategy, domain/account ownership, locale rules, approvers, launch version, and sunset/migration plan. Inheritance is explicit: an absent override means inherit, never “designer decides.”

Composition

Lockups use a documented construction unit, hierarchy, spacing, and alternate layout for low-recognition contexts. Partner co-branding is separate from family architecture. Do not shrink the parent into illegibility to preserve a child name, or make every campaign a permanent sub-brand.

Lifecycle and QA

• Validate acyclic parent graphs, unique names, valid owners, and allowed overrides.
• Test recognition at minimum size and in markets where the parent is unfamiliar.
• Version renames; preserve redirects, aliases, analytics continuity, and support history.
• Deprecation states are announced with replacement, dates, asset withdrawal, and archive policy.

Agent rule

Agents may compose only declared relationships. They cannot invent a new family member, endorsement, name, or inheritance exception.