Brand guidelines connect brand vision to brand expression. The best present clear reasoning and detailed instructions for what should (and shouldn’t) be done. But no guideline can account for every reality. Local teams adapt to local realities. Agencies contend with volume and deadlines. Individuals differ on what constitutes “on brand.” Brands drift. And over time that drift accumulates—sometimes to a point where the original brand vision is barely recognizable.

Charles Nix, Global Head of Creative Strategy at Monotype, works with global brands to control drift with a key creative asset (he contends the creative asset)—typography. He and the Monotype team help brands (and brands of brands) comprehend the breadth of their typographic ecosystem, diagnose shortcomings and pain points, and set up systems and processes that help establish order and promote brand fidelity: helping connect brand vision to brand expression.

In this interview, Nix explains where brand guidelines often fall short, how important it is to protect against brand drift, and what brand fidelity looks like in the age of AI.

1. You argue that brands (and brand typography) drift because of “crashes, cruise control, and creativity.” What does that mean?

Lack of processes, poor processes, and improvisation.

Crashes are brand environments where processes are fractured or persistently improvised. Brand assets move around in haphazard ways (emailed fonts, images stored on local drives, multiple PDF versions, misapplied brand guidelines, etc.). Brand drift is endemic in a crash. The lack of clear systems ensures it will happen.

Cruise control is an environment in which systems present as organized but are riddled with choke points and inefficiencies. Brand drift happens here because the system itself beckons brand participants to take shortcuts—usually when deadlines are tight (which is almost everywhere all the time in brand worlds).

And creativity? Well, brand guidelines can’t contain an example of everything the brand vision will ever encounter. People improvise—with good intention—but sometimes in ways that push the brand away from its essence and purpose.

2. Many companies have detailed brand guidelines, design systems, and approval processes. Why are these no longer enough to keep a brand consistent?

AI. I’ve seen it with my co-workers. An excited salesperson uploads the brand guidelines and a couple of sample decks into an LLM and starts pumping out “drifty” decks. That’s a street-level version, but there are dozens of high-powered AI brand systems out there that consume guidelines and assets and produce “on-brand” items from prompts and dialogue. High speed and high volume make drift highly likely.

And even without AI (though hardly anything is without AI these days), modern brand workflows can be super clunky. Legacy design software suites are competing with cloud-based platforms alongside complex DAM systems—all with evolving interoperability challenges. One team uses Adobe CS, another uses Figma for everything, both need to talk to Aprimo or Bynder (or some other DAM solution that’s also serving marketing, CX, legal, and compliance).

3. As a brand grows, it spans more markets and channels and involves more agencies and tools. Does that make brand drift an almost inevitable consequence of growth?

Brand drift may seem like a natural and unavoidable outgrowth of scale and diversification, but it’s not inevitable. Start with a strong brand culture. If everyone involved in the making and maintaining of the brand understands and is invested in its mission, they’ll naturally want to promote brand fidelity and prevent drift. And always be branding. It’s not a set-it-and-forget-it proposition. A brand is a machine that requires constant monitoring, upkeep, and repair. And just like other machines in your life that require routine maintenance, that means scheduling reviews, identifying issues, deciding how to address them, and then meeting those challenges before they become catastrophic drift. Branding isn’t an event, it’s a system.

4. Generative AI is driving another sharp increase in content production. What does this change mean for brands that have relied on guidelines and human approvals to maintain their identity?

Again, it’s not inevitable that your brand and its stewardship must become wholly automated with AI. There are places where speed and scale make sense, and there are places where human judgement is absolutely crucial. A brand is the products, the promise, and the people. AI is none of those things. It is a powerful tool for executing tasks on behalf of the brand, but it is not the brand itself. The same process that prevents drift—monitoring and maintenance—is the one that builds strong brand culture. It’s people—people caring about what the brand stands for. There may be fewer people maintaining brand assets and expressions with the introduction of AI. But a brand resonates with consumers when the people who compose it—who believe in it—are able to communicate why it’s great—through whatever tools and assets best get that message across.

5. Companies want to use AI to communicate faster and deliver more personalised content, while keeping their brand recognisable. How can they achieve both without centrally controlling every creative decision?

Talking at someone without listening is a form of communication, but one that most of us try to avoid. Sure, it can be softened if the speaker drops your name in every once in a while—or has some uncanny ability to incorporate your interests into their diatribe. AI-driven brand communication threatens to be that—verbose and smarmy.

A brand is a conversation. That is the chief difference between an identity and a brand. An identity says, “This is who I am. These are my colours. This is my mark. This is my voice.” A brand says, “Enough about me. Tell me about you.”

So achieving both requires listening and engaging with customers. It requires building relationships and communities. It requires asking questions and internalizing answers. It requires empathy and meeting customers where they are—in platforms and places and points in their lives. It’s recognizing that talking loud and fast is not communication—and that doing so without listening makes brand drift the least of your problems.

The question then becomes, “How do we conduct conversations at scale?” There’s a role in that for AI, but it can’t be the complete strategy.

6. You argue that the brand guide of the future will no longer be a PDF but will need to work more like genetic code. What does that mean in practical terms for designers, brand teams, and agencies?

Brand guidelines are evolving in real time. The PDF is already giving way to brand portals—living repositories, available to anyone with a web connection. That immediately begs the question of what a best-in-class brand portal contains and how it’s formatted for ease of (human) use. Which brand assets? Where are they used? How are they used? And why were they chosen to represent the brand? And if that brand portal can be codified for human use, it’s inevitable that we’d ask how it can be ported directly to where it’s being used—in Figma, in Canva, in Adobe products, in AI tools, and every other place brand expression is minted. APIs—connectors—can handle that jump.

And if it exists in the tools and platforms, then does the PDF or portal need to exist? Brand guidelines are then more like a brand genome. They exist, but like genetic instructions—triggering the delivery of essential brand nutrients wherever and whenever they’re needed and guiding brand processes.

7. As brand rules become increasingly machine-readable, will the role of designers and creative directors change—from reviewing individual assets to designing the systems and rules behind them?

This is a burning question in design circles these days. What is the future of creativity? Who will survive the AI design revolution? The future will not look like the past. Some jobs will change. Some jobs will be eliminated. Let me be more direct: we humans won’t design for commerce in the way that we have in the past.

Jobs will change in ways that we can guess at, as you have: designing brand systems and rules. But also monitoring brand expressions for drift (slop spotting); guiding the evolution of brand expression through creative strategy; reimagining brand worlds; engaging more directly with brand consumers, brand communities, and brand partners. There are precepts in branding that may fade away or be supplanted by better ideas.

There’s an unspoken truth about much of the creative work in branding: It’s not creative. It involves creative assets. It involves creative tools. It has “design” or “creative” in the title. But it doesn’t really engage the creative potential of the people doing it.

That is not to say it’s not honourable—or enjoyable—or (at present) necessary. It just doesn’t seem it will survive the AI revolution.

8. You use typography to illustrate how easily brand consistency can break down in complex organisations. Why is type particularly effective at revealing structural weaknesses in brand processes?

I use type as a starting point because I love type—and I know type. It is an essential brand ingredient—the essential brand ingredient—present in nearly every brand expression. I call it both the visual voice of language and clothing for words. Think of a song you love. Now think of that song sung by a cover band. Think of a t-shirt and blue jeans and then a ball gown. What changes when the voice changes? How does the clothing shift perception of the wearer?

When the visual voice changes, perception changes, emotional connection changes. We can see and feel the difference even if we can’t articulate it. And increasingly, we can articulate it. This isn’t the 20th century. We’re collectively more design literate (and yes, typographically literate) than ever before. When brand typography drifts, trust fades, engagement drops.

And in that tangle between the typeface and consumer behaviour, we can probe and diagnose the moments of disconnect—of failure to deliver the right font at the right time. We can use typography to pinpoint the origin of brand drift and observe the downstream effects.

9. Where should companies start if they want to find out whether their brand is already drifting? What warning signs suggest that the underlying workflow, rather than the design itself, is the problem?

If you have to ask, then you may have a problem. When was the last time your brand leaders conducted an audit? From my particular perspective—how many typefaces are in use at your company? Not “how many are in the brand guidelines?” but how many are really in use. Hardly anyone knows the answer to that question, and “I don’t know” is usually an indicator that drift is happening. What are you brand colours? What is you brand mission? Its values?

Those questions are fundamental but often elicit stammers. They’re also an opportunity for brand leaders to communicate the why of the brand—to create widespread understanding and participation in telling the brand story. The brand belongs to everyone at the company, not a group of specialists.

Where do the assets live? How do people access the fonts and other brand components? Are they stored locally? On a DAM? Are they emailed to agencies and production partners? Using fonts as a leading indicator: Can you trace a font from the moment it enters your brand ecosystem to the moment a customer encounters it as a typeface in a brand expression? Where do you encounter slowdowns? Where is rework happening in your production cycle? What difficulties do you have when partnering with agencies and vendors? Are the players, processes, and parts aligned?

Identifying gaps, inefficiencies, and unknowns within the workflows can be key to unearthing the causes of brand drift.

10. Looking five years ahead, what will brand management look like when a large share of content is generated, localised, and personalised automatically? What decisions do CMOs and design leaders need to make today to ensure their brand retains its identity?

The question is, in most respects, the answer: by looking five years ahead and considering what we want brand content and expression to become, we can ensure that our brands retain their identity. People, products, and processes will evolve—rapidly, if current trends are an indicator. Good leaders will drive that change rather than being dragged along by it. Brand, know thyself. How are you seen? How do you want to be seen? What is your value? How do you want to make that known?