Brand Studio

What Brand Studio Is

Brand Studio is where you shape how your business should sound and look inside Affinity.

This matters because other tools depend on it. If Brand Studio is weak, your posts, agents, and creative work can feel generic.

What You Can Set Here

Brand Studio usually covers:

• brand voice
• business positioning
• CTA direction
• visual identity
• logos and reference images
• design recipes

Watch The Walkthrough

This video walks through the full Brand Studio setup, from brand voice to visual identity, recipes, and Sandbox testing.

The steps below match the video, so you can follow along or use them as a reference later.

Step-By-Step: Setting Up Your Brand Voice

1. Navigate To Brand Studio

From the left-hand sidebar menu, click Brand Studio.

2. Provide Brand Context

Find the Brand Voice Extractor section.

In the Brand Context field, write a short summary (1–2 sentences max) explaining who you are and what your business does.

3. Add Content Samples

Scroll down to the Content Samples box.

Paste in examples of your own writing so the AI can learn your exact tone. You can paste up to 20,000+ characters.

Good things to paste in: 5 of your latest Instagram or Facebook captions, email newsletters, or blog posts.

4. Run The Extractor

Click the extraction button. The AI reads your samples and studies your language, word choice, and sentence structure.

5. Review And Edit Brand Details

Check what the extractor found before you save:

• Names — confirm the extracted Brand Name and Company Name are correct. If you're building a personal brand, put your real name in the Brand Name field.
• Tagline — confirm your tagline (for example, "Awake, Create") came through correctly.
• Authorized Contact Methods — enter public links here, like your website URL.

6. Save Your Profile

Scroll back to the top of the page and click Save to lock in your brand voice profile before moving on to Visual Identity.

Phase 2: Visual Identity, Recipes, And Sandbox Testing

Once your brand voice is saved, this section covers your visual assets, custom layout "recipes," and how to test designs in Sandbox mode before your agents start posting on their own.

1. Fill Out Your Visual Identity Portfolio

The Visual Identity tab is your brand's ongoing visual reference library. When an automated design agent creates content, it checks this tab to decide what layouts, backgrounds, and faces to use.

1. Core logos. First, connect your Google Drive folder that holds your active design kit. In the main logo block, pick your primary logo and any alternate versions (light background, dark background, and so on). This tells the system exactly how your branding should sit inside generated images.
2. Approved asset classes. Fill in the asset categories with your media library so the system has clear guardrails for layouts.
3. Testimonial and proof assets. Open the Testimonial card and upload screenshots of customer reviews or case-study quotes — the design AI uses these as visual references when building trust-focused posts. Screenshots alone aren't enough for the caption writer to quote a customer, though: the AI that writes captions can't read text inside an image. To let a post actually quote a real customer by name, click Add a quote the agent can write with on the same card and type or paste the exact words — never a summary or a cleaned-up version. Each quote you add shows as a "N quotes" count next to the screenshot count, so you can see both halves are filled in.
4. Output specs. Set your target Product specs — upload examples like UI wireframes, consulting frameworks, or website mockups. Set your default Aspect Ratio to 4:5, which is the frame size carousels need.

2. Set Your Core Vibe And Design Principles

The Visual Direction panel is where you describe, in your own words, what your brand should feel and look like beyond your logo and colors.

• Core vibe — a few sentences describing the overall feeling you want. For example: "warm, hands-on, small-town trustworthy — never corporate or cold."
• Design principles — a short list of rules for how your content should be built, one per line. For example: "always leave breathing room around text" or "use warm photography, not stock office shots."

Click Save and these details become available to your content and design agents right away.

3. Scrape And Build Layout "Recipes"

A Recipe is a layout blueprint pulled from a real, high-performing social post. Instead of designing from scratch, you can reverse-engineer a layout you like and save it as a reusable template.

The flow looks like this: find inspiration on social → screenshot the swipe file → upload it to Brand Studio → the AI extracts the design structure.

Building a recipe:

1. Find a design you like. Browse Instagram or your own swipe file for a layout or structural style that fits your brand.
2. Capture the steps. Take clean, in-order screenshots of each frame and save them to a folder.
3. Upload it. In the platform, click Add → Visual Recipe and drag your screenshots into the upload area.
4. Set the order. Arrange the frames in the order they should appear (for example: Hook → Body → Call to Action). The platform automatically detects multiple frames and turns them into a multi-slide carousel.

Choosing a design guardrail: when you save a recipe, toggle "Keep Image in Recipe Used During Recreation" based on the result you want:

4. Run Experiments In Sandbox Mode

Sandbox lets you preview design variations before anything goes live. Use it to confirm your layouts are dialed in before giving your background agents permission to post on their own.

The three content buckets. Every post the system generates falls into one of three buckets, which keeps your content from feeling like a constant sales pitch:

Running a Sandbox test:

1. Set your target. Go to the Sandbox suite, pick your channel (for example, Instagram), and pick a content bucket (for example, Awareness).
2. Add your topic and hook. Choose a copy style (for example, Mythbusting) and enter your test topic. Example: "AI won't take your job, but someone with AI will."
3. Run the comparison. Run a build using your Deep Adaptation (toggle off) recipe, then run it again using your Direct Recreation (toggle on) recipe.

Reading your results:

• Deep Adaptation (toggle off) — the system ignores the source image's styling and rebuilds the layout using your own colors, backgrounds, and brand assets. The copy is generated fresh in your brand voice (for example: "AI won't take your job. Someone using it will." followed by "The real threat is a competitor with a faster workflow.").
• Direct Recreation (toggle on) — the layout stays close to the original screenshots you uploaded. The wording is swapped for your brand's voice, but styling details like card shapes, borders, and fonts stay close to the source.

Best First Setup

1. Start with your business basics.
2. Define how the brand should sound.
3. Add logo files and visual references.
4. Set color and style direction.
5. Save a few design recipes you want reused.

What To Put In Brand Voice

Write in plain language:

• who the business helps
• what it does best
• what makes it different
• what tone feels right
• what CTA you want most often

Good examples:

• friendly but confident
• local and trustworthy
• direct, clear, and not too salesy

What To Put In Visual Direction

Add enough direction that the system can stay on-brand:

• primary logo
• approved colors
• image references
• examples of layouts or styles you like
• design recipes for repeatable looks

When To Update Brand Studio

Update it when:

• the business changes its offer
• the tone feels off across posts or agents
• new logos or photos are added
• a builder or social workflow keeps missing the mark

Best Workflow With Other Tools

Use this order:

1. Set the brand in Brand Studio.
2. Use Post Creator or social workflows for content.
3. Use Website Builder for site updates.
4. Review outputs and tighten Brand Studio if the work feels off-brand.

Common Mistakes

• leaving the voice too vague
• uploading references that do not match the brand
• forgetting to update CTAs after the offer changes
• expecting good content from weak source direction

Quick Check

Your Brand Studio setup is in a good place when:

• the business voice sounds consistent
• generated visuals look like they belong to the brand
• CTAs feel natural
• different tools stop drifting in different directions