YAMAHABrand idea, tone of voice, messaging, brand narrative, brand guidelines
The challenge
Yamaha Motors has a broad US portfolio — Marine, Motorsports, and several other business units that had drifted into operating like separate brands.
The task was to build a complete brand identity from the ground up: visual and verbal, working as one system. That meant every design decision had a language counterpart, and every word had to hold up visually — which required working in lockstep with the design team throughout.
The work
I led the full verbal expression of the brand strategy: the central brand idea, tone of voice, messaging pillars, audience-specific copy examples, and brand narrative.
Once the identity was shaped, I wrote the guidelines themselves — translating every decision into clear, usable direction for the teams deploying it.
The result
Yamaha Motor US now has a complete brand identity system — visual and verbal, built to work together — that gives the portfolio a shared foundation for the first time.
Business units retain their distinct identities, but now within a common framework that asks everyone to show up a little differently (but more united) than before.
