Brand voice
A lot of different people write for Frappe, from developers to marketers, community folks, and partners. Here is a guide to keep the writing sounding like us.
Personality
The Philosophy
Our identity is built around empowering people, inspiring creativity, and encouraging radical thinking.
Frappe is:
Open, honest and human
Thoughtful, approachable and forward thinking
Confident, opinionated without being loud or arrogant
Purpose-driven - we don’t do things just because everyone else does
Friendly but not casual - (example)
Frappe is not:
Corporate or generic sounding
Pushy, needy, manipulative or emotionally exploitive
A brand that uses lot of corporate jargons or buzzwords
Preachy or superior
Grammar
The Philosophy
Use direct speech
Use American English. Currently we use mixed style but over time we should improve this.
Aim for short sentences - (When we plan a new product launch, we try to think about the message, the audience, the timing and the channels all at once, which often makes the process feel slow and confusing because too many things are happening in a single discussion) vs (When we plan a new product launch, we look at a few things. We think about the message. We think about the audience. We decide the timing and the channels. Breaking it down makes the process easier and helps the team stay focused.)
Use sentence case for titles - (This Is A Title) vs (This is a title)
Formatting
The Philosophy
Don’t justify (left alignment is better) as it breaks the density of text.
Use hierarchy. Use semantic headings (H1, H2 etc).
Long documents must be broken into sections or number them.
Check indentations. Titles should be outdented, numbered lists should be indented.
1.5x line height makes things more readable.
Each page must have a clear title.
Use icons and screenshots to illustrate.
Use an accent for aesthetics.
Remember to add meta tags like title, description and image for each webpage.
Remember that everything is also read on mobile phones.
Do not use too many emoticons or exclamation marks.
Dos and donts
The Philosophy
Do
Use the word ‘team members’ instead of ‘employees’
Use the word ‘engineer’ instead of ‘developer’
Use ‘Frappe’ to refer to the brand or the company instead of ‘Frappe Technologies Pvt Ltd’ unless it is for a legal purposes
Use product names together without using Frappe each time like ‘Frappe HR, Framework, CRM and Learning’
Do not
Use words that are over promising like ‘seamless’
Start sentences with second person. Make things about the reader and not about us. Use ‘Frappe’ instead of ‘we’ or ‘our’ if necessary.
Use different forms of the term ‘open source’ within the same writeup like ‘open-source’ or ‘Open Source’. Instead, use ‘open source’ to keep it simple and if necessary ‘open-source’ as an adjective before a noun.
Use Frappe before each product name while listing them in a sentence because it makes the sentence bulky.
Do anything you wouldn’t want to be subject to like repeated emails or distracting banners/popups on website.
“The unexamined life is not worth living”
~ Socrates
