NEXT already had a recognisable voice, but no shared verbal guidelines. Different teams had developed their own approaches to copy, resulting in work that could feel safe, generic or inconsistent. The challenge wasn't to reinvent how NEXT sounded, but to understand what made it distinctly NEXT and turn that into a system the whole business could use.

My role

I led the verbal identity project from discovery through to delivery, speaking to stakeholders across the business and distilling what I learned into a clear verbal philosophy, brand mission, voice principles and practical guidance. Working alongside NEXT's design team, I developed guidelines covering everything from channel-specific copy and grammar to sustainability and AI, before bringing them to life in a full-day workshop with the six-person copy team.

The outcomes

The resulting brand guidelines became a shared reference point across NEXT's head-office teams and was incorporated into onboarding. The work was applied across every department, while the copy team left the workshop with a clearer framework and greater confidence for pushing the brand's writing further.