Reference packs vs Brand Information

Two different surfaces

Reference packs and Brand Information are easy to mix up, because both exist to keep you on brand. They are not the same thing, though, and holding the difference in your head will save you some confusion.

Brand Information, also called the Brand Foundation, lives on the brand kit page. It holds your voice, your palette, your typography, your positioning, your logo, and the brand imagery pulled from your site. It is the written and stylistic identity of the brand, the rules for how you sound and how you look.

A reference pack holds actual image assets, the real product, person, and background photos a render composes around. It is not rules about the look. It is the literal pictures.

Why the split matters

A good way to hold it: Brand Information is the style guide, and the reference pack is the photo shoot. One describes the brand in words and colors; the other hands over the exact pictures a project will build on.

That is why the brand kit's own brand-imagery uploader is kept separate from the pack. An image you add to brand imagery is reference material for the brand's overall feel. An image you slot in a reference pack is what one specific project's renders anchor on. The reference-pack section was removed from the brand kit so the two no longer blur together in one place.

In practice, set your voice, palette, and logo once in Brand Information for the whole brand, then build a reference pack per project for the exact product and people that project ships. The Brand Intelligence chapter covers the brand kit side in full.