---
name: dkeken/creative-positioning
source: https://app.decimal.ai/s/dkeken-creative-positioning@1/SKILL.md
source_sha256: 4c965fee9661
---

# Creative — Positioning Explorer

Ensure the visual language is a deliberate expression of business positioning, not arbitrary taste. Every color, type, and imagery choice should be defensible by a strategic reason. This bridges the gap between "what we are in the market" and "what we look like".

## When to use
- Moving from strategy/positioning work into brand expression.
- The visuals feel disconnected from how the company wants to be seen.
- You need to justify aesthetic choices to founders/stakeholders with reasons, not opinions.
- Before `creative-moodboard`/`creative-explore` to seed them with strategic constraints.

## When NOT to use
- Positioning is undefined — that's a strategy problem, not a visual one; surface it first.
- You just need options to look at fast → `creative-explore`.
- Merchandising a specific offer → `creative-offer`.

## Inputs (ask only what's missing)
- **Category** + how they want to be seen within it.
- **Core differentiator** — the one thing that's true of them and not competitors.
- **Who it's FOR** and **who it's AGAINST** (the foil — the incumbent/alternative they beat).
- **Price/quality tier**.

## Workflow
1. **Write the positioning statement**: "For {audience}, {brand} is the {category} that {differentiator}, unlike {foil}."
2. **Derive visual implications** from each part. Premium-vs-cheap → restraint, whitespace, craft cues. Approachable-vs-intimidating → warmth, rounded forms, human imagery. Each rule traces to a positioning reason.
3. **Produce a visual language spec**: palette logic, type logic, imagery rules, tone, and explicit **do-nots** (what would accidentally signal the foil's positioning).
4. **Generate 2-3 proof images** with your image tool showing the positioning made visible. Save to `./creative/positioning/<NN>.png`.
5. **Pass the spec forward** as hard constraints to `creative-moodboard`/`creative-explore`.

## Worked example
A project-management tool positioned against "bloated enterprise suites".
```
positioning: "For small teams, Tako is the project tool that stays out of your
way, unlike heavyweight enterprise suites."

visual implications:
- palette: 1 accent + lots of neutral (because "stays out of the way" → restraint;
  a rainbow UI would signal the bloated foil)
- type: one humanist sans, generous spacing (calm, not dense dashboards)
- imagery: real small-team moments, not stock boardrooms (audience = small teams)
- tone: plain, confident, short
- DO NOT: dense feature-grid heroes, navy "enterprise" gradients, jargon — all read as the foil
proof: [./creative/positioning/01-restraint.png][./creative/positioning/02-team.png]
```

## Quality bar
- A one-sentence positioning statement exists and the user agrees with it.
- Every visual rule has a "because {positioning reason}" — no orphan aesthetic choices.
- The do-not list explicitly names what would signal the wrong position.
- Proof images visibly embody the position (a viewer could infer the strategy from them).

## Common pitfalls
- **Taste-for-taste's-sake** — a rule with no positioning reason doesn't belong here.
- **Inventing the strategy** — extract it from the user; if it's missing, say so and stop.
- **Ignoring the foil** — positioning is relational; the do-nots come from what the foil looks like.
- **Vague implications** — "modern and clean" isn't a rule; "single accent, 60% whitespace" is.

## Handoff
Visual language spec → `creative-moodboard` (expand to territories) or `creative-explore` (concrete directions within the spec). The spec is a constraint, not a suggestion, for everything downstream.

## Tooling
Proof images need a text-to-image tool. Without one, deliver the positioning statement + visual language spec + do-nots; that alone is a usable strategic artifact.