Work History / Common Ground
Brand standardsSix files that partners and their agents read
Jimmy wrote and owns one brand standard per brand, for six brands, so that partners and their AI agents draw every visual decision from the same source.
Brand · 2026
| Project type | Brand standards and governance |
|---|---|
| Industry | Operating partners and advisory, with real estate, AI services, television and industrial measurement brands |
| Seat | Principal, Brand and Product Merchandising |
| Ran through | Common Ground |
| Dates | March 2026 to September 2026 |
| Worked with | Jesse Fowler was brought onto the standards ahead of the other partners. |
What it is
Common Ground's partners build with AI agents. With no single source, each agent made its own visual decisions. Jimmy named the problem in his handoff to Jesse Fowler: "agents inventing visual decisions when there's no canonical source to pull from."
The answer is a folder of six files, one per brand: Common Ground, Lïef, APEXX AI, Drive For The Dream, Fluidmapper and Lip Loi Creative. Each file covers identity, customer profile, color, type, logo, formats and voice. Together they run to 2,141 lines. The folder index states the rule: partners and their agents read, and Jimmy is the sole editor.
What Jimmy did
- Designed the Common Ground color system in three layers: a warm foundation of tobacco and cream, one accent color per principal, and one brand accent that belongs to no principal. The color system was locked on March 1, 2026.
- Set the type pairing, Freight Display Pro with Aktiv Grotesk, locked on March 2, 2026.
- Rebuilt the folder on May 2, 2026: one folder, one file per brand, no version numbers in file names, and a dated archive of every earlier version.
- Reviewed and corrected five brand files that day and locked them. He added the Lip Loi Creative file on May 3, 2026.
- Restructured the Lïef file as two brands in one file, Lïef Development and the Osborn project, with a decision rule at the top that tells a reader which system to apply.
- Wrote two handoff documents, one for Fowler and one for any partner agent, so every agent reads the same files.
- Wrote a style patch on May 1, 2026 so Fowler's pipeline tool matched the new standard.
- Locked the brand accent, a burnt orange, on August 27, 2026. He chose orange because it belongs to no principal.
- Had the Common Ground file rewritten on September 28, 2026 from values measured on the rendered site. He ruled that where the site and a locked value disagree, the standard is right and the site is the bug.
Results
- Six standards in force. Fowler's agent reads them.
- A review of September 23, 2026 found the files uneven. The Common Ground file defined 34 colors and had three locked sections. The APEXX AI, Lip Loi Creative and Drive For The Dream files were thin and needed a build-out pass.
- No measured outcome is documented.