House style
House style is the set of internal writing rules a brand or publication follows, covering punctuation, preferred terminology, formatting and more.
Also known as:
In-house style, editorial style
What is house style?
House style is the set of writing rules a specific brand or publication follows, layered on top of a general style guide like AP or Chicago. It covers the decisions that are unique to the organization: whether to use the Oxford comma, how to spell the product name, which words to avoid and how to format dates, numbers and headings. The Economist, the New York Times and Microsoft all publish their house styles, and most mature brands keep a private version for their own teams.
General guide: Chicago Manual of Style.
House style layer: Capitalize "Brivvy," avoid "utilize" in favor of "use," no Oxford comma.
Result: Consistent voice across every writer, surface and AI tool.
Why does house style matter?
House style is what keeps a brand sounding like itself across writers, tools and channels. Without one, a landing page and a help article drift into two slightly different voices, and readers feel it even if they cannot name the cause. With one, the rules scale: new hires, freelancers and AI tools all start from the same baseline. House style is the layer that turns a brand voice from a concept into a repeatable output.
How do you use house style?
Start with a general guide such as AP or Chicago as the base, then document only the decisions where your brand departs from it.
Keep the house style short enough that a new writer can read it in under an hour, with links out for deeper reference material.
Load the house style into a tool that enforces it in real time, such as Brivvy, so every draft starts inside the rules rather than fighting to match them.
