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Analytica

One business, one look.

A mark that holds at every size it has to appear at, a palette with real values for print and screen, and rules short enough that the people producing your materials will actually follow them.

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In short

A mark that works on a van door and a favicon, and rules short enough that a sign shop follows them.

  • Every file the trades will ask for
  • Colours that hold in print and on screen
  • Rules a printer will actually read
  • Yours outright, source files included

Drift

The sign shop stretched it and nobody had told them not to

Small business logos usually have one of two problems. Either they were made cheaply and in a hurry and look it, or they were designed to look good large and fall apart at the sizes that actually matter: a van door at thirty feet, a favicon, a stamp on the corner of an invoice.

The bigger issue is usually not the mark at all. A logo exists, and then the signage uses a different font, the invoices use a slightly different blue, and the social profile is a photograph of the storefront. Individually each is minor. Collectively it reads as disorganised, and it reads that way to exactly the customer who is deciding whether you are the careful sort of firm.

None of that is carelessness. It happens because a printer, a sign maker and a new hire each had to make a decision, and nobody had given them the rules. Consistency is not a matter of discipline. It is a matter of having written it down.

A specimen

What an identity looks like when it is finished

Rather than describing the work, here is a set of it: the mark at the sizes that decide whether it holds, the palette with the values a printer will ask for, and the type set rather than named.

The mark, at the sizes that matter

SignageWebsiteInvoiceFavicon

A mark earns its keep at the bottom of this range, not the top. Most logos are approved at the size on the left and never checked at the size on the right.

The palette, with its values

  • Ink#101a2c
  • Accent#1d5fd1
  • Supporting#475467
  • Rule#e3e8f0
  • Ground#f6f8fc

The type, set rather than named

One business, one look

Body copy sits underneath at a size chosen for reading rather than for filling space, with a measure that stops around here.

And a mono face for labels and figures

What ships with it

  • Horizontal lockup
  • Stacked lockup
  • Icon only
  • One colour
  • Reversed
  • SVG and PDF
  • PNG at every size
  • Embroidery file
  • Vehicle wrap file
  • Favicon set

The formats exist so that the sign shop, the printer and the embroiderer are never the ones deciding how your logo should look.

The identity shown here is our own. Showing a client’s would need their permission, and inventing one to demonstrate identity work would rather defeat the point.

In the handover

Everything the people producing your materials will need

The test of a brand package is whether a supplier you have never met can produce something correct from it without ringing you.

  1. The mark and its variants

    Primary, horizontal, stacked, icon only, one colour and reversed. Not decoration: each one exists because there is a real place the others do not fit.

  2. Files for every trade

    Print, web, embroidery and vehicle wrap. The sign maker, the shirt printer and the web developer all need different things, and none of them should be converting a file themselves.

  3. A palette with real values

    Print, screen and vinyl references, chosen so the colours hold their relationship to each other in all three rather than only on the screen they were picked on.

  4. Typography that is decided

    Faces, weights and sizes for headings and body, so the choice is made once rather than made again by whoever is producing the next thing.

  5. Rules for size and spacing

    Minimum sizes, clear space and what not to do with the mark. This is the section that stops a sign shop stretching it.

  6. Guidelines short enough to read

    Long enough to cover what matters, short enough that a printer actually opens it. Forty pages nobody reads is the more common failure than no guidelines at all.

Getting there

Direction, then detail, then proof

The order matters. Refining before the direction is settled produces a polished version of the wrong idea.
  1. 01

    Understand the business

    Who your customers are, how you want to come across to them, and where the brand physically appears. A mark for a business whose work arrives on a van is a different problem from one that lives on a screen.

  2. 02

    Direction before detail

    A few genuinely different approaches rather than twenty variations of one idea. Twenty variations is not a choice, it is the appearance of one.

  3. 03

    Refine the one you pick

    The chosen direction gets the work: proportions, spacing, how it behaves small, how it behaves in a single colour.

  4. 04

    Test it where it will live

    On a van door, at favicon size, stamped on an invoice, embroidered. A logo that has only been seen on a white slide has not been tested.

  5. 05

    Deliver the set and the rules

    Every file anyone you hire could need, and the short document that tells them how to use it.

Right time when

When this is worth doing

A good fit

  • The logo was made quickly at the start and the business has outgrown it
  • Your materials no longer look like they came from the same business
  • Outside printers, sign makers or contractors produce things for you
  • More than one person is making materials

Not a fit

  • The identity is sound and only being applied inconsistently, which is a guidelines job rather than a redesign
  • You are about to change what the business does, since the mark should follow that rather than precede it
  • Nothing is produced beyond a website, where the site design is doing the work already

Reasonable to ask

Before you commission it

How many concepts do we see?

A few genuinely different directions, then real refinement on the one you choose. Twenty variations of a single idea looks generous and gives you nothing to actually decide between.

We already have a logo. Is this still worth it?

Often the mark is fine and the problem is everything around it: the signage in a different font, the invoice in a slightly different blue, the profile picture of the storefront. That is a guidelines job rather than a redesign, and it costs less to say so.

Do we own the files?

Yes, outright, in every format, including the editable source. Nothing about using your own identity should require coming back to us.

What if a printer asks for something we do not have?

Tell us and we will produce it. The file set is meant to cover the trades you actually use, and the ones you will use are not always obvious at the start.

How long are the guidelines?

Short. The measure of a good one is whether a sign shop reads it before quoting, and length is the main reason they do not.

Applies to

Where the look shows up

One business, one look.

Send us what you have and where it currently appears. If the mark is fine and only the rules are missing, we will tell you that, because it is the cheaper answer and it is often the true one.

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