Logo and Brand HQ

Brand standards for small business

Mark, colour, type, voice and use

00Introduction to the standards

Small business branding, beyond the logo

Colour, type, voice and the brand guidelines that keep them consistent across a website, signage and print.

Open the contents About Logo and Brand HQ

Clear space. One x on every side of the mark.Plate 0.1

  • Stockthe page#F5F2EA
  • Inktext and mark#16211D
  • Signalaction only#B23A1E
  • Claywarmth, sparingly#D9A07A

Colour bar. Four colours, four jobs.Plate 0.2

Contents, chapters one to five

From the mark to the shop sign

A brand is more than its logo. It is the colours, the letterforms and the way a business sounds, held steady wherever a customer meets it.

  1. 01 The mark and its clear space Does a small business need more than one version of its logo?
  2. 02 Colour, values and contrast How many colours does a small brand actually need?
  3. 03 Type and hierarchy How many typefaces is enough for a small business?
  4. 04 Voice and tone What is a brand voice, in practical terms?
  5. 05 Application: website, signage and print What belongs in a one-page brand guideline?

01 The mark and its clear spaceLogo and Brand HQ

01The mark and its clear space

A logo is a rule about space as much as a shape

The mark is the one asset every other part of a brand leans on. What keeps it recognisable is how it is protected: a fixed clear space, a smallest size, and a short list of approved versions for light and dark backgrounds.

Common questions on the mark

  • Does a small business need more than one version of its logo?
  • How much clear space should sit around a mark?
  • What is the smallest size a logo can be used at before it stops reading?
  • Which file formats should a business keep, and who needs which?

Clear space

DoGive the mark a fixed margin on every side, measured in a unit taken from the mark itself.
Do notSqueeze it against a border, or stretch it to fill an awkward space.

02 Colour, values and contrastLogo and Brand HQ

02Colour, values and contrast

A small palette, with a job for every colour

Brand colour holds up when each colour has a role: a background, a text colour, one accent for action, and a secondary used sparingly. The same colour also needs a value for screen, for print and for paint, or it drifts every time a supplier matches it by eye.

Common questions on colour

  • How many colours does a small brand actually need?
  • How do HEX, RGB, CMYK and Pantone values relate to one another?
  • Which colour should carry buttons, prices and signs?
  • How much contrast does text need to stay readable?

Accent use

DoKeep the accent for one job, so it means something wherever it appears.
Do notGive every element its own colour until nothing stands out.

03 Type and hierarchyLogo and Brand HQ

03Type and hierarchy

Two typefaces, and a clear order between them

Most small brands need one face for headings and one for reading, with sizes that step down in a fixed order. The harder part is the fallback: what replaces the brand font in an email, a spreadsheet quote or a website builder that does not carry it.

Common questions on type

  • How many typefaces is enough for a small business?
  • What happens when the brand font is not available on the website or in office software?
  • How should headings, body text and small print differ?
  • Does a typeface licence cover print, web and signage alike?

Pairing

DoPair a display face for headings with a plain text face for reading.
Do notMix four faces in one heading because each looked good on its own.

04 Voice and toneLogo and Brand HQ

04Voice and tone

How a business sounds, written down

Voice is the part of a brand that is easiest to lose, because it lives in whoever is writing that day. A few plain rules on word choice, sentence length and how to say no keep a website, a quote and a reply to a complaint sounding like one business.

Common questions on voice

  • What is a brand voice, in practical terms?
  • How should tone change between a website, a receipt and a complaint reply?
  • Who writes the copy when there is no marketing team?
  • Which words should a business always use, and which should it avoid?

Plain words

Booked for Tuesday at nine. We will text you the evening before.
DoSay what happens next, in the words a customer would use.
Leveraging best-in-class solutions to delight our valued stakeholders.
Do notBorrow phrasing that could belong to any company at all.

05 Application: website, signage and printLogo and Brand HQ

05Application: website, signage and print

The same rules on a screen, a shopfront and a business card

Brand guidelines earn their keep when they leave the file. A website, a shop sign, a van and a printed menu each bend the rules in a different way, and a one-page guideline that travels with every order to a printer or sign maker is what stops them drifting apart.

Common questions on application

  • What belongs in a one-page brand guideline?
  • How do the same rules hold on a website, a shop sign and printed stationery?
  • What should a printer or sign maker be sent with an order?
  • When is it time to refresh a brand rather than patch it?

Consistency

DoKeep the proportions and colours of the mark fixed from the phone screen to the fascia.
Do notStretch the mark to fit a long sign, or swap its colours for one supplier.

Colophon, how the guides are written

Written in words, priced at the source

Branding advice is easy to dress up as measurement. Every guide published here keeps to three plain commitments instead.

  • No scores or star ratings

    Where one approach or tool suits a small business better than another, the reason is given in words.

  • Prices from the provider

    Any price quoted is read from the provider's own pricing page and dated, with the ongoing price kept apart from any introductory offer.

  • Commercial links disclosed

    Some links may earn a commission. How that works is set out in the disclosure.