Contents
1.0 | About the Sirois Designs Brand
2.0 | The Sirois Designs Logo
3.0 | The Sirois Designs Voice
4.0 | Typography
5.0 | Using Brand Colors
Style Guide
Sirois Designs provides small business owners and entrepreneurs with posh branding, smart website design, business strategy advice and more. The overarching goal is to create designs that make an unforgettable first impression and then guide users through smart design and established heuristics. The Sirois Designs logo helps establish our identity to the public and must be used with the utmost care. It is usually the first element of our brand that the public sees and therefore it must be applied consistently in all communications and media, both externally and internally, to support and enhance our brand and mission. These branding guidelines are designed to ensure a consistent look and a consistent tone in all its communications.
1.0 | About the Sirois Designs Brand
The Sirois Designs brand communicates innovation, excellence, and creativity and usually serves as the first impression of Sirois Designs with any audience—in person or online. We have developed these guidelines to promote the clear and consistent use of Sirois Designs’ identity as a digital agency that believes in the power of smart design.
The standards extend to the use of logos, colors, typography and other matters that affect Sirois Designs' identity.
The major objective of setting brand standards is to display a clear and consistent message across all forms of communication. The creative team will provide strategic assistance on any branding applications that are unclear. We are passionate about our brand and we are here to help. For more information about the Sirois Designs brand or these guidelines, please contact The Creative Team.
2.0 | The Sirois Designs Logo
The Sirois Designs logo is made up of a double ensō. In Zen, the ensō is a circle that is hand-drawn in one uninhibited brush stroke to express a moment when the mind is free to let the body create.
The main logo should be used on all public-facing materials (direct mail, advertisements, the homepage of the website, etc.) where a black background is present. The icon by itself is acceptable for audiences that are already familiar with the Sirois Designs brand, for internal documents, or for favicons and app store icons. When in doubt contact The Creative Team for clarification/guidance.
3.0 | The Sirois Designs Voice
3.1 | Voice
All communications should be plain-spoken and uncomplicated with a minimum amount of jargon. Sirois Designs is:
- Creative
- Flexible
- Trustworthy
- Enthusiastic
3.2 | Naming Conventions
In correspondence, usage should include the full name as two separate words: Sirois Designs.
Correct
Sirois Designs
Incorrect
SiroisDesigns
Sirois designs
sirois designs
3.3 | Pronunciation
Sirois is a last name and the ending of 'ois' is pronounced like the state of Illinois. Sir-OY
4.0 | Typography
4.1 | Readability
The type we use helps to convey the personality of our brand. The Avenir Next Condensed Bold and Ultra Light typefaces, used in the logo, were inspired by early 20th century geometric sans-serifs. Bold has chubby characteristics and conveys a sense of familiarity and trust. While Ultra Light has thin characteristics and conveys a sense of minimalism and grace.
Open Sans, also a sans-serif typeface, was chosen for its neutral, yet friendly appearance and is optimized for legibility across print, web, and mobile interfaces.
4.2 | Office Fonts and Web Fonts
In the event that Open Sans is not available, Arial may be used on the web and in all email and print correspondences. Arial was chosen for its compatability as well as its clean, natural look. Arial is packaged with Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X.
5.0 | Using Brand Colors
The color black was chosen because it denotes strength and authority; it is considered to be a very formal, elegant, and prestigious color. The black has been lightened just a little bit to create a softer feel.
The color white was chosen because it is associated with light, goodness, innocence, purity, and safety. It is considered to be the color of perfection.
The color green was chosen because it is the color of nature. It symbolizes growth, harmony, freshness, and endurance. Green also has a strong emotional correspondence with safety; it is the color of free passage in road traffic.