The Completely Honest Corporate Identity Manual

1. Our Logo.

Our new logo looks very much like our previous logo. The designer wanted to do something fresh and radical, and you should have seen those. They were quite clever and colorful. We very much enjoyed Kristen’s (What? Her name was Kirstyn? I’m never going to remember that…) presentation. But this isn’t those. Going with Kristin/Kirstyn’s recommendation would mean changing out every sign at every one of our retail locations. And ordering lots of new business cards that no one actually uses. But if you look very closely, there are very tiny curves where there used to be corners. And it’s slanted a wee bit more. Not a whole degree or anything, but just enough to make it seem like it’s going eastbound slightly faster than before. Kristen from the design firm worked very hard. But not on this.

2. Our Voice.

Our corporate voice, like all corporate voices, is unique. It’s sophisticated, yet homespun. It’s knowledgeable but neighborly. It’s optimistic, yet realistic. Playful, but serious. It’s warm, but also cool. Conservative yet progressive. It’s dry, yet wet. Fish, yet fowl. Clear, but with a pleasant fogginess. Up, with a great deal of downness. White like the sky on a bright summer’s night.

3. Typography.

This is the new typeface our designer likes. It’s not on my computer, it’s not on your computer. So it will cost everyone who wishes to use it $300. $600 if you want something in bold. $1200 if you want something in bold and/or italic. And you can’t expense it. Here is a sample headline. It says “Lorem Ipsum,” not because we’re fans of dead classical languages, but because none of the company stakeholders could possibly commit to one single sample headline. See the Our Voice section for guidance.

4. Photography.

These are all photos from page one of a Getty Images search for “corporate photos”. They aren’t really about anything, nor do they particularly demonstrate anything we do, make, or stand for. But they have people dressed in clothes and hairstyles that are not too noticeably out of date. (No, that’s back in. Yes. I know it looks like your mom in 1981, I don’t make the rules.) I know it’s hard, but try to find pictures that aren’t just of white people now and again, but not too often, and also make sure that the white people who may buy from our brand will not get too upset about the way the not-white people you pick dress or wear their hair, because Jane in corporate communications really hates taking calls from conservative cable news viewers who are manufactured-outraged by a particular brand of hoodie or the idea the people in the photograph may be listening to something other than Steely Dan.

5. Corporate Color Palette.

Red? Black? Aren’t those Hitler’s favorite colors? Well, smartypants, all your total potential logo color choices fall somewhere within the ROYGBIV spectrum. That’s just 7 colors to cover any basic choice for a logo color, and blue is ALWAYS taken, so that makes 6. You think our CEO is going to sign off on indigo? Well, do you? Good luck with that. So realistically The whole BIV end of it is right off limits. And besides, this is OUR red. Specifically formulated with ink from several rare lichens and henna, with sourcing so difficult it means next year’s annual report will be printed in 36 months.

Here are our secondary colors. It’s really just our regular colors in resort wear.

Oh. And here is a hexadecimal number for each color. Designers like to include hexadecimals because it makes them look very New Media. But it’s really simply a conversion number based on the easiest way for a microprocessor to render one color or another. Between processors, OSes, and screen manufacturing differences, no two computers, tablets, phones or smartTVs will ever render it the same way anyway. Present a hexadecimal number to a printer and he will look at you in exactly the same way your dog looks at you when you tell him a joke.

6. Illustration.

There are no faces. There are only patches of people-shaped color. And long legs. Like, weirdly long legs. Here is one on a bicycle. Here’s one waiting for the subway. Yes, I’m aware there are no subways here. But our customers often like to think they could drop everything, leave their oppressive families, and move to a town with a subway. Or fly a kite in an urban park we don’t have with a similarly faceless child. With only somewhat shorter legs. Here’s a dog. You will get a lot of milage from the dog.

7. Icons.

Not enough room for an illustration? More importantly, not enough budget? Here’s a house made of lines. And here’s a cell phone (with buttons!) made of similarly weighted and curved lines. Here’s a helping-hand-of-trust, also of similar line shapi-ness. Oh, and one for customer service with another faceless human head wearing a headset. Given that our customer service is an AI, the lack of a face works particularly well.

8. Our Positioning Theme.

Stop calling it a tagline. It’s a positioning theme, which we will put on things for precisely 13 months until the ad agency tells us the design firm was foolish to tie their ideas to something so inflexible. Then whatever they change it to will be also be used for exactly 13 months. And the circle of life will repeat.

9. Our Brand in Social Media.

For social media, nothing in this manual will make the slightest bit of difference. In fact, logos, type identity, voice direction, stock photos — none of it will be the least bit helpful, and much of it may actually hurt our reputation in social. Literally forget it all. In fact, forget every word in every corporate ID manual you’ve ever seen. Cats. Doggos. Falling domino mazes. Capyb…Capyb…. You know, those giant South American peace hamsters. People who let fireworks go off tucked in their pants. Various tricks with water bottles. People making fun of people doing various tricks with water bottles. Frightening bikini modeling. People falling painfully into, onto, or out of things. This is brand building.