---
name: brand-kit
description: The client's real brand system arrived 2026-09-03 — six named colours, Montserrat, the swirl logo and brand gradients; the live site's #004963 is drift, not brand
metadata:
  type: project
---

# The Brand Kit is real, and it corrects the live site

Received from Alicia Wimmer 2026-08-27 (SharePoint), filed 2026-09-03 at
`notes/source/brand-kit/`, with the 2026 Brand Photo Shoot at `notes/source/photos/`.
The design-usable digest is `notes/source/brand-kit/README.md`; the working set both
mockup directions render from is `notes/mockups/shared-v1/design-system.md`.

It is a genuine 76-slide brand guide (2022-06-24), with a 92-slide 2023 build and an
8-slide short version. **Palette, typography and logo are identical in all three**
(verified 2026-09-03), so the system is settled, not in flux.

## The six brand colours

| Brand name | Hex | Role |
|---|---|---|
| NIGHT | `#003B53` | The primary dark |
| BUSINESS | `#027CA1` | The active blue |
| FREEDOM | `#93BCCD` | Light blue, tints |
| CONFIDENCE | `#FFD457` | The single accent |
| DAY | `#D98D00` | Deeper gold |
| LAW | `#FFFAEB` | Warm near-white |

**The live site's most-used dark `#004963` is not a brand colour.** Neither is its navy
`#112337` nor its `#0098f4`. They are drift. Gold `#FFD457` is exactly right.

## What else it settles

- **Typography is Montserrat**, confirmed brand, with the guide's scale (H1 Bold 700
  sentence case, H2 ExtraBold 800 caps, H3 Light 300 caps, H4 SemiBold 600, body Regular
  400). The live site's Black 900 headings are **not** brand.
- **The logo** is the wordmark with the swirl as the O, in NIGHT. Tagline lockups read
  **"Strategic Legal Counsel for All"**. Reverse and gradient-ground variants exist. All
  files are raster at about 3300px, so **vector is still to be requested from the client**.
- **Brand gradients and the swirl are named brand elements** — the on-brand way to give a
  screen warmth with no photograph, which matters because people photography is ruled out
  and the performance budget rules out heavy imagery. Rebuild the gradients in CSS.
- **"Go boldly", not "Go Boldy".** The live URL and the email signature carry a typo.
- **Archetypes are the Sage and the Rebel** — licence for a confident, unlawyerly design.

## The one conflict, already resolved

The 2022 guide makes **people photography** one of five brand bricks and specifies stock
imagery of "diverse people in their place of business". The client's 2026-08-27 instruction
rules that out: no team photos on the home page, at most one or two site-wide, and no stock
photos of people at all. **The client's instruction is newer, specific to this build, and
binding** — see [[client-decisions-2026-08-27]]. The gradients and the swirl take over that
job. Reopening it is a client decision, not a design one.

## How to apply

Anything drawn against the provisional live-site palette needs the swap to NIGHT before it
is shown to anyone. Do not redraw, trace or restyle the mark. Do not introduce a colour that
is not in the six, and keep gold as the only accent — NIGHT and BUSINESS are structural.
Related: [[naming-conflicts]].