# Brand Kit — what is here and how to use it

The client's own brand system, received from Alicia Wimmer 2026-08-27 (SharePoint) and filed here
2026-09-03. **This supersedes every provisional value taken off the live site.** Where this file
and an earlier design note disagree, this file wins, because these are the client's real brand
assets rather than an extraction from a site they have told us is dated.

The brand guide carries the client's confidentiality notice. It is their proprietary material:
use it to build their site, do not republish it or hand it outside the project.

Nothing here is a commercial figure and none appears anywhere in this project.

## Files

| File | What it is |
|---|---|
| `220624 EQUINOX BRAND GUIDE.pdf` / `.pptx` | The full brand guide, 76 slides, dated 2022-06-24. The PDF is the readable copy. |
| `230718 EQUINOX BRAND GUIDE.pptx` | A later build, 92 slides, dated 2023-07-18. **Palette, typography and logo are identical**, verified 2026-09-03 by comparing the colour and font slides in all three files. It adds material, it does not change the system. |
| `EQUINOX BRAND GUIDE.pptx` | An 8-slide short version. Same values again. |
| `Core Values and Behaviors.pdf` | Team values and behaviours: Business First, Deal Makers, Intentional. Internal culture, not website design input. |
| `Equinox Brand Colors.jpg` | The colour slide as an image: the six swatches with hex, RGB, HSB, CMYK, LAB and Pantone. |
| `Equinox Brand Color Concept.jpg` | The concept diagram behind the palette (day/night, law/business). |
| `Logos and Assets/` | Logo lockups, the swirl mark, the four gradient grounds, letterhead, a virtual background. |

## Machine-readable extractions (added 2026-09-03)

The kit ships as PDF and PowerPoint, which no agent session can read cheaply — and the Core Values
PDF is letterspaced badly enough that text extraction corrupts it into `Un d e rst a n d in g`.
Three `.md` files carry the contents in plain text so the material is usable without reopening a
76-slide deck:

| File | What it holds |
|---|---|
| `brand-guide-messaging.md` | The *message* from the 76-slide guide, verbatim: matterfesto, the eight values in four groups, position and the "this / not this" tagline table, the neighbourhood and adjacencies, the narrative and pitch story, the Sage/Rebel archetypes, the five brand bricks, the story bricks at four lengths, product names and descriptions, pitch and social copy. |
| `brand-guide-short.md` | The 8-slide short deck: the logo's meaning and its usage rule, the colour concept, the full six-colour specification, and the type scale — plus the three transcription faults in the source colour table. |
| `core-values-and-behaviors.md` | The 3-page Core Values PDF, read from rendered images because its letterspacing defeats text extraction. Internal culture material, not website copy. |

**These are source extractions: verbatim, no interpretation.** They must stay quotable as evidence.
What the material *means* for the site is in `../../design-notes.md` note 4, and the working design
values remain `../../mockups/shared-v1/design-system.md`.

**Commercial figures are redacted** in `brand-guide-messaging.md` (two occurrences, marked
`[figure redacted]`), per the project rule. One currency symbol remains there and is not a figure:
a podcast title in the Adjacencies list.

`../photos/` holds the 2026 Brand Photo Shoot (about 100 images) from the same handover. Read the
photography rule below before using any of it.

## Colour

Six named brand colours. The names are the brand's own and they carry meaning: yellows are law
and confidence, blues are business and freedom, dark is night, light is day.

| Role | Name | Hex | RGB | Pantone |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dark yellow | **DAY** | `#D98D00` | 217, 141, 0 | 131 C |
| Bright yellow | **CONFIDENCE** | `#FFD457` | 255, 212, 87 | 135 C |
| Pale yellow | **LAW** | `#FFFAEB` | 255, 250, 235 | 155 C |
| Dark blue | **NIGHT** | `#003B53` | 0, 59, 83 | 540 C |
| Bright blue | **BUSINESS** | `#027CA1` | 2, 124, 161 | 7704 C |
| Light blue | **FREEDOM** | `#93BCCD` | 147, 188, 205 | 283 C |

The guide writes NIGHT as `#003b53ff`; the trailing `ff` is opacity, so the colour is `#003B53`.

**Three things this settles.**

1. **The dark blue is `#003B53`, not `#004963`.** The live site's most-used dark is `#004963`,
   which is not in the brand system at all — it is drift. Anything built against the provisional
   palette uses the wrong primary and must be swapped.
2. **Gold `#FFD457` was right.** It matches CONFIDENCE exactly, so the live site kept that one
   faithfully.
3. **There is a real brand blue and a real light blue.** `#027CA1` BUSINESS and `#93BCCD` FREEDOM
   are brand colours, so a blue that is not the near-black NIGHT is available and always was.
   Green is still not in the system, and neither is the live site's `#0098f4`.

**Contrast, which the guide does not cover and the build must.** On white, NIGHT `#003B53` and
BUSINESS `#027CA1` both pass for text; FREEDOM `#93BCCD`, CONFIDENCE `#FFD457` and LAW `#FFFAEB`
do not — they are grounds, fills and accents, never body text or small type on white. Gold on
NIGHT is strong. White on BUSINESS passes at large sizes only, so check any white-on-blue label
at its real size rather than assuming.

## Gradients, and why they matter here

"We use gradients to show the two colors becoming one." The kit ships four ready-made grounds:

- `Logos and Assets/Equinox__Gradient_LB_to_White_Radial_RGB.png` — blue, deeper
- `Logos and Assets/Equinox__Gradient_LtBlue_To_White_Radial_RGB.png` — light blue
- `Logos and Assets/Equinox__Gradient_LtYellow_to_White_RGB.png` — light yellow
- `Logos and Assets/Equinox__Gradient_LtYellow-To_White_radial_RGB (1).png` — light yellow, radial

Each is a soft radial: near-white at the centre falling to colour at the edges. They are the
brand's sanctioned background treatment and the guide names them as brand elements in their own
right ("BLUE GRADIENTS / STRATEGIC ADVANTAGE", "YELLOW GRADIENTS / POWER OF LAW").

This is the most useful thing in the kit for this project. The client has ruled out people
photography and the performance budget rules out heavy imagery, which left the hero with nothing
but type. A brand gradient is on-brand, weightless as CSS, and needs no licence or photograph.
**Reproduce them in CSS rather than shipping the PNGs** — a `radial-gradient` costs nothing and
scales; the PNGs are 3300px flat images and are reference for the ramp, not assets to serve.

## The swirl

`Logos and Assets/Equinox__Swirl_Color_RGB.png` (also `.jpg`). Three interlocking rings — an
outer gold ring, a blue-to-light gradient ring, an inner NIGHT ring with a gold arc inside it.

The guide's concept: "The swirl of day and night becoming one together is how we become one team
with our clients with equal parts law and business," and the namesake — the equinox, when day and
night are of equal length. It is the "O" in the wordmark and it also stands alone.

Standing alone it is the obvious favicon, and it is the one brand device that can carry a large
empty area without a photograph. Use it sparingly and large, never as a repeated decoration.

## Logo

The wordmark is EQUINOX with the swirl as the O, set in NIGHT. The tagline, where it appears,
reads **STRATEGIC LEGAL COUNSEL FOR ALL** in caps, letterspaced, under the wordmark.

**Usage rule from the guide:** "In use, our logo shows up with and without the tagline. It should
be on white or bright brand gradient backgrounds to best convey the bold confidence we empower."
So a white or light-gradient header is the guide's own preference. A dark header is possible using
the reverse lockups, but it is a deliberate departure and should be flagged as such.

| File in `Logos and Assets/` | What it is | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| `Equinox__Logo_SLCTag_RGB.png` | Wordmark + tagline, transparent, tagline in FREEDOM `#93BCCD` | Light grounds where the tagline is decorative. The pale tagline is low contrast — see below |
| `Equinox__Logo_SLCTag_B_RGB.png` | Wordmark + tagline, transparent, tagline in BUSINESS `#027CA1` | **The header default on white.** Same lockup, readable tagline |
| `Equinox__Logo_SLCTag_Reverse_RGB.png` | White wordmark, light tagline, transparent | Dark grounds |
| `Equinox__Logo_Reverse_RGB.png` | White wordmark, no tagline, transparent | Dark grounds, tight spaces |
| `Equinox__Logo_BG_RGB.png` / `_BG1_RGB.png` | Wordmark on a light / dark blue gradient ground | Reference for the lockup on gradient. Do not serve a flat PNG as a page header |
| `Equinox__Logo_YG_RGB.png`, `Equinox__Logo_SLCTag_YG_RGB.png` | Wordmark on a yellow gradient ground | Same: reference |
| `Equinox__Swirl_Color_RGB.png` | The swirl alone, transparent | Favicon, large graphic device |
| `EquinoxID_letterhead_newtagline (1).pdf` | Letterhead carrying the current tagline | Confirms the tagline wording and the phone `425.250.0205` |

**Two practical notes.** The tagline in `SLCTag_RGB` is `#93BCCD` on white, which fails text
contrast at small sizes; prefer `SLCTag_B_RGB` wherever the tagline has to be legible rather than
decorative. And every file here is a raster PNG at about 3300px — **ask the client for vector
(SVG, EPS or AI) before launch**; a wordmark should not ship as a bitmap. A tracing is not a
substitute, and redrawing the mark is out of scope.

## Typography

**Montserrat, confirmed brand**, with the guide's own scale:

| Level | Weight | Case | Line height | Tracking |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| H1 | Montserrat Bold (700) | Sentence case | 1.1 | +5 |
| H2 (short) | Montserrat ExtraBold (800) | All caps | (see note) | 0 |
| H3 (short) | Montserrat Light (300) | All caps | (see note) | 0 |
| H4 sub | Montserrat SemiBold (600) | Sentence case | 1.3 | +5 |
| Callouts | Montserrat Bold (700) | All caps | 1 | +250 |
| Body | Montserrat Regular (400) | Sentence case | 1.2 | +5 |

Note: the guide prints line height `.08` for H2 and H3, which cannot be right at any size. Read it
as a typo and set those optically; do not copy `0.08`. Tracking is in thousandths of an em as
design software writes it, so +5 is `0.005em` and +250 on callouts is `0.25em`.

**Two things the guide settles.** Montserrat is not just what the site happens to use, it is the
brand face, so it stays. And the live site's Black 900 headings are **not** brand — the heaviest
weight in the system is ExtraBold 800, and H1 is only Bold 700. Bringing heading weight down is
now a correction to brand, not a matter of taste.

**One thing it does not settle.** The guide assigns Montserrat Regular to body, and Montserrat is
a geometric sans with a large x-height and tight apertures — serviceable short, tiring across a
long article. This site has to carry 513 migrated posts plus everything the marketing partner
publishes. Proposing a companion text face for long-form body while headings, UI and all short
copy stay Montserrat is therefore a **deliberate, declared deviation from the brand guide**, and
it goes to the client as a recommendation with a reason, never applied silently. If they prefer
strict brand compliance, body stays Montserrat and the reading experience is tuned by size,
measure and leading instead.

## Voice and positioning

- **Brand belief:** "We believe in the power of law to enable the freedom and confidence to go
  boldly into the unknown."
- **Promise:** "We enable entrepreneurs with the same strategic law advantages as the mega corps."
- **How:** "We make it possible for all business leaders to have a Chief Legal Officer on their
  team by removing the barriers of costs, response time, and complexity."
- **Archetypes:** the Sage ("the truth will set you free") and the Rebel ("rules are made to be
  broken"). This is the licence for a confident, plainspoken, unlawyerly design. It is not a
  traditional-law-firm brand and should not be designed as one.
- **Values named in the guide:** Knowledge, Connected, Empathetic, Confidence, Vision, Certainty,
  Efficacious, Freedom.

**The spelling is "boldly".** The brand guide uses "go boldly into the unknown" throughout. The
live site's `/go-boldy-with-equinox/` and the email signature's "Go Boldy" are typos, so the open
question about which spelling to set in type is closed: it is **boldly**, and the URL typo is a
redirect question for `.logs/planning/site-architecture.md`, not a copy decision.

**The tagline is "Strategic Legal Counsel for All."** The letterhead file is named `newtagline`
and the marketing partner's 2026 deck uses the same line. An older slide in the guide says
"Strategic Legal Counsel For Entrepreneurs" — superseded, do not use it.

## Photography: the guide is overridden by the client

This is the one place where the 2022 brand guide and the client's 2026 instruction genuinely
conflict, and the conflict is already resolved.

**The guide asks for people photography.** It specifies three categories — Entrepreneurs At Work,
Entrepreneur Profiles, Collaboration — all "diverse people in their place of business", "bright,
natural lighting with flares or glows", "warm tone, cinematic shallow depth of field", sourced
from Envato and Unsplash stock. "PEOPLE PHOTOGRAPHY / GROWTH MINDSET" is one of its five brand
bricks.

**The client has ruled that out for this site.** Alicia Wimmer, 2026-08-27: remove team photos
from the homepage, keep at most one or two across the whole site because keeping them current is
cumbersome, "Stock images are fine, just please no stock photos of people."

**The client's instruction is newer, specific to this build, and binding.** So for this project
the people-photography brick is retired, and its job — carrying warmth and openness without text
— passes to the gradients and the swirl, which are equally brand and cost nothing to maintain.
The `../photos/` shoot remains the source for the one or two real team photographs the client
allows, and for any non-people image of the office or workplace.

If a future conversation reopens this, it is a client decision, not a design one.

## What is still missing

| Missing | Who | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Vector logo files (SVG/EPS/AI) | Client via Alicia Wimmer | Everything here is raster; a wordmark should not ship as a bitmap |
| Confirmation the 2023 guide is the current one | Client | Values match across all three, so this is housekeeping rather than a blocker |
| Whether a companion body face is acceptable | Client, with the recommendation above | Decides the type system for 513 posts |
| Which one or two team photographs may be used, and where | Client | The shoot is here; the selection is not made |