HCMA Brand Guidelines
Brand guidelines for HCMA, an interdisciplinary architecture and design practice, for in-house teams and external partners.
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The 97-slide document covers verbal identity, logo and avatar construction, a 4:3 squircle motif, primary and extended colour palettes, Neue Haas Grotesk and P22 Mackinac type systems, photography categories, graphic patterns, and application templates including letterhead, business cards, and forms. Accessibility, co-branding, and production specs are also included.
- Slide 1: HCMA: Brand guidelines
- Slide 2: Explains that hcma's brand identity is more than a logo
- Slide 3: Table of contents listing verbal and visual identity sections, page
- Slide 4: Defines verbal identity as the words and stories hcma uses
- Slide 5: Allow us to introduce ourselves
- Slide 6: Why we show up
- Slide 7: hcma: in a nutshell
- Slide 8: Explains the evolution to the tagline 'curiosity applied', replacing
- Slide 9: Compassion + (ideas × action) = impact
- Slide 10: Clarifies the preferred noun for the firm:'an interdisciplinary design firm'
- Slide 11: Defines a clear, confident, and engaging verbal tone that favors
- Slide 12: Think about audience and context
- Slide 13: Prescribes practical writing rules:company name in lowercase bold, sentence-case headings
- Slide 14: Directs writers to lead with Indigenous words (English translation
- Slide 15: Defines the visual identity assets:logo, avatar, colour, imagery, video, graphics
- Slide 16: Provides an index of visual elements:logo, tagline, lockups, avatar, colour
- Slide 17: Introduces the HCMA logomark and signals the start of detailed
- Slide 18: Explains the logo as an analogy of integration and collaboration
- Slide 19: Breaks down the logo's construction:grid, aspect ratio, and measured relationships
- Slide 20: Uses a photographic example of the logo as a physical
- Slide 21: Logo constructed to a 4:3 aspect ratio
- Slide 22: Logo scaling guide in 1/4‑inch increments
- Slide 23: Minimum allowable sizes for print and digital
- Slide 24: Minimum clear space equals 63% of logo
- Slide 25: Co‑branding: scale logos for optical balance
- Slide 26: Logo no‑goes: prohibited alterations
- Slide 27: Tagline: section introduction
- Slide 28: Tagline as an element of pride and identity
- Slide 29: Two uses: loud (display) and quiet (paired)
- Slide 30: Use expanded tagline artwork for display
- Slide 31: Tagline and URL placement for stacked and spine uses
- Slide 32: Tagline misuse examples to avoid
- Slide 33: Introduces the lockups section and the use cases for pairing
- Slide 34: When to use solo and co‑branding lockups
- Slide 35: Solo‑branding lockups and minimum sizes
- Slide 36: Co‑branding lockups: proportions and alignment
- Slide 37: Co‑branding usage: clear space and visual parity
- Slide 38: Lockup no‑goes: where not to use lockups
- Slide 39: Internal initiative lockups (two‑line headers)
- Slide 40: Initiative lockup templates for documents and slides
- Slide 41: HCMA section cover introducing the avatar as a dedicated brand
- Slide 42: HCMA's avatar is a simplified circular mark derived
- Slide 43: Although related to the HCMA logo, the avatar is not
- Slide 44: Recommended use cases for the avatar include apparel (T‑shirts), projecting
- Slide 45: Aspect ratio: 1:1
- Slide 46: Minimum allowable sizes: print width 0.5 in and digital width
- Slide 47: Provide a minimum clear space equal to 40%
- Slide 48: When placing the avatar inside a frame, reserve frame space
- Slide 49: Prohibited treatments include altering aspect ratio, skewing, rotating, outlining, cropping
- Slide 50: HCMA colour overview: the palette infuses the brand with warmth
- Slide 51: Primary palette: core brand colours
- Slide 52: Extended palette: ten colour groupings
- Slide 53: Predetermined colour pairings for marketing
- Slide 54: Sub‑palettes: analogous and complementary sets
- Slide 55: Colour pairings applied to the logo
- Slide 56: A system of avatar colour pairings and outline treatments offers
- Slide 57: Colour usage across brand touchpoints
- Slide 58: Section opener introducing the brand’s guidelines and the forthcoming rules
- Slide 59: Primary typeface: Neue Haas Grotesk
- Slide 60: Secondary typeface: P22 Mackinac Pro
- Slide 61: Bolden: hcma's tertiary graphic typeface
- Slide 62: Hand annotations and sketches
- Slide 63: Book spread example using hand annotations
- Slide 64: Numerals and symbols in brand fonts
- Slide 65: styles and size hierarchy
- Slide 66: rules for consistent typesetting
- Slide 67: Typesetting addresses: spacing, dashes, abbreviations
- Slide 68: Section header introducing the imagery guidelines and signaling a shift
- Slide 69: Imagery overview: five photography categories
- Slide 70: Celebrating individuals: primary portraits
- Slide 71: Candid portraits emphasise subjects absorbed in activity or place
- Slide 72: Group portraits use creative arrangements, vantage points, and coordinated wardrobe
- Slide 73: City life photography provides cultural context for proposals and case
- Slide 74: Document process artefacts and charrettes early and often:using phone
- Slide 75: Product artefacts typically need a more formal, styled shoot
- Slide 76: Avoid over-saturated colours, heavy post-production filters, lens flares, dramatized contrast
- Slide 77: Section header introducing the brand's graphics system and the transition
- Slide 78: Abstract silhouetted forms, derived from the logo and avatar, form
- Slide 79: Two pattern examples show how the brand's graphic vocabulary can
- Slide 80: A varied graphic portfolio: collage, illustration, and pattern
- Slide 81: Artwork confined to a 4:3 aspect ratio
- Slide 82: Use enlarged logo shapes to frame imagery
- Slide 83: Letter-sized (8.5×11 in) crop templates
- Slide 84: Screen-sized (16:9) crop templates
- Slide 85: Do’s and don’ts for cropped imagery
- Slide 86: The squircle: a 4:3 brand shape
- Slide 87: Squircle motion states for animation
- Slide 88: Organic diagrams illustrating interdisciplinary services
- Slide 89: Section opener indicating the start of the Applications chapter
- Slide 90: Letterhead: Mohawk Via Felt and foil-stamped logo
- Slide 91: Letterhead templates for MS Word and PDF export
- Slide 92: Business cards: two colour ways and tiled backs
- Slide 93: Compliment cards with four unique back graphics
- Slide 94: Cloth-bound notebooks and sketch books with ribbon
- Slide 95: Forms built in MS Word using Neue Haas Grotesk
- Slide 96: Forms base grid: tables versus body copy
- Slide 97: The end is just the beginning
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