B R A N D I D E N T I T Y G U I D E L I N E S

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THE SOUNDZIPPER BRAND.This document defines the major usage guidelines

for Soundzipper’s visual identity. It should be seen as

the ultimate resource for designers and collaborators

looking to make use of our brand, as it allows everyone

to take part in shaping the values and principles the

company exudes to its current and future partners.

All collaborators working with the Soundzipper brand

should seek to always adhere to the guidelines set forth

by this document. However, because our company is

a living thing, that we do expect to evolve, we know

this book may fail to account for all possible future

use cases. Whenever that happens, we ask that you

please refer to the last section of this document, where

instructions on how to proceed in those situations are

provided.

Because these guidelines are subject to change over

time, we also advise that you seek to download the

most up-to-date version of these guidelines from

Soundzipper’s website.

SOUNDZIPPER BRAND GUIDELINES

© 2013 Soundzipper

All rights reserved

The current version of this document

has been published September 6 2013.

To download the most recent version

of these guidelines, please refer to

Soundzipper’s corporate website.

The Soundzipper brand and guidelines

have been designed in 2013 by

Eduardo Nunes, in collaboration with

Soundzipper’s in-house design team,

under supervision from its creative

director, Tah Wei Hoon.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS.

THE SOUNDZIPPER BRAND. 3

TABLE OF CONTENTS. 4

INTRODUCING SOUNDZIPPER. 6

HOW DID WE GET HERE? 6

HERE’S TO A BRAND NEW FACE 8

AND A MATCHING TYPE(FACE) 11

ALL TOGETHER NOW 12

BUILDING OUR LOGO. 15

COMMON VARIATIONS 16

CONSTRUCTION RULES 17

MARK STROKE WEIGHT 20

FONT WEIGHT AND TRACKING 22

READY-MADES 24

IN GLORIOUS TECHNICOLOR. 26

KEEPING IT BALANCED 28

ACOUSTICS ILLUSTRATED. 30

ILLUSTRATION GUIDELINES 32

BEHAVIOR ON BACKGROUNDS 36

COMBINING ILLUSTRATIONS 38

ILLUSTRATION ARCHIVE 43

SAY IT IN WRITTING. 45

CORPORATE FONT 46

BODY COPY AND SUBHEADINGS 49

ONE MORE FOR ADDED CLASS 53

MAKING SENSE OF IT ALL. 56

SLOGANS & SUBHEADINGS 58

PROTECTION AREAS 60

MINIMUM ACCEPTABLE SIZE 62

USE OVER BACKGROUNDS 63

WHAT NOT TO DO 64

EXAMPLE APPLICATIONS 68

GETTING IN TOUCH. 80

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INTRODUCING SOUNDZIPPER.

Soundzipper’s logo consists of an abstraction of two

different types of sound waves (a sine and a sawtooth),

which resemble, respectively, an uppercase S and a

Z (as in SoundZipper... get it?). These two shapes are

superimposed and enclosed together in an open circle.

Sine

Triangle

Square

Sawtooth

HOW DID WE GET HERE?

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HERE’S TO A BRAND NEW FACE

It’s around the combination of these three elements

that Soundzipper’s new visual identity is built: a

strictly geometric shape, inspired by traditional visual

depictions of sound waves, that come together to form

a stencil-friendly and unique seal.

Although it uses single-width strokes, the generous

spacing on the inside allows for very flexible uses: the

stroke’s weight can be freely adjusted (but hey, be

reasonable!) according to the features of each specific

medium — for more on how to do that, you can skip a

few pages ahead.

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AND A MATCHING TYPE(FACE)

Our font says just as much about our company as

our logo does. That’s why we’ve chosen, as our main

corporate typeface, a fresh, no-compromise, modern

sans-serif, designed by Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias

Frere-Jones, two of the world’s most renowned living

typographers.

Soundzipper, please meet the extremely charming

Verlag — a very complete and fine-tuned family of

fonts, suitable mainly for large type, in both digital and

print use. It’s what we’ll be using for our logotype, titles

and very big applications (like the one right there to

the left, see?). Don’t worry, though, it can serve other

purposes as well — tread lightly, be sure to follow our

advice and you’ll be just fine!

VERLAG FAMILY

EXTRA LIGHT

EXTRA LIGHT ITALIC

LIGHT

LIGHT ITALIC

BOOK

BOOK ITALIC

BOLD

BOLD ITALIC

BLACK

BLACK ITALIC

MAKING LIFE SOUND

BETTER.

VERLAG BOOK & BLACK

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ALL TOGETHER NOW

Because both the type and logo are essentially

geometric-based and present little to no stroke

variation, the final lock-up makes for a fairly balanced

composition. Considering how spacious the mark is,

we’ve decided to loosen the text’s tracking quite a

bit, to allow the composition to breathe freely. This

ensures the text is perfectly readable, even though it’s

substantially smaller than the mark itself.

The final, official logotype does not include any slogans,

but fear not: you’ll find instructions on how to add

sub-text to the composition (Slogans & Subheadings

section, page 58).

Read on...

Tracking is the name given to the space in

between the various characters in a word.

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BUILDING OUR LOGO.Right now, you should be saying “that’s all fine and

dandy, but how do I use this thing?”. It’s a good

question but, really, who says things like fine and dandy

anymore?! Fear not, though, our dear idiomatically

obsolete friend, we’re here to help!

We understand a good logo should stand its ground

on any occasion, regardless of medium, scale, context

and orientation. That’s why we’re not just offering

you logo variations for the most popular use cases, we

want to teach you how to account for those unforeseen

situations, when you just have to take matters into

your own hands. Simply follow our lead and you’ll

be applying the logo blindfolded in no time. Just

remember: in case something goes wrong, be quick to

hide all evidence you tried and politely ask someone

else do it for you.

Just kidding, please do not attempt to use

our logo while blindfolded.

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y8y

5x xBefore we start, let’s list the main variables we can

manipulate in our logo: these are features you can

tweak, according to the needs of each specific use case.

Although there are many more possible variations, we’ll

just take into account the ones you can actually mess

around with. If you thought of an awesome tweak that

would make the logo heaps better, but it isn’t accounted

for in this list, you can safely assume we don’t want you

to do it, so please don’t.

Some of these variations are, as you’ll learn, linked

together. For example, everytime you mess around with

the logo’s scale, it might be a good idea to make sure the

stroke’s weight is adjusted accordingly.

As a general rule, we could say our logotype has two

different versions: horizontal and vertical, the first

one of which comes in two flavors: large and small. To

design one from scratch, we start out by defining the

size of the type, and then scale and position the mark

accordingly, following these rules...

POSSIBLE LOGO VARIATIONS

SCALE

STROKE WEIGHT

POSITION

POSSIBLE TYPE VARIATIONS

TEXT SIZE

FONT WEIGHT

POSITION

TRACKING

COMMON VARIATIONS

CONSTRUCTION RULES

LARGE HORIZONTAL LOCK-UP

— Mark’s diameter should be 8x the height of the

capital E;

— The horizontal space between mark and type

should be 5x the width of the capital E;

— Both elements’ vertical centers should be aligned

across an horizontal axis.

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y3y

2x x

8y

8y

y

3y

SMALL HORIZONTAL LOCK-UP

— Mark’s diameter should be 3x the height of the

capital E;

— The horizontal space between mark and type

should be 2x the width of the capital E;

— Both elements’ vertical centers should be aligned

across an horizontal axis.

VERTICAL LOCK-UP

— Mark’s diameter should be 8x the height of the

capital E;

— The vertical space between mark and type should

be 3x the height of the capital E;

— Both elements’ horizontal centers should be

aligned across a vertical axis.

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MARK STROKE WEIGHT

Although you can change the mark’s stroke weight, we

reccomend that you do this sparingly, and only if faced

with no other choice — is firing the designer completely

out of the question? Just kidding, we can all get along!

We’ve provided with you an expanded vector version

of the mark, that you can freely scale up and down

(within the logo’s own scalability limits, remember)

without having to worry about anything else. For some

cases, however, you might need to adjust the stroke’s

weight to account for specific features of the medium

(e.g. thermal printers or low pixel-density screens).

For these cases, you’ll find an Adobe Illustrator file

featuring a single-stroke version you can adjust.

The chart to the right shows the range of acceptable

stroke weights for a mark with 20x20mm. To calculate

the equivalent to these stroke weights (STROKE, in pt)

for a mark with any other size (SIZE, in mm), it just takes

some basic math:

SIZE x STROKE

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These look alright! Go ahead and use

them, no one will come chase after you.

These could do the trick, but you’ll

have to be careful. Make sure the final

reproduction size and the medium’s

features will not distort the shape (you

should, for example, make sure the final

medium can handle really thin strokes,

or that both halves of the circumference

don’t touch each other).

What were you thinking?! These are

definitely NOT OK!

The expanded vector version uses closed

shapes, instead of single strokes, for the

mark. This means whenever you scale it,

the stroke’s weight scales accordingly.

0.5pt 0.75pt 1pt 2pt 3pt 4pt

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FONT WEIGHT AND TRACKING

We really shouldn’t be saying this, but we’ve met more

than twenty pages ago, so what the hell: there will be

times when you’ll want to trash this logo completely.

That’s just the way it is. We’ve tried to think about all

potential use case scenarios, but we’re only human —

...or are we?! Just kidding, we are... — so it’s more than

likely that, sometimes, those large spaces in between

all of the letters just seem like a terrible idea. Like,

for example, when you’re trying to cram it into a tiny

space on the bottom of some poster you’re designing —

we’re sure it’s turning out really nice, by the way! Well,

we wouldn’t want to just go ahead and destroy your

wonderful work, so here’s the deal: if you’re really,

really cautious with our baby, you can go ahead and

tweak the tracking a little bit and, if you really feel like

there’s absolutely no other way, you can even bring

the text weight up or down a little bit.

Of course, there are a few rules. First of all, you can’t

do this for really large applications, or situations

where the logo is being shown for the first time or

any application in which the Soundzipper logo plays a

central role (e.g. business cards, social media profiles,

our own website, etc.) Secondly, you should only

manipulate the tracking, and not the spacing between

each individual character (also known as kerning). And,

finally, to ensure the final result is within the limits of

brand recognition, you should only use combinations

of font weight + tracking within the following chart:

S O U N D Z I P P E RS O U N D Z I P P E RS O U N D Z I P P E RS O U N D Z I P P E RS O U N D Z I P P E R120

VERLAG BOOK VERLAG BOLD VERLAG BLACK

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160

180

200 S O U N D Z I P P E RS O U N D Z I P P E RS O U N D Z I P P E RS O U N D Z I P P E RS O U N D Z I P P E R

S O U N D Z I P P E RS O U N D Z I P P E RS O U N D Z I P P E RS O U N D Z I P P E RS O U N D Z I P P E R

S O U N D Z I P P E RS O U N D Z I P P E RS O U N D Z I P P E RS O U N D Z I P P E RS O U N D Z I P P E R120

VERLAG BOOK VERLAG BOLD VERLAG BLACK

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160

180

200 S O U N D Z I P P E RS O U N D Z I P P E RS O U N D Z I P P E RS O U N D Z I P P E RS O U N D Z I P P E R

S O U N D Z I P P E RS O U N D Z I P P E RS O U N D Z I P P E RS O U N D Z I P P E RS O U N D Z I P P E R

TRAC

KIN

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Because we don’t want your head to explode everytime

you need to use our logo, we’ve put together a set of

ready-mades you can safely use in the most common

situations. Depending on where you got this document

from, you’ll probably find these files attached — if not,

please contact us, and we’ll be happy to send any files

you need your way.

This works pretty much like a mail order catalog: just

have a look at these logos and, if it looks like any of

them fits your needs, feel free to go ahead and use it.

Please be reminded, however, that you cannot tweak

them in any way (except, maybe, adjusting the scale

ever so slightly, obviously making sure not to change

the aspect ratio), and that their use must still adhere to

the rules defined further down on this document.

READY-MADES

You’ll find our contacts in the last couple

of pages of this document.

HORIZONTAL

VERTICAL

REF. HL

WHEN TO USE >

Total logo width is larger than 400px

AND the brand protection area is

at least equal to the diameter of the

circumference.

REF. HS

WHEN TO USE >

Total logo width is between 200px and

400px OR it is not possible to ensure

a sufficient amount of white space

around the logo.

REF. HXS

WHEN TO USE >

Total logo width is smaller than 100px.

REF. VL

WHEN TO USE >

Total logo width is larger than 100px

AND the brand protection area is

at least equal to the radius of the

circumference.

REF. VS

WHEN TO USE >

Total logo height is smaller than

100px OR it is not possible to ensure

a sufficient amount of white space

around the logo.

S O U N D Z I P P E R

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IN GLORIOUS TECHNICOLOR.Our brand new corporate color scheme draws

inspiration from what has long been our legacy:

brown and beige. It’s worked fine for us in the past,

because it portrays us as a serious, dedicated and

very professional bunch of people. So we’re keeping

that. But because we’re also fun and easy-going, and

because we truly love what we do, we’ve introduced the

wonderful, bright yolky yellow you’ll find in the cover of

this document and made it our main corporate color.

We spent a good deal of time finding the color

combination that we believed portrays our company’s

core values, so feel free to use any of these colours any

way you like, when you’re working our brand. If you’re

unsure, this very simple motto will help you in your

journey: if it looks good, it probably is — but, when in

doubt, you can always ask around. It doesn’t rhyme, but it’s true nonetheless.

YOLK YELLOW

PANTONE: 7548 C

HEX : #FFC600

R: 255 G: 198 B: 0

C: 0 M: 22 Y: 100 K: 0

LIGHT IVORY

PANTONE: 70/30 4545 C + White

HEX : #E3D9BA

R: 227 G: 217 B: 186

C: 11 M: 11 Y: 28 K: 0

DARK NUT BROWN

PANTONE: 7533 C

HEX : #483627

R: 72 G: 54 B: 39

C: 53 M: 64 Y: 76 K: 57

SULFUR BEIGE

PANTONE: 50/50 7548 C + White

HEX : #FFF0A6

R: 255 G: 240 B: 166

C: 1 M: 2 Y: 43 K: 0

CLAY BROWN

PANTONE: 7505 C

HEX : #83603F

R: 131 G: 96 B: 63

C: 40 M: 57 Y: 78 K: 25

PURE BLACK

HEX : #000000

R: 0 G: 0 B: 0

C: 70 M: 50 Y: 30 K: 100

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Here’s the deal: if we’re to enforce our brand through

color-use, we need to make sure we keep some level

of hierarchy. This means we need to make sure certain

colors are regarded as really important, and should be

used whenever possible, while others provide ways

for us to introduce balance and contrast, but should be

used sparingly. To help you make sense of all of this, we

created this useful infographic, that’s supposed to help

you understand the relation between these different

colors .

The bigger the circle, the more you should try to use

its color in our visual communication. The closer the

circles, the more you can combine their colors.

KEEPING IT BALANCED

YOLK YELLOW — 30%

Great for backgrounds and as first

choice for highlighting text and titles.

Number one choice for illustration

detail highlighting.

DARK NUT BROWN — 15%

Good choice as a complementary

color to yellow highlights.

BLACK — 25%

First choice for text color and illustration stroke.

CLAY BROWN — 10%

Good for subtle text highlighting,

especially on white backgrounds.

LIGHT IVORY — 10%

Potential choice for background

highlighting.

SULFUR BEIGE — 10%

Nice to use as a light background

for highlighted areas. It should go without saying, but white’s

our main choice for backgrounds —

especially if you intend to use text.

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ACOUSTICS ILLUSTRATED.We’re in the business of making rooms sound

absolutely flawless. It’s something we’re incredibly

passionate about, and something we really know

how to do well. Unfortunately, reaching out to our

customers through sound-based communication isn’t

always practical, so we’re going for the next best thing

— illustration.

Because ours is such a complex craft, we’ve had our

share of hard times trying to explain it to people at

parties and family gatherings alike. So we’re introducing

a level of visual communication that’s crisp and clear,

without getting overly technical.

Please meet Soundzipper’s clear, striking,

quasi‑metaphorical visual grammar.

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This is fairly simple: illustrations should always be

stripped -down depictions of real objects, having to

do with whatever it is we’re trying to depict. The

connections established between the matter in

question and the illustrations should be clear enough as

to be immediately understood by the target audience,

but not blatantly obvious (e.g. if you need to depict

social networking, a like hand is nice, a network of

computers is ok — if slightly meh —, a collage of social

networks’ logos is a major no) or technical depictions

(e.g. actual audiowaves extracted from a digital sound

file to represent sound).

If you need one rule of thumb, this would be it: simple,

stripped-down, duotone depictions of real-world

objects used as simple metaphors, with clear relations

to the subject matter.

To make it even clearer, let’s have a look at some

examples. These are all actual illustrations we’re

using for several communication materials, and are all

included as fully editable vector files, that you can use

as visual reference and even as starting point for your

own creations.

ILLUSTRATION GUIDELINES

Spelling out any word and calling it an

illustration is, of course, not ok!

HEADPHONES

Universal symbol for studio-quality audio and a tool

under any audiophile’s (i.e. our clients) belt.

No matter how complex the objects

we’re depicting are, illustrations

should always be completely flat and

bidimensional. This means no shadows,

blurs, bevels, reflections and absolutely

no tridimensional views.

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Every object should have at least one

detail in yolk yellow.

Depending on the size of the object,

more than one detail could be

highlighted. As a general rule, between

5% to 10% of the entire object should

have a yellow background.

SOUND MIXER

A nice metaphor for sound treatment and equalization.

Make sure there’s consistency in

both form and size of all objects. This

is particularly important for objects

with curves.

Black, medium-weight stroke,

with white fill (even on white

backgrounds).

LIGHT BULB

An acceptable (if slightly cliché) metaphor for ideas and

creativity in general.

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Illustrations will often be the most striking visual

feature of our brand communication, so please make

sure to only use them when it’s safe. And, in this case,

the rule is simple: these can only be used on white or

yolk yellow backgrounds — no exceptions.

When using them over yellow backgrounds, make sure

the insides are filled with white.

BEHAVIOR ON BACKGROUNDS

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Because sometimes one single illustration isn’t enough,

you can combine various objects into one massive

illustration. We only need you to follow a couple of

rules — we know, we know, all these rules are really

annoying, but please bear with us, we’re almost done.

COMBINING ILLUSTRATIONS

1. DON’T BE A SQUARE!

If you’re using more than two objects in the same

illustration, try to include some with curves — you

know, to balance things out. So, while the illustration

to the left is still pretty ok, we’d like it better if it mixed

things up a little bit, like the one on this page.

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2. GET A GRIP ON THAT SPACING

Try not to leave objects randomly flying around on the

page (or screen, mind you). It’s better that you make

everything tidier by having all of the objects equally

spaced from each other. Check the mad spacing skills of

the designer who put together the one to the right...

y

y

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3. SPICE IT UP JUST A LITTLE BIT

To make things just that little bit more interesting,

we suggest you consider adding these nice little

shapes wherever you think they fit. Because they help

disrupt the illustration symmetry, they ensure a more

interesting composition.

We don’t want to shut your creativity

down or anything, but we ran some tests

and think circles and squares work best.

We hope these guidelines help you design your own

objects, that seamlessly match our style, whenever

you need to. However, keep in mind that’s now always

going to be the case! Let’s say, for example, you needed

an illustration of a microphone. Chances are someone

needed a similar one in the past, and had to design

it, so why not just reuse it? To make things easier for

everyone, we’ve put together an illustration repository,

from which you can download objects we’ve needed

in the past, to use however you see fit. You can even

upload your own, in case you really couldn’t find that

mic you were looking for...

Access to the repository is, for obvious reasons, limited,

so please contact Soundzipper’s graphics department

and they’ll be happy to set you up with a password to

access our wonderful world of flat, yellow-ish acoustics.

We feel this should almost go without saying, but here

goes anyway: use of these illustrations is exclusively

granted for the purpose of portraying Soundzipper’s

brand within its own (or its partners’) official

communications.

ILLUSTRATION ARCHIVE

In fact, we even think reusing illustrations

on different communication materials

helps reinforce brand recognition, so don’t

feel bad about it...

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SAY IT IN WRITTING.Picture this: you’re at a club, trying to make your way

through the dancefloor, and you stumble into this guy

dancing aimlessly in front of you. You want to ask him

to move, but the music’s really loud, so it’s hard to get

to him. You’re not mad or anything, but you’re probably

gonna have to scream right at the guy’s ear, if you want

him to even notice you’re there. Now imagine you’re in

one of our own expertly designed, acoustically perfect

rooms, and you’re trying to say something to a friend

sitting across the room. Anything slightly louder than a

whisper will probably do the trick.

Moral of the story is: different conditions call for

different approaches. And that’s as true for your tone

of voice, as it is for our style of writing and typefaces.

That’s why we have not one, but three different

typefaces: so our brand can scream just as much as it

can whisper.

A SOUND

Don’t take it literally — screaming is rude.

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As you should know by know, Verlag’s our main

corporate font. It’s in our logo and in most of our

printed communication (usually in the headings).

You can safely use any of these weights, whenever you

feel like they fit, as long as you make sure to match

the font weight to their purpose and media — do not

use Extra Light with very small text, nor Black text for

sub-headings.

As a rule of thumb, you should just stay away from

italics altogether, but there is one exception: if you want

to make one single word (or, at best, a couple) within a

heading stand out, but you can’t change the font weight,

then it’s ok.

Verlag Extra Light & Extra Light Italic

Verlag Light & Light Italic

Verlag Book & Book Italic

Verlag Bold & Bold Italic

Verlag Black & Black Italic

CORPORATE FONT

Sixty zippers were quickly picked from the woven jute bag.

Crazy Fredrick bought many very exquisite opal jewels.

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs.

Sphinx of black quartz: judge my vow.

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When using Verlag for headings, we think it works

better if you use all caps, or capitalize sentences (not

words). We’re not just being picky: because Verlag has

a relatively small x-height, mixing upper and lower-case

a lot causes sentences to produce uneven shapes, that

look unbalanced and, most of the time, require the

brain to work harder to read the text.

This is nasty. There’s a huge contrast between upper

and lowercase characters’ heights, so stay away.

That’s nice. There’s a very tall capital S at the start, but

the sentence is, overall, very balanced.

For smaller sentences, or for very small uses, consider

using all-caps. It looks good and makes for a very

uniform outline. Keep in mind, however, that it’ll take

up more space than a lower-cased sentence.

Sixty Zippers Were Quickly Picked From the Woven Jute Bag

Sixty zippers were quickly picked from the woven jute bag

SIXTY QUICK ZIPPERS

x-height is the value used to define the

lower‑case characters’ height, and is

usually defined by the height of the

lowercase x.

Despite being a charming and efficient modern sans,

Verlag doesn’t just work everywhere, so we need

something else: a typeface for body copy, that works

in print as it does on the Web, and that is balanced

and readable at tiny sizes. For that, we chose Lato,

an open-source sans-serif with a considerably larger

x-height and a couple of features that make it quirky

yet highly flexible.

Use it for body copy, in print or on the Web. It can go

up to relatively large sizes, but try not to use it for

headings. Also, whenever possible, do not leave it all by

itself; try to pair it up with one of our other typefaces.

BODY COPY AND SUBHEADINGS

Lato HairlineOne morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections.

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Lato Light

Verlag Black + Lato Italic

Verlag Light+ Lato Black

Lato Black & Black Italic

Lato Regular & Italic

Lato Bold & Bold Italic

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.

He was lying on his hard, as it were armor-plated, back and when he lifted his head a little he could see his domelike brown belly divided into stiff arched segments on top of which the bed quilt could hardly stay in place and was about to slide off completely.

His numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk, waved helplessly before his eyes. What has happened to me? he thought. It was no dream. His room, a regular human bedroom, only rather too small, lay quiet within its four familiar walls.

Above the table on which a collection of cloth samples was unpacked and spread out—Samsa was a traveling salesman—hung the picture which he had recently cut out of an illustrated magazine and put into a pretty gilt frame.

It works fine with this sub-heading

IT LOOKS KINDA’ AWFUL

Lato is a pretty nice fit for most informational text

or body copy, and it could just as well be used for

subheadings. Besides the very text you’re reading

(which is set in Lato Regular), here are some other

examples, to get you going...

THIS IS A HEADING

This is a heading

Nice contrast and hierarchy: heading is larger and

heavier than the sub-heading...

All messed up! Sub-heading is not only heavier than the

heading, making it all-caps draws attention to it first,

when it should be the other way around.

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As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from

uneasy dreams he found himself transformed

in his bed into a gigantic insect.

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from

uneasy dreams he found himself transformed

in his bed into a gigantic insect.

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.

Lato Regular 12/18pt

Lato Regular 12/24pt

Lato Regular 12/12pt

This body copy looks real nifty. It’s set in Lato Regular,

with 1.5x spacing (in this case, 12pt spaced at 18pt).

This one, spaced at 2x (12/24pt) barely holds itself

together. Notice how the sidenote is starting to mess

up the composition. This is acceptable, just as long as

elements around the text are not closer to it than lines

are between each other.

Setting text with any line-spacing below 1.5x is

definitely a major no.

It won’t be often you’ll need a third font but, when

you do, we’ve got your back covered with a classy,

transitional serif called Playfair Display.

It’s tailored for screen-use, but that doesn’t mean

you can’t occasionally use it in print. It shouldn’t be

used for small body copy — or any body copy at all,

for that matter. It shines as an occasional stylistically

complement to the rationality of our sans serifs, and

it can even be mixed and matched with them, if used

carefully.

ONE MORE FOR ADDED CLASS

Playfair Display Regular & ItalicGrumpy wizards make toxic brew for the evil Queen and Jack.

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Playfair Display Bold & Bold Italic

Playfair Display Black & Black Italic

Playfair Display Regular, Bold & Black

Grumpy wizards make toxic brew for the evil Queen and Jack.

Grumpy wizards make toxic brew for the evil Queen and Jack.

Making life sound better.

& & &

Use Playfair sparingly, and only in very specific use

cases — quotations, large slogans, headings or tiny

details come to mind.

A balanced lock-up of our name and slogan. Because

the fonts have contrasting features and weights, they

complement each other nicely.

One lone ampersand set in Playfair, in an otherwise

Verlag text, can make all the difference, adding a dash

of unexpected sophistication.

Ouch! We did say contrast is nice, but this is just

ridiculous. Tone it down a little bit, please. Also, don’t

use Playfair in all-caps — especially in italic! Ugh...

S O U N D Z I P P E R

TIPS & TRICKS

HERE’S SOUNDZIPPER

Verlag Light + Playfair Display Black

Verlag Black + Playfair Display Black

Verlag Black + Playfair Italic

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MAKING SENSE OF IT ALL.We understand all of the stuff we’ve covered so far

may be a bit overwhelming, so allow us to try and

make things easier on you. This section will hopefully

help you make sense of all the information we’ve been

bombing you with, so you can go and do amazing things

with our brand.

Besides laying out the DO’s and DON’Ts, we’re going to

put the brand in context, so you can see how all of this is

actually used in real-world scenarios. We’ll even throw

in a couple of application examples, so you can see how

we’ve done it in the past. Make us proud!

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We’d prefer it if you didn’t combine slogans with our

logo, but if you really need to, you still can.

Don’t set type next to any of the smaller versions of the

logo, no matter how much you want (or need) to.

Slogan should be set in Lato Italic, at a rate of 2/3 the

main face (in the example, Soundzipper is set at 24pt and

slogan at 16pt) and spaced at 1.5x the height of a capital

M set in Lato. Same rules apply for the vertical version.

SLOGANS & SUBHEADINGS

Making life sound better

Making life sound better

Making life sound betterMaking life sound better

Making life sound better

S O U N D Z I P P E R

Making life sound better

Making life sound better

S O U N D Z I P P E R

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61

Our brand is sensitive, so we’d appreciate it if you could

give it some space to breath. When using it next to

text, images or other logos, you can make sure ours is

comfortable by keeping a safe distance. And the rules

are simple: you should keep a distance equivalent to the

mark’s radius from the outermost point on each side,

regardless of the logo version you’re using.

PROTECTION AREAS

LOGO

LOGO

LOGO

LOGO

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Whenever space is extremely limited, you can scale

down the logotype to its minimum acceptable size. We

reccomend, however, that you seek to use it at larger

sizes whenever possible.

Please bear in mind that, at such a small scale, you

should always use the S (REF. VS) version of the vertical

lockup and the XS version (REF. HXS) of the horizontal

lockup. If you have no idea what we’re talking about,

please refer to the Ready Mades section on page 24.

34mm

80px

20mm

60px

MINIMUM ACCEPTABLE SIZE

S O U N D Z I P P E R

When using the logo over photo or color backgrounds,

always make sure our logo’s perfectly readable.

USE OVER BACKGROUNDS

If the photo has such a hue and contrast variation,

that you can’t seem to find a way to add our logo, you

may add a background frame, at least the size of the

logotype’s protection area (see page 60).

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65soundzipper

soundzipper

soundzipperWe’re fairly flexible with our brand, but there’s some

stuff you simply shouldn’t do.

Do not stretch our logo or change its proportions in any

way. If you need to change the size, make sure it scales

proportionally.

Do not mix colors; logo and type should be the exact

same color at all times.

Do not set our name in any font other than Verlag (not

even our two other official fonts) nor in lower-case.

Do not add drop shadows, bevels or any other type of

special effect to our logo. Flat’s just fine, thank you.

WHAT NOT TO DO

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67

soundzipper

soundzipper

soundzippersoundzipper

Do not use a logotype scale ratio not covered under

Construction Rules (page 17).

Do not mix type and mark in any way.

Do not position our logo within rules or frames.

Do not rotate, skew or otherwise distort the logo shape

or the type in any way.

Because orientation is important to decoding the logo,

try not to use it on its side.soundzipperDo not create an outline around the logo or type.

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Seeing our logo in place, and in context, is probably

the best way to understand what all of these rules and

reccomendations amount to. Use these as inspiration,

or in case you just need that extra push to get you going.

EXAMPLE APPLICATIONS

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THIS SPREAD >

Right: Custom business cards

<— PREVIOUS SPREAD

Left: Envelope

Right: Custom business cards

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73

NEXT SPREAD —>

Brand guidelines book, business card,

letterhead and folder

< THIS SPREAD

Left: Envelope & Letterhead

74

75

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77

< THIS SPREAD

Left: Use on social media platform

NEXT SPREAD —>

Use on corporate website

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GETTING IN TOUCH.If you got this far without skimming though the

document too much, you should be prepared to tackle

the challenge of using our visual identity. However,

because there will always be those cases when you

can’t tell whether some idea you’ve just come up with

is ok or not, you can be sure we’ll be around to help you

out. Just get in touch, using one of the contacts to the

right, and we’ll do our best to work through your doubts

and suggestions together.

We truly respect and appreciate anyone who’s willing

to tackle the challenge of helping shape our company’s

future, and we’re eager to see what you make of it.

Thank you!

GENERAL ENQUIRIES

acoustics@soundzipper.com

8 Ubi Road 2

Zervex Industrial Building, #08-03

Singapore, 408538

(65) 6509 3529

GRAPHICS DEPARTMENT

Tah Wei Hoon

Soundzipper Creative Director

tahwei@soundzipper.com

Eduardo Nunes

Visual Identity Designer

helpme@eduardonunes.me

(351) 93 480 81 91

We hereby award you the honorary, and

very fictional, title of Soundzipper Brand

Expert.