Welcome to Cyncly's brand guidelines.

Cyncly's software solutions connect designers, retailers, manufacturers, contractors and consumers to make spaces amazing. With the world's largest repository of product content, Cyncly equips customers with the tools to transform vision into reality.

50 Words

Cyncly's end-to-end software solutions connect designers, retailers, manufacturers, contractors and consumers to make spaces amazing. With the world's largest repository of product content, we equip customers with the tools to transform vision into reality. From inspiration to installation, Cyncly transforms how spaces are imagined, designed, sold, managed and made.

100 Words

Cyncly's end-to-end software solutions connect designers, retailers, manufacturers, contractors and consumers to make spaces amazing.

From start to finish, from inspiration to installation, whether a whole room or a part of it, Cyncly equips customers with the software to transform vision into reality with speed, flexibility and efficiency.

With the world’s largest repository of catalogs and solutions for every step of the process, including online space planning, CAD design applications, CPQ solutions, business process management, manufacturing execution systems and enterprise resource planning, Cyncly offers the ultimate connected platform to inspire and create a seamless flow of information to power sales and manufacturing.

02. Messaging

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Tone of voice

Our tone of voice defines how we write and speak for all of our communications. The approach set out here should inform how to create copy and manage a common language across our brand.

Foundational principles

Open + Inclusive

Use language that considers the abilities and perspectives of everyone. Avoid jargon, idioms, legalese. This doesn’t mean dumb it down. Embrace specificity and show we have deep understanding of our industry.

Direct + Transparent

Get to the point. No long sentences and distracting asides. Active voice, bullet points and short sentences help our messages cut through quickly and show our sincerity.

Respectful + Reassuring

Be sensitive. Make it easy for your audience to understand and act on what you’re saying. Use clear CTAs, expand on challenging subject matter, inform and encourage rather than burden or patronize.

Active + Enthusiastic

We must write positively and encourage our audiences to make whatever they do feel and turn out amazing. Focus on expressing outcomes and back them up with the processes. Rather than avoid negatives, counter them with the bright side.

Brand personality

Our brand personality defines the way we talk and behave as a brand using a range of human characteristics. Use the principles and approach here as a guide for honing the Cyncly voice.

Meet Cyril. Everything our brand stands for is about helping make amazing. Turning customer vision into reality. Empowering designers, retailers and manufacturers to excel at their jobs. Creating products and spaces that wow everyone. Making amazing is about the power of creation, the excitement of seeing a space totally differently and opening your mind to a world of constant betterment and wonder. Cyril is Cyncly’s brand voice, who celebrates everyone’s capacity to make what they do and what they want to achieve amazing. When you’re writing or speaking for Cyncly, try and picture Cyril and follow these principles to hone their voice.

Candid

Plain speaking, honest, upfront, revelatory. No mincing of words. A spade’s a spade. Heart on sleeve. Straight forward and simple are smart.

Courageous

Brave, optimistic, all about possibilities and outcomes. Where’s there’s risk, there’s reward. Think big and follow up with finer detail.

Creative

Problem-solving and provocative. Conscious of beauty, sophistication and originality. About bringing a flair for the unexpected.

Brand pillars

Our brand pillars help articulate the broad value and benefits we bring to all our audiences.

Create it

Bring spaces to life.

Turn big ideas into high quality images everyone can appreciate thanks to leading visualization tools. Plus, get inspired and reimagine your space’s potential with access to the world’s largest manufacturer catalog hub.

Change it

Bring life to spaces.

Customize and configure spaces to fit your exact needs and enhance their value. Update any refinements seamlessly across design, quotation and production for accurate project implementation every time.

Connect it

Get totally integrated.

Everyone connects to a single platform that unifies processes, clarifies actions and shares vast data on product interest and use. Align expectations improve stakeholder collaboration and never lose progress.

Control it

Power your performance.

Access the latest products, trending brands, and fast and accurate content generation tools. By sharing a single source of truth, you reduce errors, shorten timescales and optimize processes for better results.

Cultivate it

Nurture your success.

Develop stronger client relations with a joined-up toolset and more consistent customer experience. Share and sell to audiences on a global stage and scale your production and distribution efforts.

Celebrate it

Dream and deliver.

We’re breaking new ground by bringing together end-to-end platform solutions that join all project stages from inspiration to installation. Get connected, push imaginations further and let’s make our industry even more amazing.

Example messaging

Deliver on-time and on-budget thanks to an efficient, universal platform.

Style guide for copywriting

Here is a non-exhaustive list of grammatical and stylistic rules for writing for Cyncly. The more everyone writing follows these rules, the stronger our communications (and the less time wasted unifying style across departments and regions).

Specific to Cyncly

We need to be careful about how we express our value proposition, making amazing, in our communications. Making amazing (and our tagline, Make it amazing) is about the positive outcomes we invite audiences to gain as a result of taking advantage of the benefits we offer and by using our products and services. We should not use amazing to refer to ourselves or to our accomplishments, internally or externally.

Don’t overuse the word amazing, particularly within titles of documents, presentations or as part of internal concepts. Try and limit its usage to once per page or not at all per piece of communications. Overuse will dilute its impact and weaken our brand. Just a dab’ll do ya.

Cyncly (and other individual brands or collective entities) is referred to in the singular (e.g. Cyncly is…, the government is…).

General

Always use US English.

Although the US date format is MM/DD/YYYY, use DD/MM/YYYY and express months as words to accommodate global audiences. (e.g. 31 July 2022, not 31/07/2022 or 07/31/2022).

Write in plain English. Given the choice, people prefer to read clear and simple words even when they have specialist understanding of a topic.

Use sentence case for all headings, subheadings and hero copy. So That Means Avoid This For All Types of Headings.

Avoid dots within acronyms.

Use your own judgment for writing acronyms in full based on your audience’s familiarity with the topic.

Avoid exclamation marks. Stick to full stops.

Avoid semicolons. Stick to commas and dashes.

Use contractions freely (you’ll, can’t, etc).

There are three types of dash: -, –, —. The first one is for hyphenating words. The second and third for joining parts of sentences together. For this we use the third type only.

Try and limit paragraphs to no more than six lines.

Split up long sentences. Around 25 words is too long.

Accommodate gender neutrality where possible. Use your own judgment about how far to take it.

Restrict emoji use to internal communications.

Get a second pair of eyes to read your writing before it gets published. Anyone can spot a typo, but you can rarely spot your own.

If in doubt, ask an editor or proofreader about any other rules before you publish.

03. Logo

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Concept

Our symbol represents a space where we connect everything our customers need to make what they do amazing. It's constructed from overlapping shapes that suggest the synchronisation of our different processes into a unified offering. We call this symbol the Frame.

X is equal to 50% the height of the symbol.

Logo color

Our logo is primarily multi-colored, creating a rich, vibrant and memorable expression for our brand. A one-color black and white version can be used for placement on a solid color background or photo.

Full color black

This is our primary logo color that must be used across every brand touchpoint.

Full color white

This is our primary logo color for use on dark backgrounds.

One color white

This is a secondary coloring of our logo only for placement over a flood color background or photo.

One color black

This is a secondary coloring of our logo only for placement over a flood color background or photo.

Logo printing

The below diagram details the Pantone® and CMYK colors that make up each segment of our symbol. Use this as a reference when specifying merchandise colours and talking with printers.

Please note

The following colours, PMS 2728 C, 285 C and 2728 C, are only for use in the master logo artwork. Do not use these colours for any other purposes.

04. Brand elements

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Color palette

Our color palette is rich and vibrant, bringing to life our core value proposition of making amazing.

Primary

Our primary brand color is purple and should be present in every touchpoint. We support our lead purple with a bright and vibrant violet, blue and cyan. These colors complement and work in harmony with our lead purple.

All print colors (Pantone® and CMYK) have been specified for coated paper stocks only.

Purple

RGB 96 56 232

HEX #6038E8

PMS 2090 C

CMYK 77 79 0 0

RAL 290 40 45

NCS S 3555-R60B

Violet

RGB 173 54 255

HEX #AD36FF

PMS 2069 C

CMYK 59 89 0 0

RAL 330 40 45

NCS S 2060-R30B

Blue

RGB 56 142 232

HEX #388EE8

PMS 2172 C

CMYK 86 42 0 0

RAL 250 50 35

NCS S 2065-R90B

Cyan

RGB 61 203 255

HEX #3DCBFF

PMS 2985 C

CMYK 67 2 0 0

RAL 240 70 30

NCS S 1050-B

Secondary

We support our primary brand palette with a range of warm beiges. These colors are used as background floods for document covers and spreads, adding warmth to our primary palette.

All print colors (Pantone® and CMYK) have been specified for coated paper stocks only.

Beige

RGB 249 246 244

HEX #F9F6F4

CMYK 4 3 4 0

RAL 090 90 10

NCS S 1002-Y

Deep beige

RGB 231 220 213

HEX #E7DCD5

CMYK 14 12 13 0

RAL 090 80 20

NCS S 1505-Y

Tertiary

All text, from headlines to body copy and captions, is colored using black.

All print colors (Pantone® and CMYK) have been specified for coated paper stocks only.

Black

RGB 0 0 0

HEX #000000

CMYK 0 0 0 100

RAL 000 15 00

NCS S 9000-N

Call to action

We have a dedicated call-to-action color for all buttons and text links across our online touchpoints and is rated AAA according to the WCGA web standards.

This color is specifically for screen use and should never be printed.

Vibrant blue

RGB 26 108 255

HEX #1A6CFF

Color proportions

Our brand is light and clean with color used as a bold accent for a graphic system.

The chart opposite outlines the the proportions of color throughout all our branded collateral.

Documents predominantly have a beige or white background, with the color overlaid in the shapes that form the basis of our graphic system.

We can use our primary brand palette to create full-bleed backgrounds, but this should be done sparingly to ensure they maintain their impact.

Brand typeface

Our primary brand typeface is Founders Grotesk, a clean and contemporary sans-serif that gives a great sense of character and authority.

We predominantly use the regular weight of Founders for headings, quotes and body copy.

The semibold weight is mostly used for inline subheadings set the same point size as the body copy as well as page numbers and copyrights.

Founders Grotesk is used across all printed and digital collateral.

System-safe typeface

Our system-safe typeface is used for shared PowerPoint, Word and Excel documents, as well as instances where the recipient does not have access to our brand fonts for presentations or office printing.

Arial can only be used in PowerPoint, Word and Excel documents and must never be used across professionally produced collateral.

Arial is also the fallback typeface on our website.

Typographic hierarchy

The below rules must be used across all lead brand collateral to ensure consistent typesetting.

Document headlines

Font: Founders Grotesk

Weight: Regular

Kerning: Metrics

Tracking: −20

Leading: Solid

Case: Sentence case

Inline subheadings

Font: Founders Grotesk

Weight: Semibold

Kerning: Metrics

Tracking: −10

Leading: +5

Case: Sentence case

Body copy

Font: Founders Grotesk

Weight: Regular

Kerning: Metrics

Tracking: −10

Leading: +5

Case: Sentence case

Page information

Font: Founders Grotesk

Weight: Semibold and Regular

Kerning: Metrics

Tracking: +20

Leading: Solid

Case: Uppercase

Imagery

We use a combinations of renders from our software and photographs as our lead brand imagery.

Renders

Renders of kitchens, bathrooms, windows and doors generated in our software are a key component of our imagery style. These renders are the best representation of what amazing looks like and express our software in an easy-to-understand way. Renders should feature prominently in our collateral.

Inspire

Inspire imagery is focused on the customer finding inspiration for their dream space. This can be brought to life through photography of customers browsing swatch books, online reference tools and being shown around showrooms for example.

Design

Design imagery is focused on the designer working with our software and tools. This can be brought to life through photography of people working on computers, talking over wireframes and making selections from swatch books for example.

Sell

Sell imagery is focused on the salespeople and the customer. This can be brought to life through photography of in-store sales people talking with a customer and the checkout process for example.

Manage

Manage imagery is focused on the management of a project. This can be brought to life through photography of a kitchen being installed and using computers in factories for example.

Make

Make imagery is focused on the manufacturing and production of products and components. This can be brought to life through photography of factory floors, tradespeople and tools for example.

Iconography

Icons are used to help quickly convey and explain complex topics and themes by adding a simple, recognisable visual cue. When placing icons always ensure they are supported by a description.

DOWNLOAD ICONS

Icon set

We use the Streamline Regular set available to download in the link above. This set consists of over 12,000 icons that cover a broad range of topics. They are available in SVG, PNG and PDF format depending on your requirements.

Icon holding shape

Icons can be placed within a circle holding shape to create a simple divider between the icon and content.

The holding shape must be twice the height of the icon and use the same stroke weight and color.

In certain instances the icon should be optically centered as opposed to mathematically centered to get the best results.

Icon color

Icons can be colored using any of our primary colors and black or white depending on the background contrast.

Illustration

We use illustrations to help explain complex topics, themes or processes that are hard to communicate in a single image. All illustrations are for reference purposes only, no rights have been approved.

Style

Our illustration style is simple, featuring strong outlines and filled in blocks of color.

People are used throughout to humanize our processes. Each person is simplified, featuring minimal facial details and clothing textures with realistic body proportions. Objects, such as computers or manufacturing equipment are simplified as well. Extra touches, such as abstracted lines, speech bubbles and dots can be introduced to add more texture and color.

When sourcing illustrations from stock libraries it is important to closely match the style opposite. Sometimes a stock illustration will need to be refined to better match our brand style, ensuring a consistent visual approach.

Color

Our illustrations are mostly black and white with our color palette used as accents throughout. We can use 25% incremental tints of our primary brand colors to add more variety to compositions.

Purple tints

100% #6038E8

75% #886AEE

50% #AF9BF3

25% #D7CDF9

Violet tints

100% #AD36FF

75% #C168FF

50% #D69AFF

25% #EACDFF

Blue tints

100% #388EE8

75% #6AAAEE

50% #9BC6F3

25% #CDE3F9

Cyan tints

100% #3DCBFF

75% #6DD8FF

50% #9EE5FF

25% #CEF2FF

Brand shapes

Our brand shapes can be used as containers or in the background of illustrations or images to add more texture and color to each composition. These shapes can also represent individual steps within a process diagram. For example, step one could be contained in a square, step two in a hexagon, and so on.

Example usage

Opposite is a notional diagram recreated using a mix of illustrations and icons. Illustrations work best when used in diagrams explaining workstreams and processes. We can combine illustrations and icons together to create a clear focal point and end point to each diagram.

Renders of rooms or photography can also be used within diagrams to help communicate specific items, processes or people.

Simple solid and dotted lines can be used to connect separate processes together and create flows

Graphic system introduction

Our graphic system is a visual representation of our end-to-end solution. It is built using a set of five abstract shapes that connect together and form the basis of our brand identity.

REQUEST BRAND SHAPES

Constructing the system

Carefully follow the below rules to ensure the consistent application of our lead brand graphic.

Horizontal construction

When connecting shapes together horizontally ensure the overlap is no more than 20% the width of the shape. This will ensure that any images contained within the shapes are clearly visible and create a consistent look and feel.

The overlap color is created by using the multiply blend mode in Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign and Figma and Sketch.

Vertical construction

When connecting shapes together vertically ensure the overlap is no more than 20% the width of the shape. This will ensure that any images contained within the shapes are clearly visible and create a consistent look and feel.

The overlap color is created by using the multiply blend mode in Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign and Figma and Sketch.

Diagonal construction

When connecting shapes together diagonally ensure the overlap is no more than 40% the width of the shape. This will ensure that any images contained within the shapes are clearly visible and create a consistent look and feel.

The overlap color is created by using the multiply blend mode in Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign and Figma and Sketch.

Stack order

When creating visuals using our overlapping shapes it is important to have one object at the top of the stack. The top shape will not have the overlapping color, further ensuring that the imagery is clearly visible.

Render placement

When placing renders within the overlapping shapes always ensure they are at the top of the stack. This ensures that the renders remain the lead imagery asset across our brand.

Overlap placement

Always place shapes over areas of a render with the least amount of detail and most negative space. This will ensure the overlapping shape does not distract from the rendered scene.

System variations

Our graphic system is flexible to create a wide range of image variations.

Single image

A single image can be framed with multiple overlapping shapes in either landscape, horizontal or diagonal formats.

The overlap color is created by using the multiply blend mode in Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign and Figma and Sketch.

Multiple images

Multiple images can be connected together to tell specific stories. For example an image of a designer and a kitchen render can be linked together to show how we enable them to do their job effectively.

The overlap color is created by using the multiply blend mode in Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign and Figma and Sketch.

Large crops

Large shape crops can be used to overlap images to creating a bold and standout section divider for example.

The overlap color is created by using the multiply blend mode in Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign and Figma and Sketch.

Full images

Full bleed images can feature a single shape disappearing over the edge of the frame hinting at an onward connection.

The overlap color is created by using the multiply blend mode in Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign and Figma and Sketch.

Graphic

We can use multiple shapes overlapping without imagery to create supporting patterns. The graphic overlaps are used primarily for merchandising such as t-shirts and tote bags. Use this sparingly to maintain its impact.

The overlap color is created by using the multiply blend mode in Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign and Figma and Sketch.

Grid

Our brand grid creates a shared visual structure and hierarchy to all touchpoints.

Landscape grid

For landscape documents, such as presentations, we use a 12 × 12 grid.

Portrait grid

For portrait documents, such as brochures and reports, we use a 12 × 16 grid.

When creating printed documents that are smaller than A4 we can use a 6 × 8 grid that better fits the smaller format.

Layout principles

Scale

Scale plays an important part within our typography, clearly denoting hierarchy. Headlines are much larger than body copy creating an easy-to-follow page structure.

White space

Giving content such as the body copy, stats, quotes and headlines plenty of white space makes documents easier to follow and read. Don't be afraid of white space.

Clear grids

Our grid is flexible and accommodates a wide range of content structures and layouts. Think about breaking content, such as standout points, into multiple columns to give each point emphasis and introduce more white space.