Brand guidelines

Hey! We’re glad you're here.

Here are a few tools and guidelines for keeping

our brand in ship shape over time.

About  the brand

A bold new brand

With our company’s growth and direction, we need a trustworthy, strong and consistent brand identity. A brand identity that supports our ambition to be the leading provider of trusted digital identity services across Europe. Our brand also represents the people in Signicat and expresses our culture and believes with an energetic and bold attitude.

Our brand identity offers a system with assets that helps us address different target groups, and is efficient and flexible to use across applications. It allows us to feature localized content at the same time as we work across borders as one globally consistent brand. Our brand takes on a human centered approach to always put the customer first.

Who we are

Brand

concept

Signicat's brand concept – Trusted Connections – is the essence of the brand. The main role of the concept is to provide consistency throughout the various elements of the brand identity. It's the core of our brand that gives direction to tone of voice, visual tools, communications and customer experience. It is Signicat.

So what does the concept really mean?

We create and maintain trusted connections. Between persons and organisations. Between us and our customers and partners. A trusted connection is a strong and human connection, even if it is digital.

We are just people helping other people succeed. From people in huge enterprises to the end users of our products. We lead the way for our industry by solving the right problems with innovative, cutting edge solutions, but we do it in a friendly and helpful way. We dare to stand out.

For a trusted digital world.

Our values

Trust

Our core values for building a fun and cool place to work where we solve real-world challenges for our customers.

Team up

- We find new ways together

- We work hand-in-hand with our customers and partners to achieve excellence

- We share success, and overcome setbacks as a team

- We share openly

Run and have fun

- We work hard

- We are playful and curious and have fun together

- We recognize work-life balance

Uncompromised quality

- We love smart and secure innovations

- We develop high quality, future proof solutions

- We are thought leaders in trusted digital identity

- We get brilliant stuff done

Successful customers

- Customers-first is how we approach our work

- We care about user experience

- We strive to make our customers successful

Treat others with respect

- We listen to each other to make qualified decisions

- We accept different cultures, orientations, and religious beliefs

- We work together to create innovative solutions

Brand elements

Logo

Colour

Typography

Illustration

Building blocks

Icons

Tone of voice

Lay out

Photography

Digital

Motion

Logo

Main logo

Our logo consists of two shapes, the circle and the square connecting. It reflects the connection between human (circle) and technology (square); the trusted connection. Protected and secured by the shapes, we find the wordmark Signicat. The logo has been carefully crafted to maintain characteristics special to Signicat, and to work well in all sizes and applications. This is the primary logo and whenever the Signicat logo is needed, this is the one to apply. However, there might be reasons for some exceptions that we describe in the following.

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Clear space

The clear space around our logo is defined by the square shape in the logo. The space around the logo should be 1/2 the size of the logo square. The clear space around the logo must never be smaller than this defined minimum. With that said there are a few exceptions when it comes to apps and social media icons. (We’ll get to that part in a bit.)

Logo animation

We’ve also created a simple logo animation. This is for use in PPT or other visual presentations or videos and can be used as intro and outro sequence.

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Negative logo

Our negative logo is for use on dark backgrounds, primarly purple background and shall not be used often since our preferred logo is purple on lighter shades.

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Minimum Size

In order to maintain its visual significance and to ensure readability, the height of the logo must never be smaller than 36 px for digital surfaces and 8 mm for print.

B/W

Variants

Whenever possible, our logo should be placed on

a white background with colour. For exceptional circumstances,

however, black and white variants are available.

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Placement in layout

The logo can be placed top left or bottom left. In some cases the logo can also be centred on the page. Please see more examples in the next chapter.

Placement on colour

The main logo should only be used on the light shades of colours in the brand identity in order to obtain a strong visual impact.

The negative logo should only be used on dark shades of colour, primarily purple.

Favicon

For favicon we use the outline of the logo. In social media we use the logo as it is.

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Logo lockups

Our logo lockups is used only in the following two special cases:

Powered by Signicat

In product UIs.

A trusted digital world

On brand material where it’s necessary to build awareness around our business purpose.

Minimum size and clear space

The requirements for minimum size and clear space defined for the main logo, also applies to the logo lockups.

Download lockups

Brand endorsement

When a company joins the Signicat family after an acquisition, we add a brand endorsement to the company logo as a first step:

"A Signicat Company"

In cases where we endorse a product name, we use the text:

"by Signicat"

The font used for the brand endorsement is our regular font Mabry. The "Signicat" text is the stylised text from the Signicat logo (modified a and i). The stylised text must not be used in any other use cases.

Please don't

Our logo is our recognisable shining star, so please treat it with respect.

The logo must not be altered in any way, including changing colours, removing / adding text or background, etc.

Colour

Primary colours

Our primary brand colours are light green, purple and light purple. They are used to provide consistency throughout all brand communications. When people see our colour palette, we want them to think about Signicat.

Trustworthy Purple

Hex: #2A0062

Energetic Mint

Hex: #41FFD1

It shall always be used as a PMS (never as CMYK) in print to ensure the right reproduction of the spot colour and brightness.

Trustworthy Purple Light

Hex: #F2F0F6

Bold White

Hex: #FFFFFF

Accent colour

Confident Indigo is used in addition to primary colours when necessary. In graphic design, this colour should not be used for more than 25% of the visual representation.

This colour is used in UI design for interactive elements like buttons, links, and icons, as well as to highlight key elements in visual communication.

Confident Indigo

Hex #5F36BC

Reliable Graphite

Hex #2B253A

Smart Grey

Hex #EAEAEA

Colour Usage

Different colours are used in different settings. This is how the colours are used.

Tints

All colours in the palette can be used as a solid colour or as tints/opacities.

Gradients

 Digital use

* Gradients are only used for backgrounds

Examples

Gradients used for backgrounds

Colour combinations

These are approved combinations of Signicat's brand colours. The colours have been tested according to guidelines for accessibility (WCAG 2.1 AA standard), and validate AAA. These are the prefered colour combinations. Any other colour combinations than shown here shall not be used. The text shall always be purple unless it’s on a purple background, then we use white.

* Disclamer

Color combination nr 2 is for Risk Flow only.

Print colors

Trustworthy Purple

CMYK: 96/100/26/22

Pantone: Pantone 2755C

Trustworthy Purple Light

CMYK: 6/6/2/0

Pantone: Pantone P99-9C

Energetic Mint (darker)

CMYK: 75/0/51/0

Pantone: Pantone P 133-13 C

Gradients

These gradients should only be used for background in print.

Typography

Brand font

Our brand typeface is Mabry, a grotesk font with a geometric but human touch by Colophon Foundry. It is used for all display text and information for all communications. The majority of our company communications, across campaigns and websites, will only use two primary weights of Mabry: Regular and medium.

Need the font? Contact the Signicat Marketing department to request a licence.

Font in use

In order to present a coherent image, we have established clear definitions for when to use which of our font weights. Headlines are always set in Mabry Medium. Note that the heading similar in size to copy and body text is set in Bold. Copy is always set in Mabry Regular.

Type setting

Font tracking and alignment

Paragraphs are always set flush left with a ragged right. The left edge of the paragraph is always straight, the right edge is always ragged. All texts should be left-aligned with default tracking. In order to add a new paragraph, please use default line breaks.

Bullet points

Our bullet points are circles, and big ones as well. We use the large bullet available in glyphs.

Font colours

Our standard font colour is Trustworthy Purple. On purple backgrounds, white or green text can be used.

System font

In an ideal world, we would want everybody to have Mabry, but that's not possible so as a default system font for Mac/Microsoft is Arial. This font is primarily used in Word templates and PPT.   Arial is the standard font for our emails and email signatures as well as for our external and internal

newsletters.

Please don't

Yepp, it’s tempting to be a little wild, but in order to keep the brand consistent we need some rules on how to apply type.

Illustration

This brandbook includes a selection of most often used brand and product illustrations.

For a complete set of illustrations, contact the Signicat Design Team.

Cartoon illustrations

Cartoon illustrations serve the purpose of keeping our playful style.

They are used in a variety of marketing materials and on web.

Important: to use them mindfully, less is more.

Descriptive illustrations

To be used to illustrate specific product flows in presentations, brochures, and on web.

Created strictly by Design team in collaboration with Product teams.

Key pattern

Derived from Signicat logo and is used in combination with illustrations as a background.

Circle & Square

Derived from Signicat logo and is used in combination with illustrations as a background.

User rights

The below terms apply to the initial batch of illustrations (brand illustrations and product illustrations below) commissioned from an artist in 2021 – we have a much broader set of illustrations now, produced in house, with unlimited user rights.

Media

Signicat website, collateral, branding and paid advertising (newsletter, social media, digital reports, events, brochures, recruitment ads, branded environment/offices).

Area

Europe, digital unlimited

Duration

5 years from June 2021

Image(s) can not be edited or animated without artist's contribution/approval.

The artist retains copyright and the ability to share work in his portfolio.

Brand illustrations

The circle and the square play an important part in the illustrations, always at the center of the illustration highlighting the main focus or storytelling aspect of that illustration.

The illustrations are categorised into two levels: brand illustrations and product illustrations.

The cat in the wheel illustration should be used for 404 pages only.

The illustrations are drawn by Audun Gjerdi.

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Product illustrations

Product illustrations focus on the product, what it does and contributes for the end user.

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Building blocks

Our building blocks

We believe in simplifying the complex towards our audience. For us to do that we need some building blocks to visualise and make our content easy and understandable. We use the circle and the square filled with icons or text to build infographics, models and descriptions.

Constructions

Colour usage

We use all colours and gradients we need. But hey, not like a circus. And always use the energetic green as the highlight to put emphasis on what is most important.

Usage

Our building blocks follow us throughout the brand. Either digital, analogue or in motion. Whether you construct UX elements or charts, our building blocks play an important part in our branding.

Examples

Our brand is quite new and we are just getting started, and we have not made many examples of use just yet - but here’s some inspiration to bring it to life!

Icons

Icons style

The identity also includes specially drawn icons. These graphics can be used for functional purposes across different brand touchpoints from marketing to environment to products and interfaces.

The shapes and forms are inspired by the characteristics from the font Mabry. The icons are drawn by Robin Snasen.

Download

Usage

Our icons are for clarifying messages and communications. Do not use it as a decorative element, but use it in the right context.   For more examples see here.

Colours

The icons should only be used in two different versions when it comes to colour.

Please don’t

Tone of voice

Our tone of voice

Signicat’s tone of voice provides a set of principles to define quality writing across all touchpoints so our brand personality shines through to our audience. These guidelines are designed to work as a common ground that unites departments, countries, and languages towards a common tone of voice. We want to build trusted connections with our audience and how we write is a key part in achieving that.

So what’s the difference between voice and tone? Our voice stays the same all the time. It doesn't change much from day to day, it’s our official personality, but our tone changes. We adjust the tone based on who we are talking to and the situation they are in. It's about understanding who you're talking to. In other words, the voice is our personality, tone is our mood and volume.

Remember that most of our audience speak English as a second language (ESL)!

Our voice

Our voice is based on our brand personality; Trustworthy, friendly and smart, with an energetic and bold attitude. We should sound like a friendly colleague or friend that is helpful and understanding but with an energetic attitude. Whether we write for a developer or CEOs, the Signicat voice should always follow these guidelines:

1. We are friendly and helpful

We are always welcoming and we care about our customers and their needs. We put ourselves in our customers' shoes and understand their needs, eager to help. We educate and guide our customers along the way, always by their side as the helpful colleague. We are collegial and down-to-earth. We are friendly, warm and caring.

2. We are smart

We use our smartness to simplify and make the complex accessible and understandable. We do our best to make the complicated stuff seem easy. We are clear, uncomplicated and easy to understand. We are knowledgeable, without being arrogant.

3. We are human

We are humans, talking to other humans. Therefore we show emotions and personality. We are warm, caring and natural in a genuine honest way. Casual and informal. Whether you are a CEO or a developer we approach you as a person, not a target group.

4. We have a bold, energetic attitude

We are direct and put nothing in between. We say it as it is. Straightforward and honest. We have energy, drive to push things with an optimistic approach. We are bold and do things differently and have confidence in ourselves. We have passion.

5. We are trustworthy

We don’t strive to be trustworthy, all we do and say should be trustworthy. When our tone of voice is consistent across all touchpoints and we are truly honest, we are trustworthy.

Layout

Grid system

The grid is the foundation for positioning elements. And for Signicat we always use a square grid.

Creating a grid

 We’ve created a grid system with 12 columns that fits various formats:   With: 27 squares,  2 x square margin top, bottom and sides , 12 columns.

Smaller formats

In a smaller format with more information it might be necessary to make the margin only one square box. We’ve used this for PPT, video covers.

Using the grid

Setting text

Whether a short document or long report we try to keep it to maximum 2/3 of the side. (8 columns) in order to achieve good readability. More in depth of setting typography in detail see here.

Logo placement

Logo is always placed in two columns or more and in some situations with web address in the same column. More on logo placement here.

Background colour  system

We use colourd backgrounds either in white or with full colour, or divided in two vertically.

The colours we use 

We use only primary colours for backgrounds. Green is only for the main brand level, well for the really important stuff.

Examples

Photography

Photography usage

The brand identity for Signicat is stripped from photography. Text, illustration and graphic elements are at the core of the brand. But in some cases there might be a need for photography. These cases are mainly: 

- Employee images 

- Blog and article images

Blog and articles

Avoid classical stock images with happy smiling glossy people with their heads down in a mobile or device. We also want to avoid images of technology, city landscapes or computers. No cold office environment, but people in real daily situations. Use humans, natural, in natural settings where they use Signicat’s services.

Sources to find photography can be:  https://www.gettyimages.no/ https://www.johner.no/

Employees

Employee images shall be natural, human, warm, with a blurred, but light background.

Motion

Principles

For motion we’ve started on a set of principles to be further explored with motion. These principles explore the foundation of the brand's concept trusted connections through the circle and the square.

Digital

UX elements

The Signicat UX team have built out a design guide and component library based on the Signicat brand, which must be used when creating new Signicat UIs.

For more information and access, reach out to Berit Fuglem (@Berit on Slack or berit.fuglem@signicat.com)