Brand Guidelines

Version 1.0

Updated August 2023

Introduction

Syntax’s brand identity is a unified system comprising core elements such as brandmark, typography, and color, as well as extended expressions including supporting graphic elements and photography. This wide range of tools is designed to be flexible and expandable. To effectively define the Syntax brand, these core elements must be aligned across every touchpoint.

This document includes everything needed to communicate Syntax’s identity and vision. It serves as a toolbox filled with visual and verbal components and rules to uphold consistent application through a range of expressions.

Index

1.0 Brand Strategy

1.1 Overview

1.2 Positioning Statement

1.3 Personality Attributes

1.4 Target Audience

1.5 Shared Value Proposition

2.0 Verbal Identity

2.1 Overview

2.2 One Liner

2.3 Opening Paragraph

2.4 Core Message

2.5 Key Messages

2.6 Sample Headlines

3.0 Brandmark

3.1 Primary Brandmark

3.2 Symbol

3.3 Exclusion Zone & Minimum Size

3.4 Brandmark Misuse

3.5 Product Endorsements

4.0 Typography

4.1 Primary Typeface

4.2 Secondary Typeface

4.3 Typographic Hierarchy

5.0 Color Palette

5.1 Primary Color Palette

5.2 Brandmark Color Usage

5.3 Secondary Color Palette

5.4 Tints & Shades

5.5 Color Palette Usage

5.6 When to Use Each Palette

6.0 Supporting Elements 

6.1 Brand Photography

6.2 Photography Misuse

6.3 Laser Graphic

6.4 Laser Graphic Usage

6.5 Iconography

7.0 Sample Applications

7.1 Print Collateral

7.2 Digital Collateral

7.3 Social Media

7.4 Environmental Graphics

8.0 Inquiries & Assets

8.1 Inquiries

8.2 All Brand Assets

1.0 Brand Strategy

1.1

Overview

Our brand strategy includes a set of strategic components that capture the essence of who we are. Every touchpoint of our brand should be anchored by our foundational Brand Strategy. Distilled down into compact words, phrases, and personas, these elements help us stay focused and grounded and serve to define our ideal reputation.

1.2

Positioning Statement

Our positioning statement is an internal-facing, external-inspiring statement that clearly articulates who we are, what we do, how we are different, and how we want to be known — ultimately helping to amplify our brand in a noisy landscape. 

This statement aligns internal teams, marketing, and brand partners in all communication efforts to support a cohesive, standout brand identity at every communication touchpoint. 

Syntax illuminates data to reveal breakthrough insights.

Illuminating data: 

Shining a light on the depth and granularity of company information that doesn’t exist elsewhere, and we do this through many different data lenses.

Reveal breakthrough insights: 

Enlightening and communicating knowledge, leading to truly transformational outcomes, significant advancement, and lasting impact.

1.3

Personality Attributes

Brand personality defines our voice and distinctive character. It reflects how we show up and addresses the following questions: 

What do we want people to think about how we sound, look, and act? How is our personality different from any other brand in our industry? 

While each attribute offers its own distinct value, it’s the combination of these traits that makes a brand truly ownable — and each can be dialed up or down, depending on audience, channel, and context.

Precise

Through coordinate-based artificial intelligence, we identify the parts and processes each business performs relative to the interrelated global supply chain.

Ambitious

With courage and confidence, we challenge the status quo. With energy and drive, we’re always making progress toward our goals.

Inquisitive

Curious by nature, we are lifelong learners and always looking for deeper understanding and clarity (and the know-how to find it).

Evolving

Continually developing, we are a force of change and take on new challenges with energy and enthusiasm.

Dynamic

Though static by purpose, our information system makes the organization of dynamic, complex datasets efficient.

1.4

Target Audience

Our target audience persona is representative of people and organizations that have similar mindsets. This helps us to deeply empathize with and understand our audience’s functional and emotional needs — allowing us to create a brand that delivers value to the people who matter most.

For each of our target audience segments, trust in growth is paramount, yet we earn their trust in different ways.

Core Clients

This segment includes those in the business of developing, managing, or monitoring investments — from banks, to asset managers, wealth advisors, and hedge funds. They are the ‘gatekeepers’ of their organization, in charge of their data systems and processes. Conservative by nature with constrained resources, they require a lot of guidance and rapport-building before recognizing the value of what we can offer, and how it enhances their current systems. For those who don’t yet know us, we need to take a consultative approach to serve them well.

Functional needs

• Data output and data management for benchmarks, indices, and ETFs

• Custom lenses to gain unique insights from data

• Speed in response for requests

Emotional needs

• Confidence and reliability in the information

• To be put at ease (we’re an additional resource, not a replacement)

• In-the-know with resources delivered proactively

Value Proposition

Getting to deeper data to make better decisions with their investment portfolios

Industry Partners

This segment includes our industry partners, exchanges, and index providers that offer similar services but without the depth of our offering. They are both our clients and our competition. We’re in the unique position to serve them with raw data or deeper insights that enhance their own capabilities. With us as an initial universe provider, we enable them to create and benchmark indices of their own.

Functional needs

• Comprehensive, raw data to be manipulated for their own use

• Data points that are inaccessible on their own platforms

• Ease of integration with their data systems

Emotional needs

• Control and ownership

• Confidence and reliability

Value Proposition

Enhancing their own data with ours, to create new benchmarks

Reputation Builders

Beyond our clients and industry partners, individuals within this group are potentially our biggest advocates and builders of our reputation. Coming from institutions in education or government, or regulatory bodies, or journalists and reporters, our platforms provide them with an accessible body of knowledge that is comprehensively classified. Especially for journalists, our data enables unique storytelling across an endless number of topics. It makes their work exponentially more seamless and credible, and they feel the desire to spread the word, regarding our value to others.

Functional needs

• Accessible information on companies, economic data, and economic trends

• Regulatory investigation

• Insights leading to stories and reporting

• Education

Emotional needs

• Ease of finding information

• Giving them time back in their lives — they can see trends and won’t have to do the work of finding individual company information

Value Proposition

A single resource to gain insight that advances their knowledge

Current & Future Talent

The talent we have, and the talent we’ll recruit, are our biggest brand ambassadors. They represent the brand through all of their touchpoints with each other, clients, industry partners, and their broader network. They choose to work here because of their desire to do things differently, to disrupt the status quo. They are naturally inquisitive and have an insatiable desire to work together on complex challenges. Our culture values their contributions and enables them to continually learn and develop. We’re supportive and grateful for their unique perspectives.

Functional needs

• The tools to do their job effectively

• Guidelines for how to communicate the brand’s values

Emotional needs

• Curiosity, a desire to always be learning and growing

• Support and teamwork

• Purpose in their contributions

Value Proposition

Working together toward one mission at a company that does things differently

1.5

Shared Value Proposition

Our value proposition identifies our audience’s deepest need and the promise we make to satisfy them. This statement gives us guidance on what we have to deliver in order to build a loyal following for our brand.

To create meaningful impact through better data and actionable insights.

2.0 Verbal Identity

2.1

Overview

Our verbal identity works with our visual identity to express a unique and well-rounded whole. These verbal tools help us write and speak on-brand and clearly communicate our value. This section provides the tools and applications needed to express who we are, what we do, and why what we do matters in a clear, compelling, and consistent manner.

2.2

One Liner

This is a quick descriptor we all can use to introduce who we are and why we stand apart. It should touch on high-level information without getting into detail, empower us in a conversation, and encourage a deeper discussion. It makes sense for us to divide these, again, by audience. 

Syntax codifies business models. 

2.3

Opening Paragraph

This is how we introduce our brand to the world in one succinct paragraph. It is meant to serve as a starting point that can be shifted and built on to apply to specific audiences and contexts.

Syntax provides data sets that enable investors to make better decisions. By codifying business models, our patented framework helps clients identify, classify, and analyze financial products better than ever before.

2.4

Core Message

Similar to a campaign slogan or tagline, this is a prominently used headline that describes what’s valuable about our company as a whole, rather than a single product or idea.

Illuminating insights 

2.5

Key Messages

Since our opening paragraph can’t do all the heavy lifting, our key messages allow us to expand on important aspects of the brand.  

Illuminating insights

By codifying business models and systemizing financial data, Syntax illuminates insights. As a result, partners can act or invest with a richer understanding of a particular business landscape, global supply chain inter-relationships, wider sector trends, and greater economic inputs. Syntax provides data sets that enable investors to make better decisions.

The Power of Affinity 

Syntax’s Affinity Platform has established itself as the financial industry’s most precise company classification system. This unmatched level of granularity means investors can search, find, and build portfolios from the product line-up with consideration of their intended level of exposure. 

Using systems economics, Affinity demystifies the ability to make custom taxonomies on the fly, a practice limited by current traditional and competitive research. Syntax has transformed securities research and portfolio construction from a craft to a science.

Depth & Granularity 

Syntax’s focus on data granularity uncovers business insights that drive action and produce results. Employing its proprietary Functional Information System (FIS®), index managers can enhance research with an advanced systems-based approach that identifies risk, uncovers opportunities, and reveals illuminating insights. 

Leveraging coordinate-based AI for the global inter-related supply chain, Syntax delivers systemized financial data with depth and granularity for more enlightened business model views.

Unifying & Comprehensive

Using both human and AI data input, Syntax powers its Functional Information System (FIS®) with more robust and more quality data, from verified data sources.

With data that covers more themes and more industries, Syntax unifies a variety of economic data sets so investors gain the insights that empower more informed action.

2.6

Sample Headlines

The quickest, most effective way to bring our brand voice and personality to life is through a headline. Typically the largest, most prominent message on a page, headlines summarize what comes next and draw the reader in.

Core Clients

Data without structure is just numbers. 

More accurate data equals more effective action. 

Sharper decisions made from more informed data. 

Quality plus quantity yields granularity. 

Draw more accurate predictions from better points of view.  

Industry Partners 

Do more with your data. 

Transforming information into insights.

Breaking down data for more breakthroughs. 

Organizing financial data for a pinpoint business focus.

See new perspectives on more perspectives.

Reputation-Builders 

Don’t get lost in data, find new directions.

Organized to be specialized.

Getting granular for bigger pictures.

Sweating details so others don’t.

Current & Future Talent 

Be where an industry will go. 

Learn the language of data. 

Find your strength in our numbers. 

Shape FinTech forever. 

Financial analysis has evolved. Will you? 

3.0 Brandmark

3.1

Primary Brandmark

Our identity system contains a Brandmark with two distinct parts — the Symbol and the Wordmark. Use this Brandmark on communication pieces where we need to introduce our brand and explain who we are. The Brandmark is also useful when a moniker is needed without an opportunity for copy.

3.2

Symbol

Our symbol works well as a shorthand for our brandmark. It can be used when there is limited space available or where context already exists for our visual brand identity.

3.3

Exclusion Zone & Minimum Size

The exclusion zone ensures the legibility and impact of the Brandmark by isolating it from competing visual elements, such as text and supporting graphics. This zone should be considered the absolute minimum safe distance; in most cases, the Brandmark should be given even more room to breathe.

The Brandmark should not be sized smaller than what is specified here.

3.4

Brandmark Misuse

The examples shown here illustrate incorrect uses of the Brandmark.

A. Do not alter the size relationship.

B. Do not stretch or manipulate.

C. Do not outline.

D. Do not alter the space between the letters.

E. Do not add drop shadows or other effects.

F. Do not use imagery or texture as a fill.

G. Do not use unapproved colors.

H. Do not apply gradients.

I. Do not use inadequate contrast over imagery.

3.5

Product Endorsements

Syntax has an ever-growing set of product offerings, and in order to communicate them clearly, two types of endorsements are available for use. They are displayed below, along with their recommended usage.

Type 1

When the Syntax parent brand identity is not present.

For use with:

• Printed Collateral

• Trade Show Graphics

• Advertisements

• Website

• Desktop/iPad App

• Presentations

• etc.

Type 2

When the Syntax parent brand identity is already present.

For use with:

• Printed Collateral

• Trade Show Graphics

• Advertisements

• Website

• Desktop/iPad App

• Presentations

• etc.

4.0 Typography

4.1

Primary Typeface

Syntax’s primary typeface is Saans, which is available in 6 weights: Light. Regular, Medium, Semibold, Bold, and Heavy.

Saans

4.2

Secondary Typeface

Syntax’s secondary typeface is Reckless, which is available in 6 weights: Light. Regular, Medium, Semibold, Bold, and Heavy.

Reckless

4.3

Typographic Hierarchy

Our identity follows a strict system that uses typography — the size, font, and layout of different pieces of text — to create a hierarchical division that can show users where to look for specific kinds of information. It is important to follow this system in order to establish order in a set of data.

By creating different sizes, shapes, and blocks of text, designers can direct the user’s eye to the information that an audience needs the most, or otherwise categorize that information visually for the audience. The following examples demonstrate our typographic hierarchy system.

Headline / Title

Typeface: Saans Light

Size: large to extra large

Leading: 85% of size

Tracking: 0 to -10

Case: Titlecase

5.0 Color Palette

5.1

Primary Color Palette

Syntax’s brand colors serve as a foundational palette that works universally across all media. These colors will anchor and balance the brand visually.

5.2

Brandmark Color Usage

The examples shown here illustrate correct use of color applied to the Brandmark. Do not use any combinations that are not shown here. Refer to the Sample Applications section for usage examples.

Color fill choices should be made

on the basis of context and contrast. Whatever color fill you apply to the logo should provide 60% contrast

or better against the background. 

Note: Avoid using the Laser Green brandmark on white backgrounds unless the final size is large or legibility is not important.

5.3

Secondary Color Palette

A Secondary Palette is available for use in specific situations, such as to differentiate information in charts or graphs and for graphical objects that serve a utility. Refer to the When to Use Each Palette subsection for details.   

5.4

Tints & Shades

Tints and shades are also available for use in specific situations, such as to differentiate information in charts or graphs and for graphical objects that serve a utility. Refer to the When to Use Each Palette subsection for details.   

Laser Green 01

#dcfbe6

Laser Green 02

#b9f6ce

Laser Green 03

#97f2b5

Laser Green 04

#74ee9c

Laser Green 05

#51e984

Laser Green 06

#2ee56b

Laser Green 07

#26bf59

Laser Green 08

#1f9947

Laser Green 09

#177336

Laser Green 10

#0f4c24

Laser Green 11

#082612

Laser Purple 01

#e2daf1

Laser Purple 02

#c5b5e3

Laser Purple 03

#a790d5

Laser Purple 04

#8a6bc7

Laser Purple 05

#6d46b9

Laser Purple 06

#5021ab

Laser Purple 07

#431b8f

Laser Purple 08

#351672

Laser Purple 09

#281056

Laser Purple 10

#1b0b39

Laser Purple 11

#0d051d

Laser Blue 01

#d8e4f6

Laser Blue 02

#b1caed

Laser Blue 03

#89afe5

Laser Blue 04

#6295dc

Laser Blue 05

#3b7bd3

Laser Blue 06

#1460ca

Laser Blue 07

#1150a8

Laser Blue 08

#0d4087

Laser Blue 09

#0a3065

Laser Blue 10

#072043

Laser Blue 11

#031022

Laser Yellow 01

#fff9d4

Laser Yellow 02

#fff3aa

Laser Yellow 03

#ffed80

Laser Yellow 04

#ffe855

Laser Yellow 05

#ffe22b

Laser Yellow 06

#ffdc00

Laser Yellow 07

#d4b700

Laser Yellow 08

#aa9300

Laser Yellow 09

#806e00

Laser Yellow 10

#554900

Laser Yellow 11

#2b2500

Laser Red 01

#F7DAD4

Laser Red 02

#F0B5AA

Laser Red 03

#E89080

Laser Red 04

#E06C55

Laser Red 05

#D9472B

Laser Red 06

#D12200

Laser Red 07

#AE1C00

Laser Red 08

#8B1700

Laser Red 09

#691100

Laser Red 10

#460B00

Laser Red 11

#230600

Neutral 01

#eaeaea

Neutral 02

#d4d4d4

Neutral 03

#bfbfbf

Neutral 04

#aaaaaa

Neutral 05

#959595

Neutral 06

#808080

Neutral 07

#6a6a6a

Neutral 08

#555555

Neutral 09

#404040

Neutral 10

#2b2b2b

Neutral 11

#151515

5.5

Color Palette Usage

The examples shown below illustrate correct use of color applied to normal text, large text, and other graphical objects or user interface components.

Normal Text passes the WCAG AA standard, and both Large Text and Graphical Objects pass the WCAG AAA standard. Refer to the official WCAG 2.1 specification for details.

Normal Text

Large Text

◊

Normal Text

Large Text

◊

Normal Text

Large Text

◊

Normal Text

Large Text

◊

Normal Text

Large Text

◊

Normal Text

Large Text

◊

5.6

When to Use Each Palette

The examples shown here can be used as general guidance for correct use of the Primary and Secondary color palettes. Refer to the Sample Applications section for usage examples.

Primary Color Palette

Public-Facing Materials

Trade Show Graphics

Printed Collateral

Advertisements

Signage

Website

Secondary Color Palette

Internal Documents

Product User Interface

Presentations

Charts/Graphs

Social Media

6.0 Supporting Elements

6.1

Brand Photography

Syntax’s Brand Photography style consists of two categories, which are demonstrated below. When choosing photography, it is essential that the images follow these categories as closely as possible and are approachable, diverse, appropriate, vibrant, and captivating. 

Note: The examples shown below are not licensed and cannot be used for commercial purposes until a license is obtained.

Insights

This category of photography features simple and personal compositions that depict our clients' ability to identify, classify, and analyze financial products better than ever before.

Perspectives

This category of photography features simple and graphic compositions that showcase different sectors from a vantage point that suggests perspective. 

6.2

Photography Misuse

The examples shown here illustrate incorrect uses of photography.

A. Don’t use portraits that feel staged.

B. Don’t use images with non-naturalistic lighting.

C. Don’t use fabricated images.

D. Don’t use images with non-naturalistic color.

E. Don’t crop faces.

F. Don’t use abstract textures as backgrounds.

6.3

Laser Graphic

Photography can be complemented by the use of monoline lasers to further push the Syntax brand and the concept of ‘Illuminating Insights.’ Lasers may use any of the colors within the Primary and Secondary Color Palette.

There should always be at least two radiating lines; however, the placement is flexible and depends on the image. The lineweight should be consistent. Refer to the Sample Applications section for usage examples.

6.4

Laser Graphic Usage

The same radiating Laser Graphic can be used in all layouts. It should be placed according to the content as shown here, where the lines do not overlap the text. Refer to the Sample Applications section for usage examples.

6.5

Iconography

Iconography is a flexible and powerful visual tool that can be employed in a variety of ways. As a general rule, icons should be used in combination with meaningful text.

Our icons are built with a 2-px stroke weight (align inside). 

Gaps should range between 2 - 4-px. 

End-caps and joins should always be squared or tapered.

Use angular cuts whenever possible and tapered points when appropriate.

Grid

Our icons are built on a 48-px grid and use basic foundational shapes. These include circle, square, and rectangles (horizontal and vertical). Sticking to these shapes in the grid will ensure consistent proportions throughout the icon set.

7.0 Sample Applications

7.1

Print Collateral

7.2

Digital Collateral

7.3

Social Media

7.4

Environmental Graphics

8.0 Inquiries & Assets

8.1

Inquiries

If you are having trouble with anything in this guide, missing brand elements from the brand package, or are unsure if your communication best represents the Syntax brand, please contact our Head of Marketing, Irene Chow.

Federica von Erb

Chief Human Resources Officer,

Syntax

212.880.0262

fvonerb@syntaxdata.com 

8.2

All Brand Assets

Find all Syntax brand assets available for download here.

Download Primary Brandmark

Download Symbol

Download Product Lockups

Download Primary Typeface

Download Secondary Typeface

Download Primary Palette

Download Secondary Palette