The short version
- A brand kit in Gradiently holds six sections: Identity, Logos, Colours, Fonts, Voice and Audience.
- The Studio and the Designer both read the brand kit, so it only needs to be set up once.
- Brand colours show first in every colour picker, and new designs start in the kit's heading and body fonts.
- The Voice section's tone words and its Always and Never lists shape how the Designer writes for you.
- Each brand in an account has its own kit, and only a workspace's owners and admins can change it.
On this page
Brand kit setup in Gradiently happens on the Brand page, and it is organised into six sections: Identity, Logos, Colours, Fonts, Voice and Audience. Fill them in once and they follow you everywhere. The Studio offers your logos, puts your colours first in every picker and starts new designs in your fonts, and the Designer reads the whole kit, voice included, before it makes anything.
If you are still deciding what should go in a kit, start with what goes in a brand kit, then come back here to set it up.
The order to set up your brand kit
- 1
Identity: name, tagline and website
Give the brand its name, social handle, a one-line tagline and a short About. Add your website and choose Read site: Gradiently fetches the site's name, description, colour and icon, and offers each one for you to use or ignore.
- 2
Logos
Drop in your logo files: PNG, JPEG, WebP, GIF or AVIF, up to 8 MB each. Mark each one as made for a dark or a light background. The first logo is the main one.
- 3
Colours
Add your brand colours by hex code or picker. Suggestions appear from your website and from your Mark. Add further palettes for campaigns or product lines.
- 4
Fonts
Choose a heading face and a body face, pick one of the ready pairings, or upload your own font files.
- 5
Voice
Choose up to five tone words, describe the voice in your own words, and list what you always and never do.
- 6
Audience
Say who the brand is for and choose its industry.
A preview beside the form shows a sample post on your brand's Mark, the way the Studio starts one, and counts how many parts are set. When everything is filled in, it tells you the kit is complete.
Logos: main, dark and light
Most brands need at least two logo files: one that reads on dark backgrounds and one that reads on light ones. Marks can be either, so having both saves you from a logo that disappears. Mark each file with the background it is made for, and make the one you use most the main logo with Make main. The Studio offers all of them in its Brand panel. Putting a logo on a gradient covers placement and contrast.
Common logo mistakes
- One full-colour logo for every background
- A screenshot of the logo with a white box around it
- Tiny files that blur when scaled up
What to upload
- A light version and a dark version
- Files with transparent backgrounds, such as PNG
- The largest clean file you have, up to 8 MB
Colours and palettes
Your first palette is your brand colours, and they show first in every colour picker in the Studio. Keep it short: a hero colour, one or two supporting colours and your darkest and lightest neutrals. Add more palettes, up to six in all with up to twelve colours each, for seasonal campaigns or product lines, so they stay organised instead of crowding the main one.
In the Studio, Apply brand kit puts brand fonts on the words and can colour the Mark in your brand colours, with a preview when you rest the pointer on it. How to choose brand colours helps if you are starting from nothing.
Fonts: heading and body
A kit holds one heading face and one body face, and new designs start with them. If you don't have brand fonts yet, the ready pairings are a good start: Warm editorial, Quiet and assured, Classic made new, Friendly modern, Loud and clear, Creative studio, Refined and Technical. Browse by serif, sans, display, script, rounded or mono. If your brand has licensed fonts, upload the files under Your own fonts and they are ready to use in the Studio. Check your font licence allows this; how to choose brand fonts covers what to look for.
Voice and audience: what the Designer reads
The Voice section is the part most people skip, and the part that most changes what the Designer writes. It has four fields, and the best entries are specific enough that two different writers would produce similar copy from them.
| Field | What to write | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Tone | Up to five words from the list | Warm, Calm, Precise |
| In your words | One or two sentences on how you sound | Plain and warm. Never shouty. |
| Always | Habits the copy should keep | Say where the coffee comes from. |
| Never | Things the copy should avoid | Use exclamation marks or slang. |
Audience asks who the brand is for, in a sentence, and its industry. Busy professionals in the city who care where their coffee comes from gives the Designer something to write towards. Brand voice goes deeper on matching words and visuals.
The kind of sample post the Brand page previews: your name, fonts and words on your Mark.
Several brands, and who can edit
One account can run several brands, each with its own Marks, kit and designs. Use Switch brand on the Brand page to move between them, or Start a new brand. The Studio and the Designer always use the kit of the brand you are working in. In a shared workspace, only owners and admins can change a brand kit; other members can see it, and their designs still use it.
Questions people ask
What does a Gradiently brand kit include?
Six sections: Identity, Logos, Colours, Fonts, Voice and Audience. The Studio and the Designer both use them.
Can Gradiently fill in my brand kit from my website?
Partly. Read site fetches your website's name, description, colour and icon, and offers each one for you to add to the kit.
Can I upload my own fonts?
Yes. Upload font files under Your own fonts on the Brand page to use them in the Studio, if your font licence allows it.
Does the Designer follow my brand voice?
Yes. The Designer reads your tone words, your own description and your Always and Never lists, and writes in that voice.
Can I have more than one brand kit?
Yes. Each brand in your account has its own kit, Marks and designs, and you can switch between them on the Brand page.
Written by Gradiently
The team behind Gradiently, a design tool built around Marks: living gradients that make everything you design look like yours.
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