Real Estate & PropTech
Mark Spain Real Estate, documented as one brand system.
Mark Spain Real Estate asked me to overhaul their brand and design guidelines. I set a new standard and documented it in a thirty-four page guidelines document covering voice, the logo system, color, type and imagery.
Selected pages, in the order the document runs.
The document
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Cover. The title page for the 2025 edition of the kit.
The opening page identifies the document, the year and the version it belongs to, and states the license under which the kit was issued to the team.
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Why we exist. The purpose statement that opens the document.
I gave the purpose statement a page of its own, placed at the front of the document ahead of any verbal or visual rule.
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Table of contents. The document's structure, section by section.
The contents page sets out how the document is organized and the order its sections run in.
Brand overview
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Promise and positioning. What the company promises and where it sits in its market.
Two statements share a single page, the promise made to clients and the position the company claims against its competitors.
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Core values. The five core values and how each is defined.
I gave each of the <b>five</b> values a name, an icon and a one sentence definition, which fixes the wording teams use whenever they refer to them.
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Section dividers. The repeating format that opens each section.
I designed one divider format and reused it at the head of all <b>four</b> sections, so the document's chapters are marked the same way throughout.
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Our mission. The mission statement and how it is presented.
I gave the mission statement a full page, establishing how a statement of this weight is set and how photography and the lockup support it.
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Our vision. The vision statement, as a companion to the mission.
The vision statement follows the mission on the opposite treatment, so the two read as a pair without either page repeating the other.
Voice and messaging
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Voice pillars. The pillars that define how the brand speaks.
<b>Five</b> pillars define the brand's tone, each paired with the messaging goal it serves and a written example of that pillar in use.
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Do's and don'ts. Worked examples of the voice, accepted and rejected.
I wrote out each voice pillar as copy with an accepted and a rejected version, so the distinction is demonstrated rather than described.
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Messaging guidelines. The approved taglines and the elevator pitch.
I sorted the approved lines by where they may be used, separating the taglines reserved for high visibility surfaces from supporting copy and the standard pitch.
Visual identity
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Color palette. The brand palette and its supporting neutrals.
I documented the palette with its print and screen values, anchored on the brand crimson and extended into the reds and neutrals that support it.
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Clear space. The space that has to be kept around every lockup.
I defined clear space as a proportion of the mark itself rather than a fixed measurement, so the rule holds at any reproduction size.
Logo system
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Primary logo. The default lockup and the rules for using it.
I documented the primary stacked logo in its default and inverse styles, with its minimum size, its placement rules and the treatments that are prohibited.
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Horizontal logo. The horizontal lockup and where it is used.
I scoped the horizontal lockup to the surfaces the stacked logo does not fit, with its own minimum size and its color values fixed.
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Logo backgrounds. Which grounds the lockup is cleared to sit on.
The page sets out the approved backgrounds for the mark, covering brand colors, neutrals and photography, and shows which version of the lockup belongs on each, so the logo is never chosen by eye.
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Color applications. How the lockups are colored for two color printing.
I drew every lockup in the color combinations approved for a two color press run, covering both the light and the dark ground.
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Logo don'ts. The alterations the mark will not survive.
A page of worked counter-examples, each showing a change to the lockup that the system does not permit, so a reviewer can name what is wrong rather than only sense it.
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Minimum sizing. The smallest each lockup may be reproduced.
I set a floor for every lockup in both print and screen measurements, so the mark is never reproduced below the size its detail survives.
Color and typography
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Color usage. How the palette divides across a layout.
The page moves from the palette itself to the palette in use, giving each color a job in a composition and showing the proportions the brand holds to when several appear together.
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Primary typeface. The primary typeface and the weights licensed for it.
I documented the primary typeface across <b>six</b> licensed weights, with notes on where it is already available to the team and how to install it everywhere else.
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Secondary typeface. The secondary typeface and what it is reserved for.
I held the secondary serif to a small number of styles and scoped it to long form reading and editorial moments, which keeps it from competing with the primary face.
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Type hierarchy. The ladder from headline to caption.
The page names each level of text in the system and shows them together at one scale, so a layout's reading order is set by the hierarchy rather than negotiated piece by piece.
Layout and iconography
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Shape and layout. The geometry the compositions are built from.
The page documents the shape language and the layout structure behind the brand's pages and screens, covering margins, alignment and the recurring forms that carry imagery and type.
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Iconography. How icons are drawn and sized across the system.
I specified the icon set rather than leaving it to be matched by eye, tying stroke weight to the size each icon is drawn at.
Imagery
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Lifestyle imagery. The direction for lifestyle photography.
I wrote a direction for lifestyle photography covering the moments to capture, the light to shoot in and how the brand color is allowed to appear in frame.
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Lifestyle do's and don'ts. The lifestyle direction tested against real frames.
I applied the direction to real photographs and sorted them into accepted and rejected, including the licensing problems that rule an otherwise usable frame out.
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Founder imagery. The direction for photographing the founder.
I specified photography of the founder separately, covering camera angle, background and the space a layout needs left clear for a headline.
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Headshot rules. The standard for portraits used in marketing.
I held headshots to a consistent pose and lighting setup, with the treatments that keep copy legible wherever it has to sit over the photograph.
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Property imagery. The direction for photographing listings.
I split property photography into <b>four</b> categories, each with its own brief covering what belongs in frame and what has to be cleared out of it.
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Property do's and don'ts. The property direction tested against real frames.
I named the rejected frames specifically, since these are the shots a listing photographer supplies by default unless they are briefed otherwise.
Applications and execution
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Digital media. The formats social and video assets are built to.
I specified digital assets by ratio, each tied to the surface it runs on and paired with an approved headline and a direct call to action.
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Listing signage. The system outdoors, at a distance.
The page carries the identity onto yard signs and riders, where the mark has to read from a passing car and the information has to survive weather, scale and the short moment a viewer gives it.
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Applications divider. The opening page for the fourth section.
The divider that opens the applications section, carrying the section number and name in the same treatment used at the head of every other part of the document.
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Email signature. The brand in a daily internal artifact.
The page applies the system to the signature block every agent sends many times a day, resolving the order of name, title and contact details and how the mark sits alongside them.
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Stationery. Business cards and printed correspondence.
The page covers the printed pieces an agent hands over in person, setting how the lockup, the type and the contact details are arranged on each and what stock and finish the brand specifies.
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Buttons and forms. The identity carried into interface parts.
The page takes the brand into product surfaces, documenting the button and form elements the brand's digital work is assembled from so a web page and an app read as one brand.
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Vertical formats. The nine by sixteen frame for social.
The page works the system into the vertical frame that stories and reels are made in, setting where the mark, the headline and the property detail sit when the whole composition is taller than it is wide.
