Brand guidelines
How Bexley Capital looks, sounds and behaves, at the Fund and in Operations. For everyone who represents us with investors, cities, governors and residents.
“Most people want kind people to succeed. Nobody wants jerks to succeed.”
Bexley Capital is a group of people who are kind and who support the markets where we invest. Kindness is the first brand rule. It comes before color, type and logo.
Assume good intent
Investors, residents, city staff, vendors and competitors. We describe facts, never faults.
Give credit, say thank you
Name the partners, contractors and city teams who helped. Every request ends with thanks.
Remind each other
If a draft sounds harsh, say so gently and offer a kinder version. Our AI tools are told to do the same.
One mark, four arrangements
The letters of “Bexley” are cut out of the box, so the background shows through. The original designer files are the master. Every variant below is drawn from the same vector.
Clear space and minimum size
Keep empty space around the logo at least the height of the “B” in Bexley. Nothing enters that zone: no text, no edge of the page, no other logo.
| Variant | Screen | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary | 1.0 in | 96 px |
| Horizontal | 1.25 in | 120 px |
| Monogram | 0.25 in | 16 px |
Never
Stretch or squash
Recolor, even in grey
Rotate or tilt
Retype it in a font
Black, white and shades of black
No blue, no gold, no accent of any kind. Every value is neutral: red, green and blue are equal. If a color has a hue, it is not ours.
Logo only
Text, dark surfaces
Secondary text
Captions, footers
Chart series
Chart series, borders
Dividers, banding
Quiet panels
Page
Links are ink and underlined, never blue. Status is shown with words or symbols (● ○ ✓), never red, amber or green. In email, set the link color to #111111 explicitly. The only color allowed anywhere is inside a documentary photograph.
AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz 0123456789 $%
| Where | Font | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Google Docs, Slides, web, PDFs | EB Garamond | Free, built into Google Workspace |
| Gmail | Garamond | The Garamond in Gmail’s font menu |
| Print: cards, letterhead, invitations | Adobe Garamond Pro | Finest print cut, via Adobe Fonts |
Labels echo the “CAPITAL” line of the logo: small, uppercase, widely spaced. Use them for section names and table headers, never for sentences. Never use a sans-serif, anywhere.
A calm, trusted advisor
Our readers are senior and busy. Plain English, short sentences, quiet confidence. Say what we need in the first two sentences, then thank them.
Per my last email, we still haven’t received the documents.
Thank you for your help so far. Could you send the remaining documents by Friday? It would let us close on time.
The previous owners let the building fall apart.
The building needed care. Our first step was to fix the heating and the entrances.
We’re going to crush the Midwest market!
We want to be a good long-term neighbor in the cities where we invest.
Do
- Specific facts with sources
- “Residents” and “homes”
- “The Honorable [Name], Governor of [State]”
- Sign off “With gratitude,” or “Kind regards,”
Don’t
- “Best-in-class”, “unparalleled”, “game-changing”
- Emojis or exclamation marks at Fund level
- War and sports metaphors
- Criticism of any firm, city or person
Not decided yet. Drafts for the founder to review, not for external use: “Capital with care.” · “Kind capital. Lasting places.” · “We invest where we belong.” · “Patient capital for places people call home.” Until then, documents use the visible placeholders [TODO: tagline] and [TODO: fund name].
Two kinds of photographs
Mood photographs set the feeling and share one quiet tone. Documentary photographs show the truth in full color. Never mix the two treatments.
Mood: the Bexley Grade
Covers · website · invitations · social
- About a quarter of the original color, one warm-neutral tone
- Lifted blacks, soft highlights, fine grain
- Architecture, buildings, interiors and interior details
- People only in a calm business setting
- Apply the Bexley Grade preset (LUT) at full strength
- No stock clichés: handshakes, skylines, stacks of money
- No HDR, no heavy vignettes, no drone shots for their own sake
Documentary: true color
Before and after · presentations · listings
- Only exposure, white balance and lens corrections
- Never hide damage, never add what is not there
- Virtual staging only when labeled “Virtually staged”
- Before and after pairs: same angle, same lens, same crop, similar light
- Tags like BEFORE and AFTER in black and white, as above
- Color stays inside the photo. Frames, tags and captions stay black and white
Sample photographs from the public-domain Unsplash archive (CC0). They are not Bexley properties. Replace them with Bexley’s own photographs. TODOConfirm the grade on real Bexley photos.
Highlight one thing in ink
The series that matters is ink, everything else is grey. Label lines directly. Every chart has a takeaway title, a source and a date.
Occupancy rose to 96% within a year of renovation
Templates, ready to use
All names, numbers and addresses in the templates are fictional. Replace them before use.
bexley-capital.com
Waiting for a decision
These items are marked TODO everywhere in the brand. Nobody uses them as final until the founder approves them.
| TODOTagline | Four drafts in Voice, founder to decide |
| TODOFund name | Name of the next $350M fund |
| TODOCompany description | One-sentence draft, needs approval |
| TODOContact details | Legal entity name, office address, main phone |
| TODOLogo for email signatures | Host the signature logo at a public address |
| TODOBexley Grade | Test on real Bexley photos and confirm |
| TODOAdobe Garamond Pro | Confirm Adobe Fonts access for whoever prepares print files |
| TODOPrinter and merchandise | Deferred |