Southern Tide Media Sample guidelines

This is a sample with illustrative content. Pelican Point Outfitters is a fictional business and every mark, color, rule and file listed below is invented to show the format of the document — any resemblance to a real company is coincidence. It shows what you receive and what it commits us to. It is not a case study and it is not evidence of a result: if you are comparing suppliers, ask each of them separately to show the work applied in the wild, and apply that test to us too.

Brand Guidelines & Handover

Prepared for: Pelican Point Outfitters (fictional example) · identity system · v1.0, September 2026 · 28 pages

What a real guidelines document covers

01–03Positioning, voice and the one-line story

04–07The mark: lockups, clear space, minimum sizes

08–11Color, with values for every reproduction method

12–15Typography and the type scale

16–19Photography and illustration direction

20–24Applications: sign, vehicle, apparel, packaging, digital

25–26Usage rules and misuse

27–28Files, licenses and ownership

Pages 4–7 and 25–28 are reproduced below. The point of the document is not that it is pretty — it is that a sign shop, a printer and a new hire can all open it in two years and get the same answer without calling us.

The mark

Pages 4–6 · every lockup exists for a reason, and the reason is written down

Pelican Point
Outfitters

Primary lockup Default for signage, print and anywhere the name is being introduced. Horizontal because the shop’s largest surface is a road sign read at 45mph.

Stacked mark For square spaces — profile pictures, app icons, the stamp on a hull. Legible at 32px, which the full lockup is not.

Pelican Point

One color Embroidery, engraving, hot foil and anything reproduced by someone you have never met. Chosen so the shop never pays for a re-run.

Clear space and minimum size

Page 7 · the rule that survives contact with other people’s layouts

Pelican Point Outfitters

Clear space on all four sides equals the height of the P. Minimum reproduction width is 28mm in print and 120px on screen; below that, the one-color mark replaces the lockup. Rules like this are the difference between a brand that still looks like itself in two years and one that has quietly become five slightly different logos.

Color

Pages 8–11 · specified for every space it will be reproduced in

Deep Marsh HEX 1B3A4B
CMYK 88 62 44 30
PMS 5405 C

Sandbar HEX E8DCC8
CMYK 8 11 24 0
PMS 7527 C

Signal Orange HEX D4581F
CMYK 8 76 100 1
PMS 1595 C

Hull White HEX F7F5F0
CMYK 2 2 4 0

Handing over hex values alone is where brand drift starts: the website ends up one color, the shirt another and the sign a third, and nobody can say which one is right. Signal Orange is restricted to calls to action and safety-critical items — it is the only color on a rental board that has to be seen from the water, so it does not get spent on decoration.

Typography

Pages 12–15 · a scale, not a font list

Role	Specification	Sample
Display	Anton · 44/46 · uppercase	RENT A BOARD
Heading	Anton · 24/28	Guided tours
Body	Source Sans 3 · 16/26	Everything you need for the water.
Caption	Source Sans 3 · 12/18 · +0.05em	Est. 2004 · Murrells Inlet

Roles and sizes, so a new hire making a flyer gets it right without asking. Both faces here carry open licenses, which is a deliberate choice: it means the shop can embed them in a website, an app or a print job without a separate bill or a license audit. Where a project genuinely needs a commercial typeface, we say what it costs before we design with it — see the handover section.

Applications

Pages 20–24 · the surfaces the identity actually has to survive

Road sign

SignageReversed on Deep Marsh, one-color, no tagline — read at speed.

Hull decal

FleetStacked mark, 180mm, both sides. Survives sun and abrasion.

Shirt

ApparelOne-color, left chest, 70mm. Embroidery file supplied.

Digital

Web & socialStacked mark for avatars; primary lockup in the site header.

Usage rules

Pages 25–26 · the part that keeps it consistent after we leave

DoKeep clear space on all four sides equal to the height of the P.
Don’tRecolour the mark outside the four palette values — including over photography.
DoUse the one-color mark below 24px, and on anything embroidered or engraved.
Don’tStretch, rotate, outline or add a shadow to any lockup.
DoPut the mark on Sandbar or Hull White by default; reverse it out of Deep Marsh where contrast demands it.
Don’tRebuild the lockup by typing the name — the spacing is drawn, not typed. Use the supplied file.

Files, licenses and ownership

Pages 27–28 · the section almost nobody publishes

What	You receive	What it means in practice	Status
Copyright in the marks	Assigned to you in writing	Paying for design does not by itself transfer copyright. A “work made for hire” clause is generally not enough on its own for a logo — under U.S. Copyright Office guidance, a commissioned work only qualifies if it falls inside one of nine listed categories, and a logo is not one of them. Ours is paired with a present-tense assignment, which is the construction that works	Yours
Editable source files	Layered master artwork	The working files, not just exports — so any designer after us can pick it up. Handed over at the end of the engagement whether or not you stay with us	Yours
Production formats	Vector for print and screen, flat web-ready files, embroidery file	Everything a printer, sign shop or embroiderer will ask for, so you are never paying someone to recreate the mark	Yours
Guidelines document	This PDF, plus the editable original	Yours to update. If you take the brand in-house, your team can maintain the document rather than being locked out of it	Yours
Typefaces	Open-license faces used here	Fonts are licensed, never owned, and the obligation travels with the logo to you. A desktop license does not automatically cover embedding in a website, an app or broadcast. We list every face, its license and its limits — and default to open licenses so this never becomes a bill	Licensed
Stock icons and photography	Licensed, with terms listed	Stock inside a brand kit is licensed too, often non-transferably and usually capped by units or impressions. You inherit the cap along with the asset. We list what is licensed, under what terms, and what an extension costs before you exceed it	Check terms
Trademark registration	Not included	Owning the artwork is not owning a registered mark. Clearance searching and registration are separate legal work and we are not attorneys. Most identity packages exclude this silently; we would rather say it out loud and work alongside your attorney on clearance before we design around a name	Not included

The last two rows are the ones to read twice, and they are the reason this section exists. In our August 2026 review of ten top-ranking content and branding provider pages, exactly one stated who owns the work — and it was a $599 design marketplace, not an agency. Nine of ten never say whether you get the editable source files at all. Font licensing, stock licensing and the trademark distinction were effectively unaddressed across the entire set.

Five things to check in anyone’s branding contract

Assignment, not just “work for hire.” Look for present-tense language assigning rights to you, signed by the designer.
Source files named as a deliverable. Delivery of editable files is a contract term, not an automatic right — cheaper packages routinely ship exports only.
Fonts listed with their license tier. Ask which foundry, which license, and whether it covers web and app embedding.
Stock assets listed with their caps. Standard commercial licenses are usually limited by volume; the cap comes with the file.
Trademark treated separately. If a package implies registration is included, ask exactly what is being filed and by whom.

Every identity engagement ends with a document like this and the handover in writing. Identity and brand systems are quoted per project after discovery, with the concept and revision counts in the quote before you sign; production and campaign creative run at $95/hour, estimated and approved first. Ongoing creative is month-to-month with 30 days’ notice after any initial term.

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