Elements of Your Colophon: Colors, Fonts, and Logo

Caveats

1. I’m a high school journalism student and former engineer. Much of what’s presented here I’ve picked up here and there and may NOT reflect conversations you have had or will have with marketing or design professionals.

2. Do what works for you. All I’m presenting here is my way and some things I’ve heard and dismissed along the way.

What is a Colophon and why create one?

• Colophon: an inscription at the end of a book or manuscript usually with facts about its production via Merriam-Webster

• For me the colophon describes the colors, fonts, and icons I use for as much of my content creation for my business as possible.

  • Includes social media, homework, and business documents (like policies and procedures.)

  • It’s the constant visual aspects of your style guide.

• I created one because I didn’t want to have to really fuss with all the elements of design every time I created something new.

• By being consistent in these elements of style

  • your message becomes recognizable

  • you create safety for potential clients by letting them know what to expect in one section of you your interaction with them.

• The Secular Shepherdess Colophon

Color

• choose 2-5 colors that you’ll work with consistently.

  • SS has five

    • a dark green

    • two mid-saturation colors - a blue and a green

    • two low saturation (bright) colors - blue and lace

  • ideal 1-2 primary logo colors with accents

• There are a number of color palette generators online, the ones I used were

  • Adobe CC https://color.adobe.com/create/color-wheel/

    • started here

    • pulls colors out of photos

    • futzed around with color wheel tool to find complementary tones

  • Coolors https://coolors.co/

    • finalized my palette here

    • using the starting colors from Adobe I shifted the shades up and down

    • moved the colors around so I could make sure they all worked well together

    • checked the what things looked like in the glasses view

    • paid for one month subscription to make sure I met the vision accessibility requirements. Or at least came close.

• Choose colors you like!

  • Check out those colors in large swaths and as small accent bits on other colors. Know where you want to or don’t want to use it. Document it if you’re going to forget.

  • Example: I don’t like the light blue in my color pallet as a large swath of color. It works great as text/accents. In general, I don’t use it as a main color because it’s too bright for my taste.

  • Decide how you’re goin g to use them.

  • It’s like a capsule wardrobe, you can totally mix and match.

    • Though, for something like instagram, I make guidelines.

• Remember, you can change the colors and how you use them! You’re not married to them forever.

Fonts

• General recommendations

  • Pick one font and use it everywhere - website, social media posts, and hard copy documentation.

  • Change size, boldness, and italicizing to create visual diversity within a document. (I.e. make your headers stand out)

  • Most people find reading San-Serif fonts (those fonts without extra leaders and bits) much easier - especially online.

  • Note: I don’t follow this recommendation because I’m not a huge fan of san-serif fonts. I do this by choosing two fonts that a professional confirmed for me work really well together - Merriweather and Merriweather Sans.

• If you’ve chose you’re web services provider, start with the list of fonts they support natively.

  • Squarespace: https://wiremo.co/business/squarespace-fonts-guide/

  • Wix: https://support.wix.com/en/article/about-fonts-available-in-wix

• To find fonts:

  • https://fonts.google.com/

• To install fonts into your computer so they’re available on you’re computer

  • https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201749

  • https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/add-a-font-b7c5f17c-4426-4b53-967f-455339c564c1

• If your sending DOCX files with special fonts in them, you can often embed the font in to the file, see directions https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/how-to-embed-a-truetype-font-in-a-document-883f5212-0c1a-28df-8bb1-21273fa67e7e

Logos

• Logos work best when the look good both BIG and small.

  • tends to work best with thicker lines

  • less fussy the better

• Brainstorming what it might look like

  • what words/images come to mind when you think about what your business does?

  • do some of those words already have images/symbols already associated with them that speak to you?

  • do you want to just use the letters?

  • can you combine the letters in an interesting way to get a shape that’s your own?

    • you’re font choice from above can help with this

    • add individual letters to a program that allows you to adjust/layer images (Canva, PowerPoint, etc.)

    • Play around - mirror, rotate, stretch, squeeze, and stack

• Work in black and white → find something you like → then add color.

• If you’re going to be sending things out for printing on things like pens and shirts, you’ll need a scalable vector file (this is why I hired a professional).

Bonus: Using Colophon Information with the Pro Version of Canva

• Brand

  • saves logos, colors, and fonts

  • makes them available to you when you create new things

  • allows you to create templates

    • I have IG templates for a bunch of different types of IG posts

    • I create and schedule the IG posts and then use the tools in the content planner to make a FB business post

• Content Planner

  • allows sharing to

    • IG Business

    • IG Personal

    • Facebook Page

    • Facebook Group

    • Facebook Story

    • Twitter

    • TikTok

    • Pinterest

    • Linkedin Profile

    • Linkedin Page

    • Tumblr

  • allows you to schedule posts ahead of time - image and commentary

  • you can move scheduled posts between days

  • you can copy and resize posts from here to different formats - this reduces the amount of extra work