Developing Brand Guidelines
Story/Mission Statement
Brand Name
Our brand name was inspired by our brand concept, we wanted to modernize the way we save our money which gave use the idea of resorting back to how they stored money over a century ago – Bank Vaults!
As our focus was on using cryptocurrency assets and investment opportunities to supercharge our customers savings this gave us the idea for the final brand name concept.
Volt.
Brand Story
Over the past few years, especially throughout the financial hardship for businesses and indiviuals during the COVID-19 pandemic, it has been extremely difficult to save money as banks cut their interests and some countries even having negative interest rates meaning you have to pay the bank to keep your money with them.
Volt aims to give you the chance to build the future you dream of and supercharge your savings account through our cryptocurrency assets and staking pools with a minimum of 2%pa.
Core Values
We aim to be 100% honest and transparent with our customers, giving them access to the best savings accounts and ISA’s. We will never lie to our customers. We believe in loyalty, customers who stay with us for more than 2 years will get access to a number of benefits through our loyalty programme.
We know it can be a hard task building for your future, this is why we offer a wide range of investment and savings accounts to help you build the best future for yourself without the stress and worry. Security is our priority, we aim to give our customer peace of mind so they know their money is safe with us. We pride ourselves on giving the best customer service possible, we are here for you when you need us the most.
5 Core Values:
- Honesty
- Loyalty
- Building For The Future
- Security
- Customer Service
Mission Statement
Our mission is to provide our customers with the best opportunities to build their wealth and give them access to premium savings accounts. We believe the future of finiance will be cryptocurrency and the blockchain network which is why we aim to get our customers and community ahead of the curve.
Tagline & Tone Of Voice
Our tagline is short and sweet placing a focus on our main goal and the products we offer our customers and community. The tagline should be used as an additonal element within the cotent or to assist the logomark/wordmark in describing the brand.
Supercharge your savings.
Our tone of voice should be fun and friendly as we aim to make finances more enjoyable for our target audience, our brand should always be represented as a team through the use of words like “we” and “our” to portray a sense of community and teamwork – this fits with our brands aim of helping build a better financial future for our customers.
Logomarks
Logomark
Our logo was inspired by the doors of an old bank vault, for our logo we wanted to try and incorporate our brands story and meaning as much as possible. When designing the brands icon logo we included 5 spokes to represent the five core values of the brand.
I have included our logo suite below to demonstrate the different options available for the brand and how each element could be displayed.
![](https://blogs.ulster.ac.uk/b00845578/files/2022/03/Volt-Banking-Logo-Suite-1-1024x765.png)
Typography
Typeface
The brands visual identity was developed around the Mundial typeface so we chose to keep this consistent throughout the brand, although the wordmark logo needed modification to the typography it still maintains the visual consistency. As we chose to use a single typeface for our brands typography we needed to define a visual difference for specific content, we achieved this by using varying weights of the Mundial typeface to define headings, titles and body copy.
![](https://blogs.ulster.ac.uk/b00845578/files/2022/03/Typefaces-1024x576.png)
Visual Hierarchy
The visual hierarchy of typography used through Volt products should be clearly defined with Mundial Bold being used for titles and headings, and Mundial Thin being used for body content.
As a primary starting point the golden ratio should be used to define hierarchy through scale, for smaller devices like mobile devices and smart watches other varitions should be used – for example the major third typographic scale.
Text Alignment
Text and descriptive content throughout Volt products should be clear and easy to read ensuring it is accessible to every indiviual. Text should usually be left aligned but other varitions like centered text and left aligned text can be used for layout design purposes, this should only be done with digestible content as longer paragraphs will become harder to read.
Text and descriptive content should NEVER be justified.
Iconography
Icon Style
The iconography used throughout our branding and products should match the style of the logo, these can be in a variety of styles like outlined or filled icons but they MUST stay consistent from project to project and each icon must serve a purpose.
For example, use outline icons throughout the project but use a filled style icon to indicate when a certain icon is active so the user knows which page they are on.
Some icon sets to use are Iconsax and Iconly Icons.
Colour
Primary Colour Palette
The brand colours are simple at Volt. We use black and white to represent the simplicity of our products and our services and be recognised as a clean, professional establishment. The blue represents the trust, honesty and loyalty that we provide our community, we believe in rewarding hard work and returning customers put in the graft!
Black should be used at the primary background colour with white text overlaying. Alternativiley, Blue should be used as an additonal backgorund colour for section breaks and sections that require more attention from the user. White should never be used as a background colour unless absolutley nessecary, like a letter head for example.
![](https://blogs.ulster.ac.uk/b00845578/files/2022/03/Primary-Colour-Palette-1-1024x576.png)
Secondary Colour Palette
The brands secondary colour palette should only be used when the primary brand colours are already in use or to define additonal sections of features of the product.
The secondary colour palette should NOT be used for:
- Colouring the logo
- Colouring text and icon
![](https://blogs.ulster.ac.uk/b00845578/files/2022/03/Secondary-Colour-Palette-1024x576.png)
Imagery
Type Of Imagery
Illustrations should be the main form of imagery when it comes to the Volt products, this is to ensure the fun and playful aspect that we set out to achieve at the start of the project.
If images are going to be used as a replacement to illustartions they should be custom images of Volt products or genuine customers to fit with our brands honesty.
NO STOCK PHOTOGRAPHY!
Brand Application
Brand Application
I have included some examples of brand mockups and brand application below to demonstrate how the visual identity of the brand should be represented.
![](https://blogs.ulster.ac.uk/b00845578/files/2022/03/Stationary-Mockup-Design-02-1024x768.png)
![](https://blogs.ulster.ac.uk/b00845578/files/2022/03/App-Mockup-Design-02-1024x768.png)
![](https://blogs.ulster.ac.uk/b00845578/files/2022/03/Billboard-Mockup-Design-01-1024x683.png)
![](https://blogs.ulster.ac.uk/b00845578/files/2022/03/Branch-Sign-Mockup-Design-01-1024x768.png)
![](https://blogs.ulster.ac.uk/b00845578/files/2022/03/Folder-Mockup-Design-01-1024x768.png)
![](https://blogs.ulster.ac.uk/b00845578/files/2022/03/Sign-Mockup-Design-01-1024x768.png)
![](https://blogs.ulster.ac.uk/b00845578/files/2022/03/Stationary-Mockup-Design-01-1024x683.png)
![](https://blogs.ulster.ac.uk/b00845578/files/2022/03/App-Mockup-Design-01-1024x640.png)