Brand Standards

Appalachian
Advertising

A brand system for the people who build things. These standards govern how our mark, color, and language appear on every surface, from a bid package to a shop-floor banner.

The Appalachian Advertising emblem: two overlapping mountain peaks, the near peak in Spruce and the far peak in Moss.
01

Foundation

Positioning

We are the agency for Appalachia's industrial economy. We speak fluent shop floor, understand a six-month sales cycle, and market work measured in tons, tolerances, and lead times.

Who we serve

Fabrication shops, light manufacturers, engineering firms, contractors, and logistics operators from north Alabama to western Pennsylvania. Buyers are plant managers, owners, and estimators. Practical people with little patience for gloss.

Every brand decision that follows answers to that audience.

Built, not styled

Structure before ornament. Clear hierarchy, honest materials, nothing decorative that isn't doing a job.

Of this place

Two ridgelines live in the mark, in the greens they actually are. We reference the region with restraint. No banjos, no barn wood, no clip-art nostalgia.

Plain-spoken

We write the way a good rep talks: specific, unhurried, free of agency jargon. Claims come with numbers attached.

03

Color

Spruce, anchor
#172B23
RGB 23, 43, 35
CMYK 47, 0, 19, 83
The near peak, and every letter of the wordmark.
Reads near-black at a distance, green up close.
Shared across all divisions.
Moss, accent
#3F5037
RGB 63, 80, 55
CMYK 21, 0, 31, 69
The far peak.
Pairs with Paper or White, never with Spruce.
Advertising only. Never on a division page.

Both values are sampled from the logo artwork itself, so a file and a swatch can never drift apart. Spot and vinyl matches are still to be pulled against a physical proof — don't substitute a number you found somewhere else.

Paper

#F6F4F0, primary background

White

#FFFFFF, panels and cards

Stone

#4A5A50, secondary text and rules

Kraft

#C7B9A3, print stock only

Proportion

The two brand greens sit close together in value, so they do not separate on their own. Keep Paper doing the separating: large quiet fields, with Spruce for mass and Moss for emphasis. Setting one green directly on the other is the fastest way to lose the mark.

Contrast & accessibility

Spruce on Paper13.6:1 AAA
White on Spruce14.9:1 AAA
Moss on Paper7.9:1 AAA
White on Moss8.7:1 AAA
Stone on Paper6.7:1 AA
Moss on Spruce1.7:1 never

Every brand pairing except one clears AAA at any size, so Moss is now safe for body copy — a change from the previous accent, which was limited to large text. The exception is the two greens together: at 1.7:1 they are indistinguishable to most readers and must never be set on one another.

04

Typography

Primary · Display
400, one weight
Russo One
AaBbCcDdEe 0123456789

Headlines, section titles, and the wordmark itself. It ships a single weight, so hierarchy comes from size and case only — there is no bold to reach for, and faking one with a stroke or a shadow is a misuse. Wide and heavy by design: give it tight tracking (0.01–0.08 em) and room to breathe, and never run it past two lines.

Secondary · Text
400 / 700
Helvetica Neue
AaBbCcDdEe 0123456789

Everything else: body copy, labels, navigation, captions, specs, and the second line of the wordmark. It is a system face, so it needs no download and renders identically in a browser, a spreadsheet, and a shop-floor printout. Helvetica and Arial stand behind it.

The signature treatment

Helvetica Neue · 1200 tracking
Advertising

The second line of the wordmark is Helvetica Neue opened to 1200 — that is 1200 thousandths of an em, or letter-spacing: 1.2em on the web. It is the one piece of typography that identifies us on its own, and it is reserved for that: the division name under the emblem, and nothing else. It is not a style for subheads, pull quotes, or buttons.

Use it fordivision names in a lockup
Minimum size9 px / 7 pt
Caseuppercase only
Centred settingsadd 1.2 em indent

The scale in use

Display · Russo One 76
Precision Sells
Section · Russo One 34
Capabilities
Label · Helvetica 11/700
Bend Radius Case Study
Lede · Helvetica 21/400
A 40-person fabricator outside Cleveland, Tennessee doubled its quote volume in eleven months. No new salespeople.
Body · Helvetica 17/400
Body copy carries the argument. Keep measures between 60 and 78 characters and paragraphs to four sentences. No bold runs inside running text, no all-caps emphasis.
05

Voice

We write

“Eleven months. Quote volume up 104%. Same five salespeople.”

“We'll walk your floor before we write a word.”

“Your buyer is an estimator with forty tabs open. Be the clearest one.”

We don't

“Unlocking synergies for best-in-class industrial disruptors.”

“Let's hop on a quick discovery sprint!”

“Award-winning, full-service, 360° brand storytelling.”

Direct

Lead with the outcome. The setup can wait.

Specific

Name the part, the county, the number.

Unhurried

No countdowns, no false urgency. Industry moves in quarters.

Respectful

Our clients know their trade better than we do. Write like it.

06

Applications

Stationery

appalachianadvertising.com
423.498.9545
1100 Market St, Ste 600, Chattanooga, TN 37402
Letterhead
Appalachian Advertising
1100 Market St, Ste 600
Chattanooga, TN 37402
No. 10 envelope
Name Surname
Account Director
423.498.9545
appalachianadvertising.com
Email signature
Appalachian
Advertising
Chattanooga, TN
Business card, face
Business card, reverse
Appalachian
Advertising
Horizontal lockup
A Spruce gift box holding a debossed notebook, a pen, a business card with the horizontal lockup, and a black tumbler with the emblem etched in steel.
Client gift kit

In the field

A Spruce leather notebook with the horizontal lockup blind-debossed on the cover.
Notebook, tone-on-tone deboss
A black powder-coated tumbler with the emblem laser-etched to bare steel.
Tumbler, etched on black
A washed green ballcap with the emblem embroidered in Spruce and Moss.
Embroidered cap, tonal
A white hard hat with the full-color emblem on the side.
Hard hat, full color on white
A brushed-metal emblem mounted on a Spruce reception wall beside a glass office entrance.
Reception wall, brushed metal on Spruce
A white pickup on a mountain overlook, wrapped with the horizontal lockup on the door, the web address along the rocker, and green mountain peaks across the bed.
Vehicle wrap
07

The Family

Every division anchors on Spruce and changes only the far peak. Same emblem, same type, same voice. The accent tells you which shop you’re standing in.

Appalachian Advertising division emblem, far peak in Moss.
#172B23
#3F5037

Advertising

Parent brand. Moss is the default far peak.

Appalachian Aerial division emblem, far peak in sky blue.
#172B23
#5F8FA8

Aerial

Sky blue for drone and survey work.

Appalachian Printshop division emblem, far peak in ink amber.
#172B23
#C48A4A

Printshop

Ink amber for production and print.