What This Standard Covers
This applies to anything Web Wizards produces that someone else reads — internal documentation and client-facing work alike. It is a working standard, not a brand bible. If a piece of work is better for breaking something here, break it and say so, so the standard can catch up.
The Web Wizards website is the primary visual reference. Recent proposal work extends that identity into formal documents; see Current Visual Direction.
- Applies to
- Documentation, procedures, strategies, audits, reports, proposals, presentations, and marketing material we produce for clients.
- Does not apply to
- Email, Slack, meeting notes and working files. Don't format a status update like a quarterly review.
- When in doubt
- Ask before the work is finished. A five-minute question about whose brand a deliverable carries is cheaper than rebuilding it.
Visual System
02.1
Colour
Charcoal, white and teal carry almost everything. Anything outside this list needs a reason you can explain.
Core
Charcoal
Primary ink. Dark surfaces, covers, section pages, headings.
Teal
The brand accent, taken from the logo. Markers, rules, fills, highlights.
White
Primary surface for documents and content pages.
Supporting
Ink
Deepest black. Full-bleed covers and section dividers.
Slate
Body copy on light surfaces.
Secondary grey
Captions, labels and metadata.
Rule
Hairlines, borders and grid separators.
Neutral
Light panels where white would flatten the layout.
Teal tint
Highlight fields and callouts. Loses its effect when repeated.
02.2
Logo
The official library is the only source of Web Wizards artwork. Never redraw it, trace it, set it as type or rebuild it from a screenshot, and never stretch it.
Choosing a variant
- Dark surfaces
- Horizontal lockup, white wordmark. The default for charcoal covers, section pages and dark UI.
- Light surfaces
- Horizontal lockup, near-black wordmark. The default for white document pages and light UI.
- Narrow or tall spaces
- Stacked lockup, where the horizontal version would have to be set too small to read.
- Avatars and app icons
- Icon only. Use the supplied icon file rather than cropping the horizontal lockup.
- Small sizes
- Drop the tagline where it would be an unreadable smudge — the SVGs separate it into its own group for exactly this. Below roughly 120px wide, switch to the icon.
Logo library
The full logo package
Every variant above in SVG, PNG at all exported sizes, and the favicon set. Take this if you are handing assets to someone outside the team.
02.3
Typography
Inter carries everything: headings, body, labels, tables. Fraunces is an editorial accent — covers, section pages, pull quotes — and documents can lean on it harder than screens do. Don’t add a third typeface.
Inter
Primary
Aa 0123
Weights 400–700. Tighten letter-spacing on large headings; open it to roughly 0.16em on small uppercase labels.
Fraunces
Display
Aa 0123
Never for body copy or anything below about 20px.
02.4
Layout
What makes the work recognisable is grid, space and hairlines rather than colour.
Build on a visible grid
Columns should be obvious without gridlines. Things line up; where they don't, it should read as deliberate.Protect whitespace
If a page feels tight, cut content or add a page. Never shrink type or margins to make something fit.Thin rules before boxes
A 1px rule separates as well as a border and weighs far less. Use a full box only when a block genuinely needs lifting off the page.Teal is an accent, not a theme
Markers, rules, small highlights. If a page reads as teal, there's too much of it.Imagery and icons earn their place
Real photography or texture, cropped to the grid. Single-weight line icons only, and only where a label won't do. No stock illustration and no generic AI imagery — abstract renders, glowing networks, stock futurism. If you can't say why an element is on the page, take it off.
Which Brand Should This Carry?
Answer one question first: who is this for? Almost everything falls into one of three categories. Follow the default unless there is a specific reason not to.
Category A
Web Wizards-owned material
Branding
Web Wizards brand
Why
Our thinking, our method, our commercial position. It belongs to us and should look like it.
Typically
- Internal standards and procedures
- Methodologies and frameworks
- Operating documentation
- Service and capability material
- Proposals and pricing
Category B
Client-specific professional deliverables
Branding
Client-led, co-branded
Why
This lives inside the client's business — circulated internally, shown to their board, used to make decisions. It should feel like their document, prepared by us.
Typically
- Strategies and roadmaps
- Audits and research
- Marketing plans
- Monthly and quarterly reports
- Executive summaries and recommendations
Category C
Customer-facing client marketing
Branding
Client brand only
Why
The audience is the client's customer, who has no relationship with us. Our logo here is noise.
Typically
- Brochures and collateral
- Advertising creative
- Social graphics
- Campaign assets
- Landing page creative
Client-led deliverable
Client logo at full size. Web Wizards as a small 'Prepared by' mark on the cover and in the footer.
Web Wizards-owned material
Our mark alone. No client branding unless the client is the subject.
Matched-size lockup
Reads as a joint venture rather than a service relationship. Rarely what's true.
Prominence follows the audience
Whoever the material is for goes first. If the audience is the client's customer, we're not on it at all — not in the artwork, not in the footer, not in the filename. Attribution goes in the delivery email.Attribution is text, not a second logo
'Prepared by Web Wizards' in a small label is more confident than a competing lockup.Use client-supplied assets
Never recreate a client's logo. If all they have is a low-resolution file, ask for a better one during onboarding.Their brand guide wins
On Category B and C work, the client's guidelines beat ours. Ask for them at onboarding rather than reverse-engineering from their website.Two brands is the ceiling
Platform logos, certification badges and partner marks scattered across a cover undo everything else.
Document Standards
A finished document should say what it is, who it is for, when it was written and who prepared it — without the reader having to ask. That is the bar. This is not document control; there is no approval matrix to maintain.
Schematic only — proportions, not a template
- Cover
Title, audience and date
Plus a one-line purpose where the title doesn't make it obvious.
- Attribution
Prepared by, where appropriate
On Category A and B material. Absent entirely on Category C.
- Hierarchy
No deeper than three levels
If you need a fourth, the section probably needs splitting.
- Body
Readable density
A page that has to be shrunk to fit is a page that needs to be two pages.
- Footer
Consistent on every page
Document title, page number, client name where relevant — including section dividers.
- Version
When the document will keep changing
A strategy that gets revised carries a version and date. A one-off proposal doesn't need one.
Approved internal document types
- Internal Service Brief
- Web Wizards branded, internal only, normally one page. Operational rather than presentation-oriented. Use the approved template — Templates & Resources holds the canonical version.
Current Visual Direction
Two recent pieces show where the identity currently sits. They are reference points, not templates — take the principles, not the layouts. Both files sit with the Digital Marketing lead.
Reference 01 · Document
Goodies Bake Shop — Digital Marketing Proposal
What it demonstrates
- The neutral ramp: charcoal, slate, grey, hairline rule
- Teal held to an accent across a full document
- Dark section pages against light, dense content pages
- Fine rules carrying structure instead of boxes and shadows
Carry forward
The current benchmark for a formal Web Wizards document. Match this level of restraint before adding anything of your own.
Reference 02 · Presentation
SpeedPro Canada — Digital Growth Discussion
What it demonstrates
- Section labels and numbered markers used consistently as navigation
- Structured information layouts — comparison tables, stat rows, staged diagrams
- Client and Web Wizards branding coexisting without competing
Carry forward
Take the information design and the labelling discipline. Don't take the format — sequential slide-style panels belong in a pitch, not in a strategy or report someone will refer back to.