Corporate identity
Sections 1 to 6 are the identity itself and are not open to interpretation. Sections 7 to 10 show how it is applied. Where a medium is not covered, follow the nearest example and the rules in 1 to 6.
Download PDF A4ContentsWhat is here
Never rebuild a mark from this page. All artwork ships as vector files in the aac-brand/ package. Tracing, redrawing or exporting from a screenshot is not permitted in any medium.
1.0 The brandName, descriptor, tagline
African Angels Community brings together the most experienced and active individual investors on the continent.
The full name is African Angels Community. The short form is AAC and it may be used freely in body copy once the full name has appeared in the same document. The organisation takes a singular verb: African Angels Community is, not are.
AAC Community · African Angel Community · the AAC · A.A.C. · AACommunity
In the lockup the words AFRICAN ANGELS COMMUNITY sit beneath the AAC wordmark as a fixed part of the artwork. They are not a strapline and are never reworded, translated or reset.
Use the registered entity name, not the brand name, on contracts and statutory filings.
Sentence case. The wording is fixed - do not paraphrase, shorten, add "Africa's" or turn it into a headline. Use it once per document, on the cover or opening slide, through the tagline lockup.
2.0 The symbolAnatomy and clear space
An open circle in Oxblood. It reads as a closed-membership community rather than an open marketplace. It is drawn as a stroke, never filled. Stroke is 4.3 units on a 100-unit ring diameter and scales with the artwork.
Africa, sitting inside the ring rather than over it. Never recoloured, never cropped by the ring, never replaced with a different projection or outline.
The solid form at upper right, the individual angel. It sits outside the ring. Its diameter - 42.9 units, written 1d - is the unit that governs clear space throughout.
The three elements are one piece of artwork. Do not separate the disc from the ring, move it to another corner, add further discs or scale any element independently of the others.
At least 1d stays clear on all four sides, measured from the outermost edge of the artwork. Nothing sets inside that margin - no text, no rule, no image edge, no page trim, no adjacent partner mark. Where space is tight, reduce the lockup rather than the clear space.
Never below 120 px on screen or 32 mm in print. The descriptor stops being legible first.
Never below 16 px or 5 mm. Below 24 px the continent detail closes up - use the supplied favicon rather than scaling the lockup down.
AAC's own working rule: lockup width in mm at least 30 × viewing distance in metres. 3 m needs 90 mm; 10 m needs 300 mm; 25 m needs 750 mm.
Separate by at least 2d and align on cap height, not on bounding box.
Permitted only after the full name has been established on the page - favicons, watermarks, loading states, avatars, app tiles, badges.
3.0 LockupsEight approved forms
Use horizontal unless the space or the ground forces something else. Every form ships as vector artwork; nothing here is rebuilt by hand.
The ground decides the variant. The space decides the orientation.
| Ground | Use | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Paper or any near-white | horizontal / stacked | Full colour. Oxblood symbol and descriptor, Ink wordmark. |
| Ink | …-reversed | Everything reverses to Paper. Oxblood on Ink is 1.62:1 and illegible. |
| Oxblood | …-reversed | As above. Never set the Oxblood symbol on an Oxblood ground. |
| Light tint or pale photograph | horizontal / stacked | Only where the area behind the artwork holds above 85% lightness and carries no detail. |
| Mid-tone or busy photograph | …-reversed on a panel | Darken the area behind the mark to Ink at 80% or more, then reverse out. Never place the colour mark straight onto a photograph. |
| One-colour process | horizontal-mono-ink | Engraving, embroidery, foil, rubber stamp, single-plate print. |
Print handoff. The type in every SVG is live Outfit. Outline it (Illustrator: Type → Create Outlines) before it goes to a printer. Otherwise the wordmark reflows on any machine without the font.
4.0 MisuseNine things that break it
None of them is acceptable in any medium, at any size, for any audience.
Do not stretch or condense. Scale proportionally only.
Do not compress vertically.
Do not rotate or set on an angle.
Do not recolour. Oxblood, Ink and Paper only.
Do not add shadows, glows, bevels or gradients.
Do not place the colour lockup on a mid-tone or busy ground.
Do not set Oxblood on Oxblood or on Ink.
Do not retype the wordmark or substitute another typeface.
Do not box, outline or enclose the lockup.
Also prohibited, without illustration: separating the disc from the ring or moving it; filling the ring; replacing the continent outline; adding a strapline, division name or year inside the artwork; animating the elements independently; applying transparency below 100%; using a screenshot of a mark in place of the supplied vector.
5.0 ColourThree and nothing else
| Supporting token | Hex | Use |
|---|---|---|
--aac-rule | #E2DED8 | Hairline rules, table borders, dividers, input outlines |
--aac-muted | #4A4744 | Secondary text, captions, the tagline, long body copy |
Roughly 70% Paper, 22% Ink, 8% Oxblood across a document or a screen. Oxblood is an accent - when it starts covering large areas it stops signalling anything.
There is no tint or shade scale and no secondary palette. If a chart needs more than three values, vary Oxblood's opacity over Paper - 100 / 70 / 45 / 25% - rather than introducing a new hue.
Where an interface must show status, use conventional green, amber and red at low saturation. Semantic colour is not part of the brand palette and never replaces Oxblood as the accent.
No spot or process match has been specified. Convert from the RGB values in a colour-managed workflow and proof before a production run. Do not let a printer improvise a Pantone equivalent.
Every combination below has been measured.
| Foreground | Ground | Ratio | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ink | Paper | 16.13 : 1 | AAA the default pairing for body copy |
| Paper | Ink | 16.13 : 1 | AAA reversed lockups, covers, dividers |
| Oxblood | Paper | 9.93 : 1 | AAA descriptor, links, accents at any size |
| Paper | Oxblood | 9.93 : 1 | AAA reversed out of an Oxblood panel or button |
| Muted | Paper | 9.15 : 1 | AAA captions and secondary copy |
| Oxblood | Ink | 1.62 : 1 | Fails never use this pairing |
Members meet through a standing programme of working sessions, online and in person.
Read moreMembers meet through a standing programme of working sessions, online and in person.
Read moreMembers meet through a standing programme of working sessions, online and in person.
Read moreOn an Ink or Oxblood ground the accent role passes to Paper: an Oxblood link on Ink is unreadable. Carry hierarchy with weight, tracking and rules rather than reaching for a lighter tint of Oxblood.
6.0 TypographyOutfit, at three weights
AaBbCcDdEeFfGg HhIiJjKkLlMm 0123456789 R $ % & @
Outfit is the only typeface in the identity. Three weights do all the work: 300 for display and long-form calm, 400 for body and interface, 600 for the wordmark, headings and anything that must be found by scanning. Weights 100, 200, 500, 700, 800 and 900 exist in the family but are not part of this identity.
Declare the stack as "Outfit", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif. Where Outfit cannot be installed, fall back to Helvetica or Arial and keep the weights and the tracking. Do not substitute a different geometric or display face to get closer - a clean fallback reads better than a near-miss.
Outfit is an open-source typeface served by Google Fonts. It may be embedded in documents, installed on machines and served from AAC's own domain without a licence fee.
family=Outfit:wght@300;400;600 - request only the three weights so the page stays light.
Group thousands with a space, never a comma: 4 000 000, not 4,000,000. Use a non-breaking space so a figure never splits across lines. Tabular figures wherever numbers line up in columns.
Everything ranges left. No centred body copy, no justified setting, no hyphenation.
Weight 600 or Oxblood - not italic, not underline, not all-caps mid-sentence. Underline is reserved for links.
Keep running text to 60 to 70 characters. Two columns before a line gets longer than that.
UK English throughout. Dates as 6 September 2026. Minimum 7 pt in print, 12 px body and 11 px captions on screen.
7.0 ApplicationsStationery and documents
Where a medium is not covered here, follow the nearest example and the rules in sections 1 to 6. Contact details that appear on stationery are set centrally and are not reproduced on this page.
A4, 210 × 297 mm. Horizontal lockup 46 mm wide, 20 mm from the left trim and 18 mm from the top. Margins 20 / 20 / 18 / 16 mm, first baseline 62 mm from the top. Body Outfit 400 at 10.5 pt / 1.55, ranged left. Footer: a 0.4 pt Oxblood rule 20 mm from the bottom trim with the contact line beneath in Outfit 300 at 7 pt. Continuation sheets carry the symbol only, 14 mm wide. Stock 120 gsm uncoated.
90 × 50 mm, 400 gsm uncoated, square corners, 3 mm bleed and 5 mm safe area. Front: lockup 40 mm wide at 8 mm from left and top; name Outfit 600 at 9 pt; role Outfit 400 at 7 pt, +0.14em, uppercase, Oxblood. Reverse: Oxblood flood with the reversed symbol 24 mm wide, optically centred, no text. Never rounded corners, spot UV over the mark, foiling in a non-brand colour or a second language on the same face.
DL, 210 × 99 mm. Lockup 46 mm wide at 12 mm margins. "With compliments" in Outfit 300 at 14 pt, Muted. Footer rule and contact line as the letterhead.
Plain HTML, maximum 420 px wide so it does not wrap on mobile. One image only - the lockup as a PNG at 2× served at 150 px, with explicit width and height and alt text reading "African Angels Community", since many clients block images and the block must still read without it. Name 15 px / 600, role 12 px / 400 Oxblood, contact 11 px / 300 Muted, disclaimer 9 px / 300. A 1 px #E2DED8 rule above the contact block. Short form on replies. No quotes, seasonal graphics, environmental footers, vCards or tracking pixels. The disclaimer wording is set centrally and is not edited locally.
Four masters at 1920 × 1080, 16:9 only, 96 px margins on all four sides.
1 Title, Ink ground, reversed lockup. 2 Section divider, Oxblood ground. 3 Content, Paper ground. 4 Data, one hue at four opacities.
Title 72 px / 300. Slide heading 40 px / 600. Body 22 px / 400. Eyebrow 14 px / 400, +0.22em, uppercase, Oxblood. Footnote 12 px / 300.
Symbol 26 px tall bottom right on every content slide with the slide number beside it. Nothing else recurs.
One hue. Oxblood at 100 / 72 / 46 / 26% opacity, in that order, with a 0.5 px #E2DED8 baseline and tabular figures.
No transitions beyond a cut, no drop shadows, no icon sets, no stock photography of handshakes or skylines.
PDF for circulation, with the type outlined or embedded. Never send the working file outside AAC.
A4 portrait. Margins 22 mm left and right, 20 mm top and bottom. Body Outfit 400 at 10.5 pt / 1.55, one column, ranged left.
Ink flood, reversed lockup 52 mm wide at 20 mm from left and top, title Outfit 200 / 300 at 28 to 34 pt in Paper, date and status in mono at 7 pt.
Oxblood eyebrow, +0.2em, uppercase, 7 pt. Title Outfit 600 at 18 pt with a 0.5 pt Oxblood rule 22 mm wide beneath.
Ground #F6F3EF with a 1.5 mm Oxblood rule on the left edge. No border, no radius.
0.5 pt #E2DED8 horizontal rules only - no vertical rules, no fills, no banding. Figures tabular and right-ranged.
Rule 20 mm from the bottom, document name left and page number right, both mono at 7 pt.
9.0 Digital and socialWeb, icons, interface
72 px tall, Paper ground, 1 px #E2DED8 rule beneath, lockup 172 px wide.
Primary: Oxblood ground, Paper label, Outfit 500, 2 px radius, 14 px vertical padding. Secondary: 1 px Oxblood outline, Oxblood label, transparent ground.
Oxblood with a 1 px underline in the same colour, hovering to Ink. Never blue, never underline-on-hover-only.
2 px Oxblood outline at 3 px offset on every interactive element. Never remove the focus ring.
1 px #E2DED8 outline, Paper ground, 2 px radius. Oxblood outline on focus. Errors are stated in words, not colour alone.
Use aac-mark-oxblood.svg as the SVG favicon with a 32 × 32 PNG fallback. Use aac-app-tile.svg at 180 × 180 for apple-touch-icon. Do not generate icons by screenshotting the lockup.
Ink is the ground and the accent role passes to Paper. Oxblood text on Ink fails contrast.
| Platform | Asset | Pixels | Artwork |
|---|---|---|---|
| LinkedIn, company | Page logo | 300 × 300 | avatar-circle |
| LinkedIn, company | Page cover | 1128 × 191 | horizontal-reversed on Ink |
| LinkedIn, personal | Background banner | 1584 × 396 | tagline, reversed |
| X | Profile, header | 400 × 400 · 1500 × 500 | avatar-circle, reversed on Ink |
| Profile, post, story | 320² · 1080² · 1080 × 1920 | avatar-circle, stacked | |
| Profile, cover | 170 × 170 · 820 × 312 | avatar-circle, reversed on Ink | |
| YouTube | Channel art, safe area 1546 × 423 | 2560 × 1440 | horizontal-reversed, centred |
96 px on a 1080 px canvas, scaled proportionally at other sizes. The symbol sits in a consistent corner across a series.
Headline in Outfit 300 on dark, 600 on light. No more than three lines.
No stock imagery, no gradients, no emoji in graphics. Photography, where used, is documentary - real people at real AAC events, never staged business imagery.
The web address set in mono caps. No social icons unless AAC has an active account on that platform.
10.0 SignageBanners, backdrops, events
850 × 2000 mm, visible area 850 × 1900 mm - nothing critical sits in the bottom 100 mm, because the cassette eats it. stacked lockup 320 mm wide, centred, top of artwork 260 mm from the top edge. Oxblood base band 850 × 180 mm with the web address reversed out in mono at 34 pt, +0.16em.
Ink ground, alternating the reversed symbol and the reversed horizontal lockup on a staggered grid - 400 mm horizontal pitch, 300 mm vertical, rows offset by half a pitch.
90 × 55 mm landscape in a clear holder. Lockup 34 mm wide top-left, name Outfit 600 at 16 pt, role in Oxblood uppercase at 8 pt, organisation Outfit 300 at 7.5 pt. A 5 mm Oxblood band at the foot carries any category - Member, Founder, Guest - reversed out.
Lectern panel 400 × 300 mm with the stacked lockup 220 mm wide. Table talkers and place cards use the symbol only at 14 mm, top-centred, names in Outfit 600 at 14 pt.
Plain Ink or Oxblood webbing; if printed, the wordmark repeats in Paper at 10 mm cap height. Merchandise is single-colour only - horizontal-mono-ink or reversed. Embroidery below 40 mm wide uses the symbol alone, since the descriptor will not hold a stitch.
Event material is Paper or Ink. Oxblood is used as a band, a rule or a panel - not as the ground for a whole surface, other than a business-card reverse.
Supply large-format artwork at 1:10 with type outlined, 25 mm bleed and colours converted in a proofed profile. Never send RGB PNGs to a large-format printer.
11.0 Asset packageWhat ships
aac-brand/.The same guidelines as this page, for reading offline or sharing.
| File | Contents |
|---|---|
README.md | Install, variant table, usage notes |
aac-brand.css | Colour and type custom properties |
aac-logo.js | The <aac-logo> custom element |
svg/aac-logo-horizontal.svg | Primary lockup · 392 × 104 |
svg/aac-logo-horizontal-reversed.svg | Primary lockup, reversed |
svg/aac-logo-horizontal-mono-ink.svg | Primary lockup, single colour |
svg/aac-logo-stacked.svg | Stacked lockup · 260 × 200 |
svg/aac-logo-stacked-reversed.svg | Stacked lockup, reversed |
svg/aac-logo-tagline.svg | Lockup with positioning line · 700 × 88 |
svg/aac-mark-oxblood.svg | Symbol on light, favicon · 160 × 109 |
svg/aac-mark-reversed.svg | Symbol on dark |
svg/aac-avatar-circle.svg | Social profile · 256 × 256 |
svg/aac-app-tile.svg | App icon · 256 × 256 |
<script src="aac-brand/aac-logo.js"></script> <aac-logo variant="horizontal" height="44"></aac-logo>
Give the element height or width - the other dimension follows the artwork. Aliases: primary, reversed, mono.
<img src="aac-brand/svg/aac-logo-horizontal.svg"
alt="African Angels Community" height="44">--aac-oxblood --aac-ink --aac-paper --aac-rule --aac-muted --aac-font
Google Slides and Keynote place the SVGs directly. PowerPoint and Word prefer PNG - export at 1×, 2× and 3× from the SVG rather than screenshotting a slide.
File → Place, then outline the type before any print handoff.
Trace, redraw, re-export from a screenshot or reconstruct a mark from this page.
12.0 GovernanceWho decides
Sections 1 to 6 are the identity and are not open to local interpretation. Sections 7 to 10 are applications: where a medium is not covered, follow the nearest example and the rules in 1 to 6.
| Version | Date | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 6 September 2026 | Identity adopted |
| 2 | 20 September 2026 | Contact details confirmed |
| 3 | 5 October 2026 | Thousands grouped with spaces, not commas |
Anything applying the identity outside these examples is approved before production - new formats, co-branded material, merchandise, signage, paid media.
Printers, agencies, event organisers and partners are sent the manual and the aac-brand/ package together. Neither is issued without the other.
Anything printed at scale is checked against the manual before the run.
Annually or on any change to the entity name, the tagline or the asset package.
No spot or process match has been specified. If AAC adopts a printed programme, commission a proofed conversion once and add it to section 5.0.
The direction is stated but no library exists. Build one from real AAC events rather than licensing stock.
Material produced before this manual is not yet aligned to it.
Identity questions go to African Angels Community before anything is produced, not after. Use the contact form on this site.