House of Balloonz
Brand Guide · Confidential
Made for
your moment.
Everything the brand is made of: the logo and how it is built, the palette, the type, the string, the photography and the language, and how all of it behaves in the world.
The work itself stays with people long after the day is over, as a moment they remember. This is the beginning of a new one for House of Balloonz, and a system built to carry more beauty, more life, more joy and more creativity to every client and every celebration, one balloon at a time.
Not for distribution. Wordmark shown as live type pending the vector master.
Brand lines
Ten lines the brand can say. One per piece, never two.
Messaging and taglines
- 01Made for your moment.
- 02Thoughtful by design.
- 03Beautifully made. Personally done.
- 04Designed around you.
- 05Every detail, considered.
- 06Celebrations, made personal.
- 07Where good ideas take shape.
- 08Made to make the moment.
- 09A little more joy in the room.
- 10Let the good things float.
How to use them
- One line per piece. A card, a sign, a post, a shirt. Never two lines competing on the same surface
- Set in Instrument Serif, with the emphasised word in italic. Copper on light, Bloom on Pine
- Never in quotation marks, never with an exclamation mark, never stacked into a list on a customer-facing piece
Which line, where
- 01, 04, 06 carry the service. Website, flyers, enquiry replies
- 02, 05, 07 carry the craft. Proposals, packaging, the About page
- 03 is the signature line and the closest thing to a strapline
- 08, 09, 10 are the light ones. Social, gift tags, team apparel
The tone test
- Warm, not sentimental
- Confident, not boastful
- Specific, not interchangeable
- If a line would work for any other event company, it is the wrong line
Never: luxury, bespoke, elevated, magical, dream team, transforming ordinary moments.
Logo architecture
One lockup, one mark, and the disciplined ways they are allowed to get interesting.
Primary lockup. Two lines. Two balloons for the double O, first Ink, second Copper. Figtree 900 for BALLOONZ, Figtree 700 for HOUSE OF, optically justified to the exact width of the word below it. This is the default in every situation with horizontal room.
Colourways
Alabaster. Primary. Ink type, Ink balloon, Copper balloon. 17.9:1.
Pine. Alabaster type, Alabaster balloon, Bloom balloon. 11.9:1. Copper on Pine is 2.4:1 and is never used.
Copper. Alabaster type, Alabaster balloon, Ink balloon. 4.98:1.
One colour. Solid Alabaster, or solid Ink on light. The file every vinyl cutter, embroiderer and foil printer receives.
The mark, used creatively
Watermark
Watermark. The mark at 9 percent opacity, cropped by the panel edge, never centred. Pine and Ink grounds only.
Oversized crop. The mark blown past the frame so only its shoulder, its taper and the point of the knot read. Minimum 300 percent of the container, and at least one edge of the balloon must stay visible against the ground. If the panel fills with flat colour, the crop has gone too far and it is no longer the mark.
Corner anchor
Corner anchor. One balloon at the top edge with its string falling the full height of the margin. The page hangs from it.
Pattern tile, Alabaster. The drop repeated on a 104 mm grid, Copper on Alabaster. The default, and the one for tissue, liners and endpapers.
Pattern tile, Copper. Reversed to Alabaster balloons on a Copper ground. For gift wrap, bag gussets and box liners, never behind type.
Pattern tile, Ink. Copper on Ink, the darkest of the three. Ribbon, garment bag linings and the inside of a Pine box lid.
Blind emboss. No ink. The lockup pressed into uncoated stock at 0.8 mm depth. Covers, folders, hangtags.
Brass foil. The only metallic that exists. Hot foil on Ink board, which is the pairing the printed hangtag uses. Brass is never set on a green ground and never simulated on screen with a gradient.
Scale
| Context | Asset | Rule |
|---|---|---|
| 16 px | Favicon | Separately drawn balloon, knot widened. Never a scaled master |
| 24 px | App icon, avatar | Mark only. Balloon occupies 40 percent of the circle |
| 150 px | Minimum lockup | Below this the knot stops resolving. Use the mark instead |
| 34 mm | Minimum in print | Business card, hangtag, invoice |
| 1 m + | Signage, backdrop | Optical tracking opens by 0.004 em above 600 mm |
Clear space
One balloon width on all four sides, which is 0.72 of the BALLOONZ cap height. Nothing enters it. Not type, not a rule, not an image edge, not another logo.
The string
The new device, and the one that makes the whole system cohere.
Every hairline in this brand is a string.
Rules, dividers, table borders, link underlines, the edge of a card, the line under a form field. All of them are 1 px, all of them are the same colour, and all of them are understood as the thread hanging off a balloon. That is what turns a grid into an identity.
Specification
| Weight | 1 px screen · 0.75 pt print |
| Colour on light | Ink at 16% |
| Colour on Pine | Alabaster at 26% |
| Accent string | Copper, or Bloom on dark |
| Cap | Round |
| Wave | 3 gentle inflections, ±10% of length |
| Never | Dashed, dotted, thicker than 1.5 px, or curled into a bow |
The string, in use
01 · THE DROP
Single mark. One falling string.
The string begins at the bottom of the balloon knot and falls naturally with a restrained wave. The fundamental behavior of the system.
02 · THE RHYTHM
Different heights. One visual language.
Balloons alternate vertically while every string remains individually attached to its knot. Spacing should feel deliberate, light and organic.
03 · THE TILE
A repeat that becomes texture.
104 mm repeat. Two balloon heights. Primary treatment: Copper at 50% on Alabaster. Tissue paper, box liners and endpapers. Never behind type.
Primary colorway
Copper #A85634 at 50% on Alabaster #FBFAF8.
Approved alternates
Pine #1B3A2C, Bloom #E8836A, Alabaster #FBFAF8, and controlled mixed-brand applications only when shown in the supplied artwork.
Copper and Pine.
Copper, Pine and Bloom.
Why the logo still has none. Strings break up at 16 px, snap in vinyl and fill in on embroidery. The mark stays clean so it survives every process. The string lives in the layout instead, which is where it can be drawn at any length without risk.
Colour
Seven. Three carry the brand, two are accents, two are support. Pulled out of their own photography, not invented.
Two rules above the numbers
- No brand colour sits behind a photograph. Pictures go on White or Alabaster. A Pine ground may hold a duotone, never a full colour frame.
- Brass is the only metallic, and only in the physical world. Foil, vinyl, thread, ink. It is never simulated on screen with a gradient. Gold inside a photograph is content, not brand colour.
Where the green came from. Sampled from their own installations. The sage and olive builds read 42 to 60 degrees in hue and the safari build carries true forest at 99 to 117. Pine sits at 152, one step deeper and cleaner than anything in the portfolio, so it frames the work instead of competing with it.
Contrast
| Pair | Ratio | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Ink on Alabaster | 17.9 | Everything, any size |
| Alabaster on Pine | 11.9 | Everything, any size |
| Copper on Alabaster | 4.98 | Links, labels, buttons |
| Fern on Alabaster | 4.91 | Secondary text |
| Bloom on Pine | 4.67 | Accent text at 600 and above |
| Brass on Pine | 3.89 | Large display only |
| Copper on Pine | 2.40 | Never. This is why Bloom exists |
| Brass on Pine | 3.89 | Never. Brass is foil on Ink board, not a colour for green grounds |
| Bloom on Alabaster | 2.55 | Never as text. Fills only |
Typography
Two families. One speaks, one works. Both are free, both load in Squarespace, Canva and Google Docs.
Display · Instrument Serif
Balloons,
beautifully done.
| Role | Headlines, pull quotes, numerals, one or two words at a time |
| Weights | Regular and Italic. That is the entire family, and the restraint is the point |
| Tracking | 0 at every size. The face is drawn tight enough already |
| Minimum | 28 px. Below that it loses its contrast and reads as a default serif |
| Never | Body copy, buttons, form labels, navigation, captions, anything under 28 px |
Working · Figtree
Everything functional. Body, navigation, buttons, forms, captions, alt text, the wordmark itself. 300 for long copy, 600 for interface, 900 for the rare sans headline. Nine weights means one family covers the whole system.
The script question
You asked for a script. My recommendation is to use Instrument Serif Italic instead, and to use it the way a script would be used: one word, large, never a sentence.
for your moment
- Their installations already carry hand script vinyl with the client's name on it. A brand script competes with the thing the client paid for
- Connected scripts break in embroidery, vinyl and at small sizes, so the brand would need a second face anyway
- Scripts date. A high contrast serif italic reads current now and will still read considered in five years
If you want a true script anyway: Ephesis, one word only, Copper or Brass, minimum 40 px, never in the logo, never in a paragraph, never alongside Instrument Serif Italic on the same page.
The scale
| Token | Family | Size · line · tracking | Use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Display | Instrument Serif | clamp 2.6–6.4rem · .94 · tracking 0 | Hero, cover, one per page |
| Display italic | Instrument Serif It. | same · tracking 0 | The emphasised word. One per headline |
| Section | Instrument Serif | clamp 2–4rem · 1 · tracking 0 | Section titles |
| Statement | Instrument Serif | clamp 1.5–3.4rem · 1.12 | Manifesto lines, pull quotes |
| Lede | Figtree 300 | clamp 1.08–1.38rem · 1.45 | Opening paragraph, max 30em |
| Body | Figtree 300 | .95rem · 1.6 | Everything long, max 36em |
| Eyebrow | JetBrains Mono | .66rem · .2em · caps | Section kickers, metadata |
| Label | Figtree 700 | .74rem · .16em · caps | Subheads, form labels |
| Button | Figtree 600 | .76rem · .13em · caps | All buttons |
| Caption | JetBrains Mono | .63rem · 1.55 | Image captions |
| Numerals | Instrument Serif · Figtree | serif for section numbers · Figtree tabular for specs | Never mono, never a serif numeral below 28 px |
Mono is metadata, not decoration. JetBrains Mono appears on eyebrows and captions only. Numerals are never set in mono and never in the serif at text size. Section numbers use Instrument Serif, and every specification figure uses Figtree with tabular numerals, so a column of numbers lines up.
Grid, frames and corners
Architectural, not decorative. Sharp corners everywhere, one exception, and photography used as structure.
12 columns, asymmetric by default. A 7 / 5 or 5 / 7 split, never 6 / 6. Symmetry is the fastest way to look like a template. Gutter is clamp 16 to 30 px, page margin clamp 20 to 76 px.
Corners
| Cards, frames, images, inputs, tables | 0 px |
| Buttons | 2 px |
| Avatar and app icon | circle · 22% |
| Everything else | 0 px |
Square is what keeps this out of party-supply territory. Rounded cards and pill buttons read soft and generic. The roundness in this brand lives where it belongs, in the mark, and everything built around it is square.
Interface
Four button types, four states, and no animation that draws attention to itself.
On light
- Primary. Solid Ink, Alabaster label, 2 px radius. Hover moves the fill to Pine over 220 ms. One per view
- Secondary. Transparent with a 1 px string border. Hover darkens the border to full Ink. No fill change
- Ghost. Copper label on a Copper string underline. For tertiary links inside content
- Disabled. Ink 45 on a soft string. No opacity trick, an actual colour
On Pine
- Primary reverses to Alabaster with a Pine label. Hover lifts to pure White
- Ghost uses Bloom, never Copper. Copper on Pine is 2.4:1
- Focus is a 2 px Copper ring at 3 px offset, on both grounds, always visible
Micro interactions
| Element | Behaviour | Timing |
|---|---|---|
| Button hover | Background or border colour only. No lift, no scale, no shadow | 220 ms |
| Link hover | The string underline draws left to right | 280 ms |
| Image hover | Scale 1.02 inside a fixed frame. Nothing leaves its box | 600 ms |
| Section entry | Opacity 0 to 1 with an 18 px rise. Once, never on scroll back | 800 ms |
| Accordion | Height only. The string rule stays put and the content moves under it | 300 ms |
| Everything | Honours prefers-reduced-motion by switching off, not shortening | 0 ms |
Easing is one curve: cubic-bezier(.22,.68,.32,1). If an interaction needs a second curve to feel right, the interaction is wrong.
Digital
Editorial, asymmetric, and quiet enough that the photography is the only thing shouting.
Social templates
Thirteen square templates. Every post is one of these. The grid stays calm because the templates do the deciding, not the person posting at eleven at night.
Brand line
Made for
your moment.
01 · Brand line, Pine. The oversized mark cropped at the corner at 11 percent. One line from the list, two rows maximum, emphasised word in Bloom italic. No photograph.
Every detail,
considered.
02 · Text card, Alabaster. Taken straight from the business-card system: lockup top left, the tagline set in Copper italic top right, and one Copper string sweeping up across the card to a single balloon. Same construction as the printed card, so the feed and the stationery read as one thing.
Let the good things float.
03 · Brand line, Copper. White type, one Ink balloon beneath. Used sparingly, no more than one post in ten, because a full Copper field is loud by design.
04 · Full bleed. No type, no logo, no caption on the image. One post in four carries nothing but the work. This is the template that makes the others look considered.
On the water.
05 · Scrim. Pine gradient from the base only, never a full overlay and never a blur. Location in mono above, one serif line beneath. The only template that puts type on a photograph.
Autumn dates,
open.
06 · Image frame. Drop any photograph into the arch. Mist ground, label top left, mark top right, one serif line at the foot. This is the workhorse and it takes a new picture in ten seconds.
07 · Pair. The detail beside the whole, split down the middle with a 3 px gutter. Macro on the left, wide on the right, always that order. No type at all.
We are booking weddings through spring.
08 · News and update. Pine, label and date in mono across the top, one serif sentence, curl rule at the foot. For announcements, availability and anything with a date on it.
09 · Service card. One service named at the top, one photograph, service area and mark at the foot. Nine of these, one per service, and the set doubles as a highlight cover.
Brand line
Beautifully made.
Personally done.
10 · Brass ground. Flat Brass, Ink type at 5.85:1. Flat colour only, never a simulated metallic gradient. Reserve it for gifting and anything that will also exist as real foil.
Brand line
A little more joy
in the room.
11 · Fern ground. White type at 5.13:1. The quietest of the coloured grounds and the one that sits closest to the photography.
Brand line
Made to make
the moment.
12 · Ink ground. White type at 18.7:1, Bloom for the emphasised word. The strongest contrast in the system, for a single announcement rather than a run of posts.
Beautifully made.
Personally done.
13 · The balloon mask. The two balloons of the mark used as a photographic frame, the pair overlapping so they read as one shape. The only sanctioned way to combine the mark with a photograph. Alabaster ground, lockup above, one line beneath. Use a wide frame with the subject centred, because the mask crops hard at the shoulders and tapers to two points.
Rules for the grid
- Never two brand-line posts in a row. Alternate a line with work
- One in four carries no type at all
- The mark appears at minimum size or as an oversized crop. Nothing in between
- Copper, Brass, Fern or Ink grounds no more than one post in four between them
- Captions carry the venue and the town when permission allows it, because that is what local search reads
The feed
Nine posts in sequence. Work, line, work, line, then three frames of work together so the grid can breathe. No two coloured grounds touch, and no brand line sits directly above or beside another.
Booking autumn now.
One image, one paragraph, one button. A newsletter that scrolls is a newsletter nobody finishes.
Check your dateHeader is always Pine. Full width, wordmark left, issue number right in mono, one serif line. Body stays Alabaster. Maximum 620 px wide.
In the world
Every surface the brand touches, and how the logo behaves on each one.
The ratio that holds it together
- One full lockup per piece. Everything else uses the mark alone, or the string
- The balloon pair never changes colour to suit a ground. Ink and Copper on light, Chalk and Bloom on Pine
- Brass is foil only. If a press cannot make it real, it is not used
- Blind emboss beats a second ink every time the stock will take it
The collection
The whole system in one frame: Pine boxes, patterned tissue, an embossed card, a kraft hangtag, the tote and a Pine tee. Logo use: the full lockup appears once, on the woven neck label. Everywhere else the mark works alone, as a single Copper balloon on a string. That ratio, one lockup to many marks, is the rule for any group of pieces.
Business card, statement face
Logo use: full lockup, Ink type with the Ink and Copper balloon pair, set top left on Alabaster. The oversized crop device fills the right edge, one black and one Copper balloon running off the card. Reverse carries a single Copper balloon and its string as a left-hand spine beside the contact details. The mark is never repeated on both faces at full size.
Business card, Pine and Brass
Logo use: the lockup in Brass foil, centred on a Pine card, with one small Brass balloon anchored at the top right corner. This is the only place the metallic appears on stationery. The Alabaster face keeps the balloon pair as a blind emboss, so the mark reads as texture rather than a second print.
Business card, the quiet version
Logo use: lockup top right, and the string doing the work: one Copper thread sweeping the full width of the card under the type, with the balloon landing at the far edge. This is the string used as a rule rather than as an ornament, and it is the cleanest of the three card options.
Business card, three routes
Three approved card layouts shown together. Logo use: top, lockup left with the blind-embossed balloon pair opposite. Middle, mark only, the two balloons and their crossing strings carrying the whole front. Bottom, lockup in Brass foil. All three keep the reverse identical, which is what makes them a set rather than three different cards.
Envelopes and seals
Logo use: the lockup appears once, on the largest envelope. Every other closure uses the mark alone: a Copper seal with the balloon pair reversed out, a Chalk seal with the pair in Ink and Copper, and a small Ink-and-Copper pair printed directly at the corner. Seals alternate ground colour, never the drawing.
Letterhead
Logo use: lockup top left at minimum print size, with a hairline string running out to the right as a rule. At the foot, the two balloons drawn as outlines only, tethered by a long Copper string that curves across the page. Outline is permitted here and nowhere else, because the page has no other ink on it.
Stationery, packed
Logo use: a single Copper balloon on the Pine lid, small and high, with the string falling. Nothing else on the outside. The mark repeats as the tissue pattern inside and as a blind emboss on the enclosed card, so the brand is felt three times in three different ways before any type is read.
Client gift box
Logo use: the lockup printed on a single cream balloon inside the box, so the mark arrives as part of the product rather than on a label. The hangtag carries the balloon pair alone. This is the one context where the lockup is allowed to sit on a curved surface.
Gift box and tags
Logo use: Brass foil lockup centred on the Pine lid, with a Copper balloon and string above it. The card and the tag both use the mark as a blind emboss with no ink at all. Tissue carries the repeating balloon tile in Copper.
Gift bags
Logo use: full lockup on the Alabaster bags with one Copper balloon and a long string beneath it, and the mark alone on the Pine bag. Swing tags carry the balloon pair only. Note the bag sizes share one artwork scaled proportionally, never redrawn to fit.
Packaging and merchandise
Logo use: the Pine shipper carries one Copper balloon on the inside lid, the tissue carries the tile, the tote carries a single balloon with a long string, and the tee carries the small embroidered pair. Five surfaces, one mark, no lockup anywhere. This is how a set stays calm.
Team kit and shipping
Logo use: woven neck label carries the lockup at 32 mm; the chest carries the tonal embroidered mark alone. The shipper repeats the Copper balloon on the lid. Cards and tags stay blind embossed, which keeps the ink budget on the packaging rather than the paper.
Team hoodie
Logo use: lockup across the chest with the tagline set beneath it in Instrument Serif italic, and the same lockup on the back. Approved grounds are Pine, Ink and Alabaster, and the balloon pair keeps its Ink and Copper colourway on all three. Details show the tonal embroidered mark, the woven hem tag, the printed neck label and the Brass-foil hangtag.
Event sign
Logo use: the lockup as the credit on an arched sign, with a short line above it and the handles beneath. This is the vendor credit format for any event. The sign is Alabaster, the type is Ink, and the balloon pair keeps its colour. Nothing else appears on the panel.
Printed balloon
Logo use: the lockup printed on a single oversized cream balloon, tied with a Copper ribbon over a cluster in the brand palette. The mark is the only graphic. Because the surface curves, this is the one application where the lockup may be scaled larger than its usual proportion to stay readable.
Flyer, the brand piece
Logo use: lockup at the top, then the two balloons used as photographic masks, with real installation photography cropped inside the balloon shapes. This is the only sanctioned way to combine the mark with a photograph. Contact details sit under Copper circle icons, and one small Copper balloon closes the page.
Flyer, the service piece
Logo use: lockup top centre, a single arched photograph beneath, and the serif headline carrying the tagline with the emphasised words in Copper italic. One Copper balloon sits at the lower right as the only ornament. The service list is set plainly in two columns, which is what keeps the page from looking like an advertisement.
Occasion cards, three panels
Logo use: the lockup repeats once per panel at the same size, so the three read as a set. Each panel alternates its ground between Alabaster, Ink and Copper while the balloon pair keeps its colourway. Circular balloon crops and the arch device carry the photography.
Occasion cards, arched
Logo use: lockup at the top of each card at identical scale and position, with the arch device holding the photograph beneath it. Category titles are set in Instrument Serif, service lists in Figtree at small caps. The website and handle close each card in mono.
The people behind it
Asal and Parastoo.
Co-founders and creative directors. The two people who design every installation are the two people who arrive and build it.
Confidential. Not for distribution. Photography is unaltered work from the House of Balloonz library. Contact details, venues, service area and pricing remain to confirm, and nothing in this document has been invented.
Hello, World!
Hello, World!