KD2Style Guide

v0.1

This KD2 style guide is historical.

Consider this guide a “making-of” documentary. Thedesign evolution’s been organic (not planned). Thereare reasons for everything we’ve done. In other words,“calf path” experimentation led to market adjustmentsas we focused.

The future will be even better.

OriginalOrangeGeneric

Packaging

The orange wasselected by Bryan

Wacker and wasoriginally an

unmixed PantoneOrange 021.

This simplified colormatching across

various media likescreenprinted decals,gasketing, and press

manual cover asshown.

INDUSTRIALPRINT

COLORSGold 126Red 484

Black 5185

As the KD2 foundapplications for

power engineeers,there was a need to

brand the productmore for industrial

segmentation. Colorand type theme

changed on mostprinted materials.

1994Interstate

Familiarity is thefoundation oflegibility, lending this

sans serif a strong edge asone of the most legiblefaces. Interstate is based onthe signage alphabets ofthe United States FederalHighway Administration,alphabets that we readevery day as we drive.Tobias Frere-Jonesdesigned Interstate in 1993-94 and, with the assistanceof Cyrus Highsmith, hasexpanded it into a plethoraof enticing text and displaystyles. ($40 /wt.)

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz1234567890ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

extralight

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZlight

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZregular

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZbold

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZblack

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZultrablack

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZlight compressed

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZregular compressed

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZbold compressed

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZlight condensed

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZregular condensed

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZbold condensed

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZblack condensed

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

Interstate will work as a fontpair to most serif faces. Butthe family works for bothheadlines and body text.

regular

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZbold

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZcondensed

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZdelight expaned

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZdeluxe

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZdeluxe expanded

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZD Type

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

Blue Highway FontFreeware Clone

Blue Highway is nowreplaced with

Expressway by thesame type foundry. It

renders better ($30 perweight.)

Expressway is a directcompetitor to

Interstate since theoriginal specs were

public domain with theD.O.T.

Blue Highway is stillavailable.

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz1234567890ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

Blue Highway, shown above, is a free font family.(Interstate knockoff from Larabie fonts. It does not have the sameweights.)

Decal color palette5185 rich black

484 red126 gold

MaterialsLexan decal with a

matte finish andradiused corners

Graphic element“heat” bitmap

mezzotintstretched-to-fit

The bitmap is on file atDecagon.

HeatPulse NewsletterOriginal

This first-issue used acolor palette brighter

than the industrialcolors.

The red was 485 andthe yellow 1225.

Black was an “official”rich black.

The main font for textwas still Interstate but

display fonts varied.

The latest newsletternow uses only

Interstate font andnone other. And

colors arestandardized.

“Spirals” dingbat font lowercase“n”

n

The spiral was adecorative element,not a logo. It is not

used as much.

Screens

The ThermalResistivity .com

website wasdesigned to

incorporate theoriginal orange color.

These are notnecessarily

recommended anymore.

KD2update.info wasusing the newer

industrial colors withsprinkles of Pantone

orange 021.

Both these sitesneed to be rebuilt or

dismantled soon.

This horizontalformat brochure was

never printed butdemonstrates the

proper use andhierarchy of design

elements - colors,type, symbol, and

company logo.

NOTESfrom Steve

The theme is “powerful”.

“Powerful” works well for high-tech industrial markets.The color palette and type were selected accordingly.But there are many color combinations that alsocommuniate “powerful”. And type, too, for that matter.

Always keep the “black” dominant. Cover the mostarea with black. There will be artistic exceptions forvariety. Try and avoid them too much.

Applying the 3 colors + white with Interstate type onthe actual product will make it appear more ruggedand durable. Dominant orange is a “friendly” colorexcept when implying “danger”. It’s not bad but it is atconflict with “powerful”. So this needs considerationfor the future. Black and metallic colors can be elegantor powerful. Think Duracell copper-top.

Orange and the logo were never unacceptable. Theywere experimental and non-market specific (generic).As applications and opportunites present themselves,the KD2 needs different identities to match marketperceptions of value. This increases the worth of theproduct and can command a better price. It’s anadaptive process.

The Ubiquitous Swoosh (Swish)

The “swoosh in a logo” phenomenon died shortly after thedot com crash at the turn of the century. Swooshes are aperennial favorite because they’re thought to representhightech companies and because many communicationgiants started using them around 1996. Many designersbelieve the swoosh originated with the Nike logo, but thatmark was around for eons before swishes were gettingslapped on logos left and right.

Swishes are a favorite with designers because they’reincredibly fast to produce. While we celebrate the swooshfor serving many deadline crunched and concept-addleddesigners for years, it’s time to give it a rest.

It’s recommendedthe product logo be

redone andmodernized or

simply made out ofthe Interstate

typeface.

Ideally, the KD2would have a real

product nameinstead of an

engineering modelnumber. This would

make the devicemore appealing to a

specific market. Thatwill come with time.

Thank you for letting me participate inthe evolution of this product identity.

It’s a good product with a bright future.

Steve Teare2011