Profile Guidelines

Changelog

Introduction

This document is created for everyone who are using or just interested in VATSIM Scandinavia’s graphical profile. This document consits of guidelines of how the profile should be treated, with do’s and dont’s. It’s important that everyone follow these guidelines for a uniformed consistency between all our events, services, communication and more

Downloads

🔵 Logo

All variants of the logo: Download

🔤 Font

Roboto font: Download

To download font files from Google, click "Download family" in top right. Read here on how to install fonts on Windows

🪧 Posters

Adobe Illustrator template: Download
Adobe Photoshop template: Download

📋 Office

Word template: Download simple version or download numbered version with increased readability with chapter numbers and indented text, suitable for longer documents.

PowerPoint template: Download

☁️ Google Drive

Templates are accessible by creating documents “from template” on Drive. If you do not see the template, double check that you’re using the Vatsim Scandinavia Google account, and not your private. Please not that Google Drive doesn’t support numbered headings, so please sure the Office template if you require that

The thoughts behind the logo

This logo is trying to represent Scandinavia. What is common for whole Scandinavia is that it’s North-Europe, or just “North”, hence the arrow that’s pointing north.

The arrow is created so it matches the size and look of the font and letter “V” in Vatsim. The color of the arrow is chosen to be blue-breeze to represent our colder climate up north. The darker text color is dark blue midnight. When you look at logo on the darker backgrounds, the white-looking color is very very light blue tint, just like snow. As you might understand by now, the shades of blue, representing our climate and belonging to “up north”.

The design is focused to be “flat-design”, with solid lines, colors and angles. Meaning no more gradients, 3D effects or similar.

Here are both a positive and negative version of the logo, where both versions are valid to be used, choosing the fitting style for the specific background

Color profile

• The design profile is “flat design”, therefore, where possible, avoid using rounded corners in general.
• Regarding buttons and accessible design: To maintain good contrast within buttons, the font text should be white, and not “Snow”.

Typography

E-mail signature

This is made with Gmail standard signature editor.

• Font: Sans Serif
• Name: Size Normal, bold, color
• Title: Size Small, bold, color
• Rest: Size small, color

Picture is email.png with Gmail scale Small

The color is this one below from the Gmail pallette

Logo guidelines

You may use the logo in positive and negative variant, depending on the background.

There is also a all-black and all-white variant which is not illustrated here, but this is only ment to be used in special cases like formal documents or where colors are not deemed to fit.

Event poster guidelines

The event posters must be a in 16:9 ratio and the file size is less than 1 MB. The template is sized 1056x594 px. The image is filled with a fitting high quality background photo of your choice, which we have permission to use or credit accordingly.

The whole picture is filled with a solid of the secondary color, with 70-90% opacity. Change the opacity after visibility. The text and logo should be 50px away from the corners. This creates the overlay effect, reduing the background image. The text font is Roboto.

The rating, ICAO and date should be the same width, so it creates a box, like illustrated below with the yellow dotted lines. This can be achieved by adjusting font size, or character spacing. Don’t make one line longer/shorter than another, as it breaks the uniformity.

Event title/logo

• Event titles must clear and easy to read. The title also tells what the event is about.
• The Vatsim Scandinavia logo must be clearly displayed, reccommended size is 80px in height. When apliccable, other logo is placed with our logo, well spaced and in same size.

Event information

• Event dates must be in the day, month format. Repeating events should include, the weekday.
• If it is an CPT the type of checkout may also be added in the banner. (S2 CPT, S3+MAE CPT)
• Event airport must include the ICAO code.
• Times must be in a 24 hour, Zulu format, with a start time. End time is highly reccomended to be included

Event branding

• Use our branding colors
• Use a font which is clear to read, ideally our text font, Roboto. Event titles: 25px+ / Subtitle: 14px.

Special events branding

The Web Department may approve off-brand banners on a case-by-case basis, if they contain high standards of quality and aesthetics. Such approvals are usually reserved for large-scale or frequently occurring events. It's important to note that CPTs must always align with the brand guidelines without any exceptions.

We suggest using Roboto as the main font, but feel free to consider an alternative font for the event title if it fits well. Also, make sure that our logo and text are always visible and correctly presented. Modifications to the logo are not permitted in any case.

Exporting the banners

The templates are made in 1056x594px format (16:9). In this size the banners should be visible and clear, but still going well within the 1MB file size limit.

If you export the banner in a 0.5x size, it will be in 528x297px. This means it will meet the requirements from vroute and other services that has low quality requirements.

A hot tip is to export banners using “export for screens”. Here will get useful export options. You can discover the feature by finding it in the menus or hotkey: File>Export>Export for screeens (cmd/ctrl+alt+E)

Event description guidelines

Short description of the event

• The short description is needed to easy find a text that suits social media and their requirements.
• Maximum 280 letters.
• In adition, you need to include a tagline, which creates cuitorisity and make readers stop and read. This may also be a part of the short description, as long it fits as an short tagline.
• Maximum one link that gives audience more info about the event. Shorten links is highly recommended. (vats.im is a good one for example) Not needed in our platforms within VATSCA except Twitter and Facebook.

Long description of the event

• A longer description witch includes more details. Link to charts must be included
• Pilot briefings and link to recommended scenery, both freeware and payware are recommended to be included in the long description.

Example: Event posters