Brand centre
The Carlo logo, colours, type and voice, and the files to use them. If you are making anything with Carlo's name on it, start here.
01 · Brand overview
How Carlo works
Carlo is the Irish public-to-trade car marketplace. Everything in the brand follows from the model, so it is worth knowing before you design or write anything.
- 1
The seller lists once
A private seller enters the reg and mileage, answers the same questions every seller answers and takes the same photos.
- 2
Dealers send sealed offers
Verified Irish dealers send offers for up to seven days. Each dealer sees only their own offer and can raise it until the listing ends.
- 3
The seller picks the best
The seller can accept early, or has 48 hours after the listing ends. There is no obligation to sell.
- 4
The dealer collects and pays
The dealer inspects the car against the listing, collects it and pays the seller directly. Carlo never holds the money.
Sellers
Genuine offers. None of the private-sale hassle.
Seller pages sit on white and ground, with teal type and aqua accents.
Dealers
Irish-registered stock, straight from private sellers.
Dealer pages invert it: deep teal ground, teal cards, white type, aqua eyebrows and lime buttons.
02 · Brand overview
Personality
Carlo should feel like a straight-talking friend in the trade: someone who knows cars, tells you how it works and doesn't waste your time.
Straight
Say how it works, including the parts people worry about: fees, inspection, finance. No small print we wouldn't put in large print.
Not salesy.
Fair
Both sides get a good deal. Sellers get a real price, dealers get honest listings, and nobody games the other.
Not one-sided.
Calm
Selling a car is stressful. We take the hassle out, so the brand is unhurried: plenty of space, short sentences, no countdown panic.
Not pushy.
Local
Irish cars, Irish dealers, Irish plates. We write euro, kilometres, NCT and counties, and we sound like it.
Not generic.
03 · Brand overview
Tone of voice
Short, plain and specific. Write the way you would explain it across a kitchen table.
Lead with what happens
Say what the reader does and what they get. Then stop.
Be specific
Seven days, 48 hours, reg and mileage, bank transfer. Numbers and nouns beat adjectives.
Answer the worry
Who pays, when, what if there is finance, what if the car isn't as described. Answer it before it is asked.
Write this
- Verified dealers send you their best offers. Take the best one or walk away.
- The dealer pays you directly by bank transfer when they collect the car.
- Send your offer. Other dealers can't see it and you can't see theirs.
- Only pay a fee on the cars you buy.
Not this
- Dealers compete in a live auction to win your car!
- Payments are processed securely through Carlo.
- Outbid the competition and see where you rank.
- Get instant finance on your next car.
04 · Brand overview
Words we use
Offers on Carlo are sealed, so the language of auctions is wrong as well as off-brand. These words are fixed.
| Write | Don't write | Why |
|---|---|---|
| offer, make an offer, raise your offer | bid, place a bid | Offers are sealed and can only go up. Nobody bids against anyone they can see. |
| listing | auction, lot | The seller lists once. It is not a sale room. |
| active, ends, ends in 1d 4h | live, closing, going once | A listing is open for up to seven days and then ends. |
| the seller accepts an offer | winner, winning offer, outbid | Dealers never see whether they lead or how many offers there are. |
| Carlo | CARLO, carlo, Carlo. | In prose the name has a capital C and no stop. The stop belongs to the logo only. |
Copy rules
- Any listing or offer shown in a design is illustrative and must say so, for example "Illustrative listing and offer."
- Carlo never holds money. Dealers pay sellers directly.
- Don't claim Carlo arranges credit or finance. Outstanding finance is settled by the dealer with the seller's lender.
- Competitors' auctions and bidding can be named as such.
05 · Brand elements
Logo
The wordmark is carlo. in lowercase Onest 700 with a coloured stop. The stop is the only accent in the mark: aqua on light backgrounds, lime on teal. Always use the files, never type it.
Clear space and size
Leave the x-height of the mark clear on every side. Nothing else goes in that space.
96 px on screen25 mm in print
Never smaller than this. Below it, use the icon.
Don't
06 · Brand elements
Icon
The c. on a square tile. Use it for app icons, favicons, social avatars and anywhere the wordmark would be smaller than 96 px.
07 · Brand elements
Colour
The Atlantic palette: teal and deep teal carry the brand, aqua and lime are the accents, ground and ink do the quiet work. Click any swatch to copy its hex.
Primary
Neutrals
Supporting tints
Balance
Mostly paper and ground, teal for weight, a little aqua, and lime only where you want the eye to land.
Pairings
Rules
- Lime is the accent. Use it for buttons, the stop and small highlights, never as the background of a whole section.
- Aqua fails contrast on white (2.6 : 1). For aqua text on light backgrounds use aqua ink, and keep it to eyebrows and large text (4.1 : 1).
- On the web, use the tokens in the website's
globals.cssrather than raw hex.
08 · Brand elements
Typography
One typeface: Plus Jakarta Sans, for headings, body and product UI. Onest appears only inside the wordmark, as outlines, and is never set as live text.
Aa
Plus Jakarta Sans
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
0123456789 € . , : ; ' " ! ? & ( )
Regular 400
Medium 500
Semibold 600
Bold 700
Extrabold 800
Scale
Genuine offers.
Why dealers use Carlo
Sellers who value their time
How it works
Your listing stays open to dealers for up to seven days, and you can accept an offer as soon as you're happy with it.
Illustrative listing and offer.
Setting type
- Sentence case for headings and buttons. No full stops in headings unless it is a short statement like "Genuine offers."
- Tighten large headings slightly (-0.02 to -0.03em). Leave body at 0.
- On the web load it from Google Fonts or
next/font. For print use the static files in the brand pack, never the Google Fonts link.
09 · Brand elements
Photography
Real cars where real people park them. Daylight, driveways, Irish houses. The same set of angles every seller takes, so a Carlo photo looks like a Carlo listing.
Use
- Natural light and real settings: driveways, streets, estates.
- The listing angles: front three-quarter, rear three-quarter, dashboard, seats.
- Cars on Irish plates, shot at eye level.
Avoid
- Showroom and studio shots. Carlo is private sellers, not forecourts.
- Stock photos of handshakes, keys and cash.
- Heavy filters, dramatic skies or motion blur.
10 · Brand elements
Listing card
The listing card is the one piece of product UI that turns up in marketing: on the leaflet, the website and social posts. Every time it appears it must be labelled illustrative.
Ends in 1d 4h2017 Audi S3 2.0 TFSI Quattro
Send offerOnly the seller sees your offer.
Illustrative listing and offer.
- Show the reg, mileage, location and NCT on one line, separated by middle dots.
- Show only the dealer's own offer. Never a count of offers, another dealer's amount or a ranking.
- Time left reads "Ends in", never "Closing".
- Put the illustrative label beside the card, in small muted type.
11 · Downloads
Brand pack
Everything above in one file: every logo and icon as SVG, the app icon PNGs, Plus Jakarta Sans for print, and the palette as CSS.
Questions
Not sure? Ask first.
If something you need isn't here, or you want to use the brand in a way these pages don't cover, email hello@carlo.ie before it goes out.