El Encanto
A brand sheet that re-themes
A wine garden inside a 250-year-old house in Quito’s historic center.
Juan M. Cornejo
El Encanto
A notebook
This notebook covers one part of El Encanto’s identity: a brand sheet that re-themes. The wordmark and the symbol take any of the six colours by day, and the brand’s gold by night.
- Notes2
- The sheet, sketched3
- A brand sheet that re-themes4
- Six colours, two modes5
- Try it6
- The sheet by day7
- The sheet by night8
- The t, lifted9
- In short10
Name, brand, strategy and everything that carries it, for a wine garden inside a 250-year-old house in Quito's historic center.
1El Encanto
Notes
- A wine garden in a 250-year-old house in Quito. The colours come from the house: brown wood, the green garden, candlelight.
- Six colours: deep brown, brown, grass, gold, beige, and red for the accent.
- The wordmark is a hand-lettered script. Its t is a cross, and the t on its own is the symbol.
- The wordmark and the symbol take the current colour, so one drawing serves every ground.
- At night the deep brown gives way to gold, the red to a rose, the grass green lightens, and the ground goes dark.
- The symbol’s line looks thin at 26 px and disappears at 16 px. Measured in Mantel, which El Encanto runs on, it still reads at 56 px, so Mantel keeps it out of the favicon (the browser tab icon).
- In print and on posts, Arboria in two weights for the words and Lindsey for the handwritten touches.
2Notes
The sheet, sketched
Figure 1. The brand sheet, sketched in code. It holds the wordmark with its cross, the six colours, and the t alone as the symbol.
3El Encanto
Chapter 1
A brand sheet that re-themes
El Encanto’s identity has three parts: a script wordmark whose t is a cross, that t alone as the symbol, and six colours taken from the house. The wordmark and the symbol are drawn once and take whichever colour they are given.
The script’s thin lines have to stay legible on each of the six colours, and again at night, when gold replaces deep brown. The sheet shows where they hold and where they do not.
The next page measures the contrast between the colours. On the page after it, pick the colours of the sheet and read the contrast as it changes.
4A brand sheet that re-themes
Six colours, two modes
| Ground | Deep brown text | Beige text | Red mark |
|---|---|---|---|
| By day | |||
| Deep brown | 1.00:1 | 13.06:1 AAA | 2.36:1 |
| Brown | 1.57:1 | 8.34:1 AAA | 1.51:1 |
| Grass | 1.50:1 | 8.71:1 AAA | 1.57:1 |
| Gold | 6.09:1 AA | 2.14:1 | 2.58:1 |
| Beige | 13.06:1 AAA | 1.00:1 | 5.54:1 AAA |
| Red | 2.36:1 | 5.54:1 AA | 1.00:1 |
| By night, on #181310 | |||
| Gold, the brand | 8.03:1 AAA | ||
| Rose, the accent | 5.00:1 AAA | ||
Table 1. Contrast ratios for each of the six colours as a ground, by day, then for gold and the accent on the night ground. Computed when the page was built, with the contrast rule of Mantel’s palette module ported to this page. AA and AAA are WCAG grades for text: AA needs 4.5:1 and AAA 7:1. The red mark is graded as large text, where AA needs 3:1 and AAA 4.5:1. The ratios are for the brand colours, not the app’s own screens; the app’s canvas is #FFF8EE, not the brand beige. The type under the table is outlined from the fonts, not set in them.
5El Encanto
Try it
ground
mark
Figure 2. The wordmark and the symbol on the six colours by day, and in gold by night, with the contrast read by Mantel’s rule. Pick a ground and a mark colour, or change the symbol’s size to see where its line thins.
6Try it
The sheet by day
- 1The beige ground
- 2Deep brown, the wordmark in cream
- 3Gold, with the t in brown: the symbol
- 4Red
- 5Grass green, the script line in gold
- 6Brown, the second ground for text
Plate 1. The day board: the six colours as blocks, the wordmark, the symbol and the script line each set on one of them.
7El Encanto
The sheet by night
- 1At night the symbol is gold
- 2The wordmark stays cream
- 3The script line, faint: the hardest pair to read
- 4Five of the six colours, without deep brown
Plate 2. The night board: the wordmark, the symbol and the script line over a photograph of the courtyard, the symbol in gold instead of brown.
8The sheet by night
The t, lifted
Figure 3. The logo as three sheets fanned out, bottom to top. The t on the top sheet is the symbol.
- 1The ground, one of six colours.
- 2The wordmark, in the colour it is given.
- 3The t lifted out on its own: the symbol.
9El Encanto
In short
By day the sheet reads the contrast of any of the six colours on any other. By night it reads the brand’s gold on the night ground. The symbol sets its own limit in size, which the live page shows.
The rest of El Encanto is in the case study: the strategy, the posts, the signs and the house.
10In short
