Patterns and graphic elements of the brand in the brandbook

What is considered a pattern and what is not in the brandbook

A pattern is not a 'background with a design for beauty', but a coded carrier of brand identity that must work without a logo and without color. If you remove the pattern from a layout but the overall composition and text remain — brand recognizability should drop, otherwise it is just a decorative texture, not an element of the system. In a broad sense, auxiliary graphics are also included in patterns: icons, dividers, ornamental accents, modular signs. All of them follow the same logic — scalability without loss of character.

The mistake of most brandbooks is that they describe a pattern with one high-resolution image and a couple of application examples. Then the designer does whatever they want with it on the spot — stretches, rotates, crops as convenient. Without documented boundaries, the pattern quickly loses its form and begins to live its own life, separate from the brand.

Scale rules: 1/2, 1/3 and minimum 20%

The working principle used in the guidelines of Norma Sport, EuroChem, HSE and PAO 'Element' — a strict ratio of the size of pattern elements to the logo. For small carriers (business card, packaging, social networks) the proportion 1/2 is used — the pattern element is no larger than half the height of the logo. For large surfaces (billboard, wall, window display) the proportion changes to 1/3, because from a distance a small element is simply not readable, and an overly large one begins to compete with the logo for attention.

The second rule is minimal area. If a pattern is used, it cannot occupy less than 20% of the layout area: a smaller proportion looks like a random spot rather than a deliberate element of the brand style. At the same time, the density of the pattern should not visually 'overlap' the logo and text — these are different parameters, and both must be specified separately.

• Only one type of pattern at one scale is used on a single carrier — a mix of two patterns or two different densities of one pattern is considered a violation.
• The minimum scale of the pattern element is fixed in millimeters or pixels for specific types of carriers, not in abstract terms such as 'no smaller than visible'.
• The maximum scale is limited so that an individual element is not read as a standalone graphic sign competing with the logo.

How the same pattern behaves on different media

One raster pattern file never works equally well on a smartphone screen and on a building facade. The difference in the eye's resolving power at different distances requires different versions of the same pattern — with different element density and different level of detail.

Practice from Primorsky Park of Victory and the 'Living Cities' project shows a working approach: instead of just one version, a set is created for each pattern — dark and light, high and low density, as well as a modular version assembled from independent fragments that can be cloned in any direction without joints. This solves the problem when a pattern made for A4 falls apart at billboard scale or, conversely, loses readability on an icon.

We encountered the reverse example on a retail project: a pattern made of thin diagonal lines was approved based on a presentation mockup on a laptop screen, where it looked stylish and light. On packaging of the same density, the lines merged into a solid gray rectangle — during printing, the thin strokes simply filled in due to paint spreading. If we had checked it on a real print before approval, we would have saved a month on reworking the print run.

How a pattern should behave next to a logo and text

A conflict between a pattern and text occurs almost always for one reason — the protective field between the pattern and other elements of the layout is not described in the brandbook. It is permissible to crop a pattern, that is, to trim it to the edge of the medium — this is a normal practice, not an error. But where text or a logo is located nearby, there should be uniform free space: the pattern should not touch them directly and should not puncture the text block with individual elements.

Interaction with a modular grid is another point that is rarely documented in writing, and for good reason. If the base grid module in the brandbook equals, say, 8px, then the size of the pattern element must be a multiple of this step — 8, 16, or 24px, not 10 or 15px, which look 'almost the same' but break alignment during any layout adaptation. When transitioning from a mobile screen to a desktop or print, the module scales entirely — for example, 8px becomes 16px when the grid is doubled in size, and the pattern element scales with it, remaining a multiple. In this way, the pattern does not 'float' relative to the text, columns, and logo, but behaves as part of a unified system, not as a separate decoration placed on top.

Frequent mistakes when using patterns

1. Non-proportional scaling. The pattern is stretched more along one axis than the other — the elements become distorted and cease to be recognizable.
2. Rotation without justification. The pattern is rotated at an arbitrary angle to 'fit' into the layout — if a specific allowed direction is not specified in the brandbook, this distorts the brand's graphic code.
3. Cutting without rules. Trimming to the edge of the substrate without any logic at all — sometimes the pattern is cropped in the middle of an element, sometimes along its contour, which creates visual untidiness.
4. Overloading the layout. Using a high-density pattern where it should play a supporting, not a primary role — as a result, the text and logo get lost in the pattern.
5. Mixing pattern types. Using two different patterns or two scales of the same pattern on one substrate — this is the most common way the rule of 'one pattern, one scale per substrate' is violated.
6. Assertion without a test run on real material. Pattern approval is based on the image on the screen, not on a test impression or a prototype of the medium — this is the most frequent source of problems with density and readability described above.

How to test a pattern before including it in the brandbook

Most brandbooks approve the pattern by eye — if it looks good to the designer and the client, it's good enough. This is the wrong approach: the pattern needs to be tested just like a logo, but on its own metrics.

• Test for scalability. The same file is output in three sizes — icon, A4, billboard — and it is checked whether the pattern remains readable and does not turn into noise or a blank spot.
• Test for recognizability without color and logo. The pattern is shown in black-and-white without other brand elements — if it is still associated with the brand, the system works.
• Test for cropping. All typical cropping methods are checked — center, edge, corner — the pattern should not create 'orphans', cut-off elements in the middle that visually irritate the eye.
• Test for the medium's context. The same layout is tested on screen, in print, and in the environment (interior, sign) — the density of the pattern is evaluated to see if it conflicts with lighting and viewing distance conditions.
• Test on real material. Before approval, at least one test run is made on the actual medium — a run on offset, printing on fabric, output on a real screen, not just on a calibrated designer's monitor.

Only after the pattern has passed these checks at different densities and versions is it fixed in the brandbook with specific figures — minimum and maximum scale, protective fields, acceptable color variants. Without this stage, the pattern remains red.