Ellora Social Brand Guidelines
This guide is a work in progress that represents our culture, personality, voice, and the visual identity of our brand and the people behind it.
Brand
Our story, color schemes and type. All the real heart and soul that makes our brand essence.
Brand
Culture
At Ellora Social, at the core of everything we do is our culture. It is our founding principle that we’ve worked on for years. The heart of this company is our people, and how we work collaboratively with our clients is what makes us special.
Vision
Our vision as an agency is to Learn, Support, and Do while extraordinarily improving our clients’ ROI from marketing and advertising projects. We have the grit, energy, and expertise to tackle any problem; however, we are not marketing automatons. Our team spirit and culture set us apart from the unending list of potential agencies.
Mission
Our mission is simple – – we do good work with good people. We tell stories and provide the building blocks and structure that brings people together to help build a future we want to live in.
The Ellora Social Pillars
Do Good Work
We succeed by our desire and ability to work together and do whatever it takes to achieve our clients’ goals. The defining characteristic of Ellora Socialites is that we are doers.
Value Our Partners
We navigate through ambiguity and go the extra mile to work in the best interests of our partners. It’s because of them we get to work what we love each day.
Be Good To Each Other
We thrive in an environment built on transparency and mutual respect. Show love to Ellora Social members, be there for your colleagues, and help each other grow.
Be Humble
We can always improve and learn from our mistakes.
Experiment Often
We are curious and embrace the adventure to learn new things. Test, fail, tweak, learn.
Personality
The nitty-gritty fundamentals that guide the way we talk, write and interact with others.
Personality
Voice
You are what you speak. Ellora Social’s voice is human. It is positive, friendly, and frank.
Compadres
We don’t try to sell; we try to educate, help, and engage. We are informed but not arrogant. We are experienced but not cynical.
Tone
Ellora Social’s tone is informal, but not inappropriate and never snobbish.
The work we do as a brand is important but rarely serious.
Corporate Messaging
The way we talk about ourselves must be colloquial and consistent but not rigid and robotic.
Who we are
“Ellora Social is a 360° digital agency that delivers exceptional online experiences for brands worldwide.”
What we do
“We help brands grow and tell their best stories.”
Design Philosophy
The way we think, understand, make the connection when designing distinctive experiences.
Design Philosophy
Be Intentional
Why did we choose to make the background green instead of blue? How does a funnel chart best represent the process we want to visualize? Why did you include 1 CTA instead of 2?
These are the types of questions commonly involved in the design thinking process. And we are incompetent to answer them efficiently if design decisions are made without intent. Intent drives design with the credo “form follows function.”
We should strive to explain the overall purpose or intent behind every design or creation we’ve made on a given project. Truly, good design is objective because it just works, and the reason it is successful because every subsequent design decision has a reason, while every styled element can be explained.
Delight, not distract
We empower action through design, and not for the latest hot trends or fanfare.
Yes, less is more – but not less clarity, less comprehension, and less accessibility.
Design should be used to add value. Few examples of this might be:
Simplifying and explaining complex ideas or processes with valuable solutions.
Organizing data and information in logical or intuitive ways.
Emphasize a point or inspire action.
Color
Color
Ellora Social Brand Palette
Charleston Green
HEX: #292B2A
RGB: 41, 43, 42
HSL: 150, 5%, 16%
White
HEX: #FFFFFF
RGB: 255, 255, 255
HSL: 150, 0%, 100%
Go Green
HEX: #00BA6B
RGB: 0, 186, 107
HSL: 155, 100%, 36%
Logos
Learn the appropriate ways to use our brand marks logos, and download logos.
Analog is Amazing
Shut the laptop and walk away, but not before grabbing a pen and a few scraps of paper.
Analog is Amazing
Get off the gridline
Sometimes you need to take a step back and understand how powerful, refreshing, and satisfying the design can be without a digital perspective. Shut the laptop and work on the design by putting some sketches on your drawing pad.
Feel like a kid again
Keep aside working with vectors for a while and instead get the paper, crayons, glue, and ruler.
Our Name
Writing Use Case
Guidelines for writing all sorts of things like a bona fide “Ellora Socialite.”
Writing Use Case
Blog Posts
- Be informative
- Educate, inspire and entertain
- Value readers time
- List Item #2Don't hard sell
Social Media
- Very informal
- Routinely provide knowledge and behind the scenes content
- Our people and our work; nothing that purely focuses on a CTA
- Don't try so hard
Web Elements/UI
- Functional, understandable, and intuitive iconography
- Plain English
- Don't get cute and abandon usability
Calls to Action
- Conversational
- Invitational
- Compelling
- Don't be pushy
Email Newsletters
- Use fun, suspense, and cliffhangers in the subject line that intrigues recipients to know what's inside.
- Keep it brief but informative.
- Provide value in the content (not "read this new post" but "Hey, we've got some stellar updates for you this month, that'll make your life much easier.")
- Be useful.
- Don't bug people.
Write for Humans
How to write for humans that sounds like it’s for humans but will also be equally appealing to the Google bots.
Write for Humans
What does that mean?
It means we write for humans without the generic marketing speak, and the search engines will follow (Hello, Google 😊). It means we make every possible effort to write smart, insightful, and value-packed content that helps and address real human questions. We’re encouraging and driven, but we also have a sharp sense of humor and a penchant for fun.
Be conversational
Readers engage with voices that resonate with them. If you went to grad school, congratulations! That’s cool, but please don’t try to impress with complicated ‘sesquipedalian’ words. Ain’t nobody got time for that gobbledygook. For our content to be useful, it needs to be simple and understandable.
Empathy
Understand the problems your audience is struggling with, and address those problems with solutions.
Talk to them (not at them or down to them) and think about what their “Pains” and “Gains” are.
Humility
We don’t have it all figured out. And neither do we pretend that we do.
We encourage ourselves to take risks, make mistakes, clean up the spill, and coach to avoid it in the future. As an Ellora Social team, we consider our humility helps us to stick together in crisis and celebrations. That said, if something is coming from your viewpoint, your belief, or your conclusion, make sure it is communicated clearly (and not stated as an undisputed fact).
Brevity
As Shakespeare put, “Brevity is the soul of wit.”
Type
Things to Avoid
Things to Avoid
Topics
Although we at times extend our services to select political and/or religious organizations that we believe do good work, we have set clear boundaries to avoid politics and religion in our content. Simply put, we have adopted bar conversation etiquette.
Buzzwords
We strive to communicate clearly and accurately, that gets people tuning in rather than tuning out. We do our best to avoid buzzwords, hokum business jargon, confusing acronyms, and insider language.
“People” instead of “audience.”
“Marketer” instead of “Marketing Rockstar” or “Growth Hacker” or “Social Media Guru” or “Content Maven.”
“Building, Learning and Creating” instead of “Crushing It” or “Smashing It” or “Killing It.”
“Expert” instead of “Thought-leader” or “Guru.”
“Develop” or “Improve” or “Innovate” instead of “Disrupt.”
Best brands are built on great stories
Best brands are built on great stories
Authentic brands are in a unique position to tell captivating stories.
Everyone has a story to tell. And whoever tells the best story wins. Stories move you and allow you to be emotionally invested in the characters. Brands recognize the importance of storytelling as well but, at the same time, find it increasingly difficult to tell a good story that can captivate an audience, sell a product, idea, service, or strengthen a brand.
Good stories are not easily forgotten. They are seared into your mind and impossible to shake off. Memorable brands are a product of carefully crafted stories that weave together engaging narratives to share their brand history, value, challenges, and successes.
Stories are what great brands do best – they maintain the human element where casual and authentic connections are built. They connect with customers on an emotional level, which gets them excited and graduates from fans into brand advocates.
Your content is telling a story about your brand. Make sure your story capture’s people’s attention, gets itched into their memories, and creates close, personal bonds.
Because Best Story Wins With Good Marketing.