Why did the O read as a C?

Its bowl was interrupted where the R overlapped. An interrupted bowl is a C, whatever the intent.

How do you overlap two letters cleanly?

Decide which is in front, then break the one behind with a consistent white gap. Ambiguous overlaps read as errors.

Can high-contrast serifs be embossed?

With a sculpted die, yes. A flat die will render the thick strokes and lose the hairlines.

Oriel

Chamber Music Society

Brand guidelines
Version 1.0
↓ scroll

01 — The idea

An interrupted bowl is a C, whatever the intent. The O is now a complete ring behind the R.

Client

A chamber music society

Construction

A high-contrast serif ligature where the O's curve runs unbroken and the R breaks with a thin white gap at the crossing.

02 — Primary lockupStacked · symbol over wordmark

Chamber Music Society

03 — On light

Chamber Music Society

Prussian Blue on Cream

03 — On dark

Chamber Music Society

Brass on Prussian Blue

04 — One colourFor fax, engraving, foil dies and single-plate letterpress

05 — Clear space

Clear space equals the O's stroke width, doubled, on all four sides.
Minimum 18 mm wide. The crossing gap closes under ink spread below that.

06 — Scale

48 MM

24 MM

12 MM

FAVICON

Favicon: the O alone. Below 12 mm the wordmark is dropped and the symbol stands alone.

07 — ColourPantone from the Solid Uncoated book

Cream#F2ECDERGB 242 236 222CMYK 0 2 8 5

Prussian Blue#294A6BRGB 41 74 107CMYK 62 31 0 58

Brass#C8A96BRGB 200 169 107CMYK 0 16 46 22

08 — Typography

Bodoni Moda · display

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 0123456789

Public Sans · text

Body copy is set at 16–18 px on screen and 9.5–10.5 pt in print, sentence case, with a maximum measure of 66 characters. Never letter-space lowercase body text.

IBM Plex Mono · labels

Labels · captions · specification lines

09 — Do and do not

✓Draw the O as one complete unbroken ring

✓Break the letter behind at every crossing

✓Emboss with a sculpted die to hold the hairlines

✕Never interrupt the O's bowl

✕Never leave an overlap ambiguous

✕Never offset print this on absorbent stock

10 — In application

A studio identity exercise. Mark, palette, type system and usage rules by the Print Peppermint design team.

Every identity we build ships with the file the press needs: vector mark, one-colour version, favicon set, Pantone Uncoated references and a guide like this one.

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A studio exercise. Oriel, and every brand in this series, is invented — no client commissioned it and none of it was ever sold.