The visual identity system for Aldea Infant Care & Preschool — logo, marks, clear space, color, and typography. The reference for anyone designing for Aldea. (Voice, vocabulary, and copy live in the companion Voice & Messaging Guide.)
If it represents Aldea to a family, it follows this guide.
Brand Essence
The strategic foundation everything else is built on. Every design decision, word choice, and visual element should trace back to this page.
When parents choose Aldea, they're choosing an expert partner in raising their child — a place where their kiddo is known by name, taught by teachers who stay, and made genuinely ready for kindergarten and everything after. Together from the Start.
If Aldea were a person: a friend who happens to be a child-development expert — joyful and warm on the surface, genuinely rigorous underneath. Makes your toddler laugh at drop-off; can also explain, in plain English, why waiting your turn at snack predicts success in kindergarten.
Our Values
Three values hold Aldea together — and each carries the gut-check the team asks itself, in the moment, to live it.
These aren’t decoration: Partnered is “Together from the Start” in practice, Purposeful is the method behind the magic, and Protected is the trust the whole thing rests on.
Who We're Talking To
Our primary family: an upper-income, two-career, achievement-anxious household. Three facts about their head dictate everything we make:
Warm-but-vague reads as "sweet, not serious enough for the price." Cold-but-rigorous reads as "would I really leave my toddler there?" Aldea is both, in this order: competence leads, warmth wraps.
Logo & Marks
The Aldea mark family: one primary lockup, plus a set of approved standalone pieces. Place the asset files — never retype, redraw, or approximate any of them.
Primary Lockup & Clear Space
The full lockup — sun + script + tagline — is the default for covers, signage, hero placements, and anywhere the brand introduces itself.
Clear space is defined by a minimum unit taken from the logo itself — the same convention brands like Slack and Microsoft use, where the logomark is the measuring stick. For Aldea, the unit is the sun in the lockup itself, at whatever size you've placed it: x = the width of that sun. Clear space = 1x — one sun's worth of open space on all four sides, measured from the colored edge of the artwork (the ink itself, not the file's bounding box). The logo doubles as the measuring tool: look at the sun in your placement, clear one of them in every direction. Nothing enters that zone — no text, no characters, no competing marks, no page edge.
The ghosted sun is the exact size of the sun inside the lockup as placed — that's the point. The logo is its own measuring tool: visualize the sun in your placement, then clear one of them on every side. Solid line = the colored edge of the artwork. Dashed line = the minimum clear-space boundary. 1x is the floor, not the target — more space never hurts.
The same rule measures every mark. One sun-width of clear space applies to both name lockups, the script+sun version, the "Together from the Start" lockup, and the standalone characters alike — one rule, no math.
The Mark Family
Marks are shown tight in these spec cards for cataloging purposes — standard practice in brand guides. The 1x clear-space rule applies to real-world placements, not to specimen boxes like these.
The lockup artwork may render in any single color from the palette (e.g., Baltic Blue script on Bone, Palm Leaf on White) — but the sun stays orange (Pumpkin petals, Golden center) unless absolutely necessary, such as an all-white reversed version on a dark or photographic ground.
The Character Cast
The folk-art animals are core brand texture — they carry the warmth and play. Each may be used selectively on its own as decorative flavor (a flyer corner, a room sign, a tee back). They don't yet have fixed roles, names, or personalities in copy — that mapping comes later.
Usage Rules
- Place the supplied asset files at their native proportions.
- Render the lockup in any single palette color — sun stays orange.
- Use single-color versions on colored grounds (e.g., golden-orange print on denim, basil, or peachy garments — see the tee line).
- Use the sun alone; use one animal alone, selectively.
- Keep 1x (one sun-width) clear space around every mark, measured from the colored edge.
- Retype or approximate the script in any font.
- Stretch, rotate, outline, or add effects to any mark.
- Recolor marks outside the palette — and never recolor the sun (all-white reversed is the only exception).
- Crowd marks together — one mark per zone; characters are accents, not wallpaper.
- Place the lockup smaller than ~140 px wide on screen / 1.25" in print (sun alone: minimum ~24 px).
Color Palette
The palette is vivid on purpose — this is where the brand's "vibrant eyes" live. The whole palette is in play; restraint comes from quantity, not from muting.
HEX is the screen value; the CMYK above is a calculated print starting point. For anything critical — signage, banners, the logo on merch — have your printer match against a Pantone bridge and confirm a spot color for Pumpkin Spice (the one color the brand can’t afford to drift). Ask for a physical proof before a long run.
How to Combine
Avoid leaning on orange + blue as a standalone pairing — high-saturation orange against deep blue with nothing else reads "team colors," not "preschool." If those two share a layout, ground them with neutrals and let a third palette color soften the combo. The illustrations are the model: they use the whole palette in small, balanced doses.
Text Colors
| Use | Color | Rule |
|---|---|---|
| Body text | #555555 | The standard body color on light grounds. Never pure black. |
| Body on dark grounds | #FFFFFF | White only — no tinted body text on dark fills. |
| Headlines | Palette colors | Headlines may take palette colors (Pumpkin, Palm, Baltic) when contrast allows. Body never does. |
Imagery & Photography
Photography is how the brand feels in the spaces between the words. The folk-art illustration carries whimsy; the photography carries trust — it should look like real life at Aldea, not a stock library.
- Shoot real Aldea kids, teachers, and rooms (with photo releases on file).
- Favor candid action over posed smiles-at-camera.
- Keep tones warm; let neutrals and wood/natural textures ground the frame.
- Leave breathing room — clean backgrounds, not cluttered.
- Generic stock photography of anonymous children.
- Cold, clinical, or institutional-looking interiors.
- Heavy filters, trendy color grades, or harsh flash.
- Pile illustration on top of busy photos — one does the talking per piece.
The folk-art cast and the sun carry play and brand texture; photography carries proof and warmth. Use illustration for decoration and identity, photography to show the real place. Rarely stack both in the same zone — let each breathe.
Typography
The type pairing mirrors the Core Rule: characterful display, warm-but-legible body. Two faces, both friendly, the body always the calmer of the two.
A fixed logo asset, not a font. Place the file; never retype it.
Warm, rounded, organic (Floodfonts, Adobe Fonts). Where type carries personality: headlines, titles, big moments. Use at Bold (700) — the heavier weight is the brand's display voice. (Specimen above renders in Sirenia when the font is installed.)
Rounded-terminal humanist sans, free on Google Fonts. Its soft edges pair warmly with Sirenia and hold up at large display sizes (signage, banners) where harder fonts read angular. Body sets at Regular (400); Medium 500 and Bold 700 for emphasis. Line-height 1.5–1.6. On mobile, hold 30–50 characters per line. (Nunito Sans is the squared-off sibling — the fallback if a setting ever needs harder edges.)
- Sirenia for display, Nunito for everything readable.
- 2–3 Nunito weights max per piece.
- Body text in #555555 on light, white on dark.
- Push past friendly into bubbly — skip heavily rounded display faces (Baloo, Comfortaa, Quicksand) for body. Nunito is our deliberate rounded-but-legible body face; that's the line. If a dense setting ever reads soft, drop to Nunito Sans, not a bubblier font.
- Substitute a stiff corporate serif or default system font — kills the warmth.
Implementation Quick Start
Practical steps for the internal team and the marketing contractor.
- Nunito — free on Google Fonts. Weights 400 / 500 / 700. Add to the Canva Brand Kit.
- Sirenia — Adobe Fonts (Floodfonts). Ask Jared for activation access.
- Aldea script — logo asset, never a font. Request the file package.
#EB7219 Pumpkin Spice
#ED9F26 Golden Orange
#1D62A5 Baltic Blue
#838B4B Palm Leaf
#FCADAB Powder Blush
#E1CEB1 Pale Oak
#EDE2D2 Bone
#555555 Body text
Before Anything Ships
- Voice test: read it out loud. Real warm smart person, or committee?
- Core Rule check: is there a competence proof in here, or is it all vibes?
- Color check: 2–4 palette colors, neutrals carrying the surface — and not an orange-and-blue uniform?
- Logo check: real asset files, 1x clear space from the colored edge, sun still orange, nothing retyped?
- Protagonist check: is the parent still the one raising, with Aldea as the partner?
- One CTA: "Schedule a Tour" — clear, singular, unmissable?