msp-brand

MSP Brand Details

This skill is the single source of truth for how your MSP looks and sounds. Apply it to every piece of branded content. When this skill conflicts with a generic template, this skill wins.

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Setup: fill this in first

This skill is the one place in the whole suite where your company's identity lives. No other skill states your name, tagline, colors, fonts, contact details, or voice; they all defer here. That means this file is the single source of brand truth, and it is only as good as what you put in it.

Before you use any other skill in this suite:

1. Fill in every section below completely. Work top to bottom: identity, visual style, voice.
2. Replace every double-brace placeholder token (the canonical list lives in msp-setup) with your real value. These same tokens appear across the other skills; setting them here is what makes the rest of the suite speak in your name.
3. Fill in the tables for colors, typography, and logo files, then delete the "Example" rows and any example-only guidance so nothing ships but your own values.
4. Drop your logo files into this folder (msp-brand/) and list them in the logo table.

Until this file is filled in, treat the other skills as unbranded. Do not send anything client-facing until every double-brace placeholder token and every example value here has been replaced with yours.

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1. Identity & Naming

Legal entity: {{COMPANY_LEGAL_NAME}}

Use in content:

• Default name in most materials: {{COMPANY_NAME}}.
• Use the full legal name {{COMPANY_LEGAL_NAME}} in contracts, proposals, invoices, footers, and any legal or formal document.
• Decide on one short form of your name and use it consistently once the full name has appeared, or in casual/internal contexts. Pick a short form that reads cleanly and does not accidentally repeat a word (for example, do not let a short name that already contains "IT" turn into "IT IT Services" when you append "IT Services").

Naming rules (write your own here, then keep them):

• If your company name is an acronym or initialism, decide once whether you ever spell it out in customer-facing materials, and write that rule here. Many strong brands never expand the acronym and let the name and tagline carry the meaning; others always expand it. Either is fine, but be consistent, and if any expansion of the acronym is off-brand or off-color, state plainly that it is never used.
• Note any other hard naming rules that protect the brand (capitalization, spacing, what never to abbreviate). Keep this list short and absolute so there is no ambiguity later.

Tagline / slogan: {{TAGLINE}}

• A good tagline is short, plain, and says what the client gets, not what you do technically. Aim for something a non-technical owner would repeat back to you. Test it by reading it aloud: if it sounds like a slogan a real person would say, keep it; if it sounds like ad copy, cut it down.
• Use it as a headline, an email sign-off line, a footer, or a hero statement.
• Capitalize it as a title when used as a tagline; sentence case is fine in running copy.

Contact details (use exactly as written):

• Website: {{DOMAIN}}
• Email: {{INFO_EMAIL}}
• Phone: {{PHONE}}
• Location: {{STATE}}. Decide how specific to be. Keeping it to a state or region (for example "Serving businesses {{SERVICE_AREA}}") reads well before you want to publish a street address.

Standard email signature (the standing format):

[Name]
{{COMPANY_NAME}}
{{TAGLINE}}
{{DOMAIN}} · {{INFO_EMAIL}} · {{PHONE}}

Use this block for email signatures and as the default contact footer pattern in documents. The middot-separated contact line ({{DOMAIN}} · {{INFO_EMAIL}} · {{PHONE}}) is the standard one-line contact format anywhere contact details appear.

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2. Visual Style

Color palette

Fill in your own palette below. A good starting point is one signature primary color, a darker shade of it for hover/pressed states, one secondary accent that supports the primary without competing with it, a soft tint for backgrounds, and a set of neutrals for text, surfaces, and lines. Pick a primary and secondary that are clearly different in hue so they never read as "almost the same color." For accessibility, make sure body text meets a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 against its background (large headings can go to 3:1); check your text-on-primary and text-on-tint pairs specifically, since those are the ones that usually fail. Avoid pure black (#000000) for text; a near-black reads softer.

The Example column below shows the shape of a finished palette only. Replace every HEX with your own value and delete the Example column before shipping.

Role	Your name	Your HEX	Example (delete)	Use for
Primary			#E57D31	Logo background, primary buttons, headers, links, highlights, accent rules
Primary (dark)			#C96A20	Hover/pressed states, darker accents
Secondary			#369EC9	Secondary accents, icons, supporting highlights
Tint			#FDF0E6	Page/section backgrounds, callout boxes, soft fills behind text
Text			#1A1A1A	Body text and headings
Text (muted)			#555555	Secondary/supporting text, captions
Surface			#FFFFFF	Default background
Line			#E8E8E8	Dividers, card borders, rules

Usage guidance:

• Lead with your primary as the signature color; use it deliberately for emphasis (buttons, key headers, accents), not as large fill areas. Use the darker primary for hover/active states.
• Your secondary is an accent; use it sparingly alongside the primary, not as a co-lead.
• Use your tint for soft section backgrounds to keep materials warm rather than stark white.
• Use your text color for body copy and your muted text color for secondary text.
• Keep contrast accessible: dark text on tint/white; white or light text on your primary or on near-black.

Typography

Fill in your own type choices below. A common, safe pattern is one sans-serif for headings and one for body, plus a widely installed system font as a fallback for Word and email where web fonts do not load. Pick fonts that are legible at small sizes and that you have the license to use. Note the weights you use for headings, sub-headings, and body so documents stay consistent.

The Example column shows the shape only. Replace with your own and delete the Example column before shipping.

Role	Your font	Weights	Example (delete)
Headings			Poppins, 700 for h1/h2, 600 for sub-headings and buttons
Body			Inter, 400 for body, 500 for emphasis
Document fallback			Calibri or Arial where web fonts are unavailable

Use the document fallback in Word, email, and anywhere your web fonts cannot load, so layouts stay clean.

Logo

Drop your logo files into this folder (msp-brand/) and list them in the table below. Ship, at a minimum, a full lockup (your mark plus your wordmark), an icon/logomark (the mark alone for small spaces), and a single-color or grayscale variant for black-and-white printing. If your logo reads better on different surfaces with different backgrounds (for example a badged version for light pages and a dark-tile icon for light backgrounds), include those variants too.

Fill in the filenames you actually add. The Example column shows the shape only; delete it once you have listed your own files.

Your filename	What it is	Example filename (delete)	Use for
	Full lockup, color, mark + wordmark	logo-full-color.png	Primary logo. Most documents, decks, email signatures, headers
	Full lockup, color, no badge, on light	logo-full-nobadge.png	Placing the logo directly on a light background without a badge
	Full lockup, grayscale + wordmark	logo-full-bw.png	Black-and-white printing, single-color contexts
	Logomark only, on primary-color tile	icon-primary.png	App icon, avatar, favicon, social profile picture, small spaces
	Logomark only, on dark tile	icon-dark.png	Avatar/icon on light backgrounds where a dark tile reads better

File specs to record (fill in for your files):

• Note the pixel dimensions of each file so anyone placing them knows what they are working with.
• Note whether files are flattened (solid background) or transparent PNGs. If you need to overlay your mark on a photo, keep a transparent-background cutout on hand.

Usage rules:

• Default to your full color lockup wherever space allows.
• Use the icon variants only where the full wordmark will not fit or is not needed (favicons, avatars, watermarks).
• Pick the variant whose background suits the surface: a badged or dark-tile icon on light pages; the no-badge lockup directly on light or tinted backgrounds.
• Maintain clear space around the logo equal to a consistent unit you define (a common choice is the height of the first letter of the wordmark).
• Do not stretch, squash, rotate, recolor, add shadows or effects, or alter the mark's elements.
• Do not place the color logo on a busy photo or a background that clashes with your primary color. Use a solid neutral, tinted, or dark panel behind it.

Imagery

• Prefer clean, approachable imagery: real small-business settings, friendly team/people, simple iconography. Avoid clichéd "hacker in a hoodie" or overly corporate stock photos.
• Keep visuals warm and human, matching a customer-service-first positioning.

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3. Voice & Tone

(This section is the source of truth for your brand voice. msp-sales and msp-pricing defer to it.)

Brand personality in a phrase: the friendly expert who handles the hard stuff so the client does not have to. Plain-spoken, reassuring, confident, never condescending. Selling and serving are the same thing. (Adjust this phrase to fit your own positioning, but keep it to one sentence a new hire could act on.)

Two registers:

• Customer-facing content (emails, proposals, web, case studies, flyers): Friendly, warm, and jargon-free. Speak to business owners, not IT people. Focus on outcomes (save time, reduce risk, stay focused on your business), not on tech specs.
• Internal / salesperson-facing content (scripts, playbooks, enablement): Motivating, action-oriented, and clear. Help the reader feel confident and know exactly what to do next.

Punctuation, no em dashes: Do not use the em dash in your content. Overusing it is a strong tell that text was AI-generated, and it turns readers off. Default to commas, periods, parentheses, a colon, or restructuring the sentence instead. Only use an em dash in the rare case where a human would genuinely and naturally write one. This applies to all content, customer-facing and internal.

Plain-English rule (use these, not those):

• "IT problems" (not "infrastructure incidents")
• "your computers and phones" (not "endpoints" or "devices")
• "keep your data safe / back up your files" (not "data resiliency posture")
• "someone to call when something breaks" (not "incident response SLA")

Do:

• Lead with the customer's problem or goal, in their words.
• Keep sentences short and concrete. One idea per sentence.
• Be specific about benefits ("get back the hours you lose when computers crash").
• Sound like a helpful neighbor recommending a service, not a polished ad.

Avoid:

• Tech jargon and acronyms in customer materials (define or replace them).
• Fear-based or pushy selling. Sell through empathy and trust.
• Hype words and filler ("cutting-edge," "synergy," "world-class," "leverage").
• Em dashes (see the punctuation rule above).
• Overstated service-area claims: never claim statewide or wider coverage than you actually serve. Name the area you truly cover ({{SERVICE_AREA}}) and keep marketing copy inside it.

Audience (describe your target client): Write to your actual buyer. As a labeled example, one working MSP defines its audience as: small to medium-sized businesses, owners and office managers at companies of roughly 25 to 75 employees with no dedicated IT staff, often currently reactive/break-fix, and the message is written to the non-technical decision-maker. Replace that with your own client profile: who they are, roughly how big, whether they have any internal IT, and which person actually makes the buying decision.

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Quick Reference (paste-ready)

• Name: {{COMPANY_NAME}} (legal: {{COMPANY_LEGAL_NAME}})
• Tagline: {{TAGLINE}}
• Web / Email / Phone: {{DOMAIN}} · {{INFO_EMAIL}} · {{PHONE}} · {{STATE}}
• Signature: Name / {{COMPANY_NAME}} / tagline / contact line
• Colors: fill in your primary, dark primary, secondary, tint, and near-black from the palette table
• Fonts: fill in your heading font, body font, and document fallback from the typography table
• Logo: your full color lockup is the default; icons for small spaces; grayscale for single-color
• Voice: Friendly expert. Plain English. Outcomes over specs. Empathy over fear.
• Never: jargon in client copy; fear-based selling; em dashes.