Brand book · 2026 working draft
One company, one crown, one promise: handmade Turkish cymbals a working drummer can actually afford to play. This book turns 23 years of equity into a system anyone can apply.
01
The mark
The distressed script and hand-drawn crown are 23 years of stage recognition. They stay. What changes is discipline: the mark gets clear space, approved backgrounds, and a real vector master to replace the 93-pixel JPEG the current site header uses.
PRIMARY · full lockup on stage black. Default everywhere.
CROWN ALONE · avatars, favicons, embroidery, cymbal stamps.
ON GOLD · crown only, printed dark. Never the full script on gold.
ON BONE · print applications, one-color dark.
Give the lockup clear space equal to the crown's height in layouts and print. Interface chrome may run tighter, never touching.
Use the transparent PNG/vector master. Minimum display width: 100px.
Box the logo in a black rectangle on a non-black background.
Recolor the script, stretch the mark, or set it over busy photography without a scrim.
02
Color
The current site owns a gold, #F5B209, and uses it only on hover states. This system promotes it to the leading role and gives it a supporting cast pulled from the cymbals themselves: stage black, lathed bronze, bone white. Gold covers roughly 5% of any layout; that scarcity is what makes it read as metal, not mustard.
03
Type
SoultoneSwiss, the face already in the site's theme, stays in service for continuity. Around it: a condensed poster face for headlines that hits like a crash, a workhorse body face, and a mono for the spec-sheet details drummers actually read (sizes, weights, serials).
04
The signature device
Most Soultone tops carry concentric tonal grooves cut on the lathe. That geometry becomes the brand's fingerprint: the section divider, the loading state, the hover ripple, and the pattern language across print and digital. Every cymbal maker cuts these rings; Soultone can own them the way it owns the crown, by applying them everywhere, on purpose.
As a divider, a bullet, a progress spinner, a vinyl-style loading animation in the app, an embossed pattern on cases and merch. One device, applied everywhere, quietly.
05
Photography
Soultone already owns its best photography: full-resolution frames of real endorsers behind real kits. The rule going forward: cymbals are lit like brass instruments (hard key, deep shadow, visible hammer marks), and people are shot with the instrument, in the room, mid-take whenever the frame allows. Product-on-white stays in the catalog; the brand lives on stage black.
06
Voice
Short sentences. Concrete claims. Gear words, not marketing words. If Iki wouldn't say it across the counter of the shop, it doesn't go on the site.
07
Optional: where the mark could go
The current mark works. If Soultone ever wants a refresh, these are the three paths, in ascending order of change. None are required for the site or app to ship.