Farm HQ
Brand book

Hi-vis for paperwork

Farm software has always looked one of two ways: municipal-green and dull, or Silicon-Valley slick and alien. FarmHQ is neither. Our chartreuse is the colour of a hi-vis vest and a fresh ryegrass ley — impossible to miss, completely at home on a farm. Black is the colour of a good pair of wellies and a cattle board. Together they say: serious kit, zero nonsense.

The brand personality in three words: Capable. Plain-spoken. On your side.

And one law above every rule in this book: simple as a gate latch. Everything FarmHQ makes — a screen, a sentence, a poster, an invoice — must be understood first time by a busy farmer with no manual and no patience. Complexity is the product's enemy and the brand's too: if a design needs explaining, the design is wrong. When any rule in this book collides with simplicity, simplicity wins.

The tag

The FarmHQ mark is "FARM HQ" set in Intro Rust, black, on a chartreuse squircle — deliberately shaped like the thing at the heart of the product: a livestock ear tag. It works at app-icon size and on the side of a Land Rover.

Shown above: the master artwork itself (supplied SVG — chartreuse squircle, black Intro Rust lettering). Always place this file; never re-set the logo type. A mono one-colour cut (for print and embroidery) is produced from this master — see the asset checklist.

Rules of the tag

• Clear space: keep a margin of at least the height of the "H" on all sides.
• Minimum size: 24px tall on screen, 12mm in print. Below that, use the tag shape alone (no wordmark).
• Backgrounds: the tag sits on black, white, paper or photography — never on another bright colour.
• Never: recolour it, rotate it, add gradients or shadows, stretch it, outline it, or set the wordmark in another font.

One loud colour. Everything else gets out of its way.

Usage ratio

Roughly 60% ground (Milk or Welly Black) · 30% ink and supports · 10% Ryegrass. If a layout feels loud, there's too much chartreuse; if it feels like any other farm brand, there's too little. Ryegrass text is only ever set on Welly Black — never on white (fails contrast) and never as body text.

Why these and not others — the competitive line

The category wears green-and-navy SaaS (AgriWebb, Shearwell, FBN) or fintech navy (Figured, Landmark). Two neighbours in our colour family: Breedr is golden yellow (#FFCB04) — adjacent, not clashing — and Herdwatch's 2024 logo carries a muted olive-lime (#B5C428) subordinate to its blue. Our defence is discipline: keep Ryegrass at full acid brightness, keep grounds Welly Black (never navy), and never introduce a secondary blue — blue is Herdwatch's territory. What makes the identity ownable is the combination: chartreuse + slab type + the tag + the voice.

Accessibility

Ryegrass on Welly Black passes WCAG AAA both ways; Welly Black on Milk passes AAA; Pasture on Milk passes AA for text. Baler Twine is reserved for large text and icons with a supporting label — never colour alone to carry meaning.

Stencil voice, honest body

Display — Intro Rust

Intro Rust (Fontfabric) is the brand voice: a slab with a worn, stamped, feed-sack character — industrial but human, exactly the register of a farm brand that means business. Use Intro Rust Base weights for headlines, ALL CAPS, tight leading (0.95–1.05), never below 20px. License web (WOFF2) and app embedding before launch; until the licensed files are in place, the approved stand-in is the heaviest available grotesque (Arial Black / Helvetica 900) — as used in this document.

Body — a workhorse pairing

Two approved body settings: Helvetica/system sans for the app and web UI (labels, buttons, tables — clarity above all, generous sizes for outdoor reading), and Georgia serif for long-form documents (whitepaper, letters) where warmth and authority matter.

Scale

Say it over the gate

FarmHQ speaks like a capable neighbour: short sentences, farm words, no software words. We say medicine book, not "treatment log module". We say the taxman, not "HMRC obligations". We never patronise, and we never dramatise — deadlines are stated, not shouted.

The slogans

• Primary: "Taking the paperwork out of farming." — everywhere: site hero, app store, print.
• Challenger: "If you don't use this, your neighbour will." — campaigns, shows, social. Cheeky, competitive, true to how farming actually works.
• Product line: "The farm office, in your pocket." — explains the category in seven words.

Writing rules

• No exclamation marks, no emoji in product copy, no "journey", "seamless", "empower", "revolutionise".
• Buttons say what happens: "Send to BCMS", "Order tags", "File VAT return".
• Numbers are exact ("saved £212 this month"), never vague ("save money!").
• British English, always. It's a "mart", a "holding", a "tup" — use the farmer's own words, regionally aware.
• The first-time test: every sentence must be understood on first reading by someone who's been up since five. One idea per sentence. If a sentence needs a comma to survive, try two sentences.
• Never make the reader feel slow. No "simply", no "just" — if it were simple they wouldn't need telling. Make the thing simple instead of calling it simple.

Proud of the sheepdog

FarmHQ is an AI company and says so — no hiding it behind "smart features," no apologising for it. Farmers know AI is coming to their industry; most reckon it's something they need to integrate, not something to fear. Our register: talk about AI the way a farmer talks about a good sheepdog or a reliable quad — a working tool that earns its keep. No magic, no hype, no apology.

Ask Farmer Joe — the named assistant

• The name is always the full phrase in marketing ("Ask Farmer Joe"); "Joe" alone once introduced, in-product. Never "the AI", "the bot", or "your assistant".
• Joe's register: exactly the brand voice — short, plain, farm words, exact numbers. Joe never uses emoji, never exclaims, never says "As an AI…". When Joe doesn't know, Joe says so and says what he'd need.
• Joe answers from the farm's own records and says which. "Based on your medicine book…" — never internet folklore, never another farm's data.
• No face, no avatar, no cartoon. Joe is represented by the tag mark and the name, set in the brand type. Personality lives in the words.

How we write about AI

The data promise — standing copy, word for word

This exact promise appears on the website, in onboarding and in every AI conversation surface. It is now table stakes in the market (Herdwatch states its equivalent flatly) and we match it, bluntly:

Never

• "Revolutionary", "magic", "supercharged", "powered by AI" as a benefit in itself.
• Overpromising autonomy — Joe drafts, the farmer decides. Always.
• AI imagery clichés: no robots, no glowing brains, no circuit-board patterns, no sparkle emoji. The visual signal for AI is the brand itself, loud and modern — the words stay plain.

Real farms, real light, real hands

• Photography: documentary, not stock. Overcast British light, mud, breath in cold air, hands on gates, phones in dirty pockets. People mid-task, never posing at a sunset. If it could be an insurance advert, it's wrong.
• Duotone treatment: for graphic applications, photography may be duotoned Welly Black → Ryegrass. Use for heroes and covers, not for UI.
• Iconography: the bespoke FarmHQ set below — line icons drawn from farm reality. No abstract tech glyphs, no rounded-cute style.
• Charts & data: Pasture and Flint for series, Ryegrass for the highlighted series only, Baler Twine strictly for warnings. Tabular figures always.
• The tag shape (the logo's squircle) is the brand's container motif: photo masks, stat cards, app icons. Use it instead of generic rounded rectangles wherever a shape needs to feel ours.

The set — v1, drawn on the tag grid

Eighteen marks, every one an object a farmer touches: no abstract tech glyphs, no rounded-cute style. Drawn on a 24px grid, 2px stroke, squared caps and joints — the same family as the slab type. The app's icon components and this page render from the same source file, so the set can't drift.

Rules of the set

• Stroke, never fill. 2px at 24px; scale stroke with size (2.5px at 32px+). Squared caps and mitred joints — the icons are welded, not moulded.
• One object per icon, recognisable at 20px on a cracked screen in sunlight. If it needs a label to be understood, redraw it — same law as everything else: simple as a gate latch.
• Colour: ink on light grounds, Milk on dark; Pasture for supporting/positive contexts; Ryegrass only when the icon is the highlighted action. Never multicoloured.
• New icons join only if they're a real farm object drawn on the same grid — and they're added to the app source first, then regenerated here.

The brand at work

• One screen, one job. Every screen answers a single question or records a single thing. If a screen needs a tutorial, tooltip or second glance, it goes back to the drawing board. Recording flows finish in under fifteen seconds; the farmer can always speak instead of type.
• App: Milk ground in light mode, Welly Black in dark; one Ryegrass primary action per screen (the "big green button"); 56dp+ touch targets; labels on every tab. Dark mode is first-class — yards are dark at 6am.
• Buttons: primary = Ryegrass fill, Welly Black text, 10px radius; secondary = outlined Welly Black/Milk; destructive = Baler Twine outline. Never a chartreuse outline on white.
• Notifications: lead with the fact, end with the action. "Calf 300642: passport window closes Friday → Register now."
• Website: Welly Black hero with Ryegrass headline accents, Milk content sections, the tag motif as section punctuation. Whitepaper and brand book live at farmhq.ai/whitepaper and farmhq.ai/brandguidelines, styled as this document is.
• Merch & field: the brand was born for a hi-vis vest, a mart-board sticker and an ear-tag-shaped keyring. Welly Black garments, Ryegrass print — never the reverse on safety-adjacent kit.

Before launch