Real estate brokerageGreater Toronto Area
Gold on
the skyline.
00The project
- Client
- Bay Street Group
- Market
- Independent brokerage, Greater Toronto Area
- Year
- 2017
- Typeface
- Avenir Next
Bay Street Group is an independent real estate brokerage in the Greater Toronto Area — not part of a franchise. We drew it a mark built from the three letters of BAY, gave it one colour, gold, and a 21-page guide, then carried the system through stationery, posters, social posts and a website.
- Logo
- 21-page brand guide
- Stationery
- Posters & ads
- Social media
- Website design
01The mark
B, A and Y,
each with a cut.
The guide opens on a sum: B + A + Y = BAY. Each letter gives something up — the B keeps only a square of its stem, set down like a full stop; the A loses its crossbar and breaks a leg; the Y’s arm stops short. The gaps are the mark. Beneath it, BAY STREET GROUP is spaced out in Avenir Next, and the two always travel together.
H 42 · S 67 · L 46
C 22 · M 42 · Y 100 · K 3
H 39 · S 46 · L 56
C 24 · M 35 · Y 76 · K 2
H 39 · S 48 · L 64
C 19 · M 29 · Y 62 · K 0
H 39 · S 51 · L 69
C 15 · M 24 · Y 53 · K 0
Where gold can’t be printed, the guide allows solid black or white — nothing else.
02The guide
Twenty-one pages,
black and gold.
A square book, black throughout, every line of type in gold. It runs from the sum on its first page to the mark, its proportions and misuses, a four-step gold scale and the Avenir Next family, and closes on the mark pressed into leather and foiled on paper.
03Posters & ads
One gold slant
on every poster.
For posters, the cuts in the mark became a device: gold bands set on a slant, with a short line in white — “A Home Changes Reality.” “A Vision For Your Life.” Every piece keeps the same slant, so a row of them reads as one. The originals were built on stock architecture photographs, which are not shown: the white poster is as made, and the other three are re-set without the photograph — the slant, the line and the mark.
The first three are re-set without their stock photographs; the fourth is as made.
04Stationery
Small on paper,
one stroke of gold.
Letterhead, long envelope and business cards keep the mark small and let a single gold band run off the envelope’s edge. The card’s front stays white; its back is solid black with the mark in gold. The originals were shown in mockup photographs; here they are redrawn flat, with names and contact details left out.