Guidelines

Print

Guidelines v2.0.0

Print layout, typography, color, and paper for Shellui brand materials. Flat color, IBM Plex, Pantone references for brand gold.

Download markdown Brand downloads

For agents

Read this markdown file - not the HTML. Skills live in the shellui/skills repo (see hub). 

content/guidelines/print.md
https://shellui.com/guidelines/print.md

Print rules for PDFs, decks, and collateral. The downloadable brand kit PDF is a rendered handbook plus samples; this page is the searchable source agents and humans fetch as markdown.

Grid and margins

  • Page size: A4 for the brand kit
  • Margins: 20 mm on top and sides, 22 mm on the bottom (room for the folio)
  • Grid: 12 columns, 6 mm gutter, 2 mm baseline unit for spacing steps
  • Feature layout: label column (3) plus content column (9), 8 mm apart

Dark pages are allowed anywhere in a document, including covers. Keep generous margins so text never touches the trim.

Typography

  • Family: IBM Plex Sans for every word in print (headings, body, tables, captions). IBM Plex Mono for code and numeric tables that need alignment.
  • Do not set marketing body copy in Inter. Inter is for the website and generated screen images only.

Page numbers

  • Folio on body pages only, bottom right, tabular numerals
  • No page numbers on covers or section dividers that read as covers
  • Running head on body pages; covers carry title art only

Color

  • Flat backgrounds only in print: white, mist #F9FAFB, ink #111827, or night #030712
  • No gradients in print, PDF export, og:image, or social images. A soft gold wash is web only (homepage hero ambient)
  • Brand gold #E3A512: fills, rules, logo shapes. Never set body text in brand gold on white (contrast fails)
  • Text gold #8A6300: gold text and links on light paper. On dark print pages, use light mist text instead of gold text
  • On gold #1A1408: text on gold fills

Pantone

Color Hex Coated Uncoated
Brand gold #E3A512 124 C 7405 U
Text gold #8A6300 4027 C verify against swatch

Always verify coated and uncoated references against a physical Pantone swatch before the first production run. Digital hex is the day-to-day source; Pantone is the print handshake.

Paper

Suggested stocks for brand kit reprints and one-pagers:

  • Coated: 150 gsm silk or equivalent for full-color pages with photography
  • Uncoated: 120 gsm offset for mostly type and line art
  • Covers: 250 gsm when the piece will be handled often

Ask your print vendor to match #E3A512 and #8A6300 with ink drawdowns, not only a Pantone name from a PDF.

Logo in print

Logo usage, clear space, and misuse pairs live in Brand. Use official files from Downloads. No lockups in v1: wordmark and mark stay separate.

How to use this file

  • Humans: /guidelines/print/
  • Agents: fetch https://shellui.com/guidelines/print.md
  • Hub: Guidelines