Brand kit

The brand kit is your organization’s look in one place: the colours, data colours and fonts people should reach for first, and your logo beside them. An administrator sets it once; after that, every style, colour and font choice in DataSquares offers the brand kit before anything else.

What a brand kit holds

Part	What it is	Used for
Primary colour	One colour, written #RRGGBB	Titles, highlights and buttons
Secondary colour	One colour	A second accent
Background colour	One colour	What everything sits on
Text colour	One colour	Headings and body text
Data colours	Up to eight colours, in your order	Chart series, first to last
Heading and body fonts	Two of the nineteen fonts decks and styles are set in	Titles and text
Name	Up to 80 characters	Telling kits apart
Logo	The logo your workspace already has	Shown with the kit

Every part is optional. Whatever the kit leaves out comes from the style a person chooses, so a kit can be as small as one primary colour.

The fonts are ones DataSquares bundles and serves itself, so every export (PDF, image or file) draws them exactly as the screen does. Uploading your own font files is not offered.

Who sets it

There are two kits: the company’s and each workspace’s.

• Company admins set the company’s kit. It is the default every workspace starts from, until that workspace saves a kit of its own.
• Workspace admins (anyone whose role may change the workspace’s administration settings) set their workspace’s kit. Saving gives the workspace its own kit; the company’s no longer applies to it.
• Everyone else can see the kit (it is what their style choices offer), but cannot change it.

1. Open Administration → Brand kit (/admin/settings/brand-kit). The page says whether this workspace uses the company’s kit, has its own, or has none yet.
2. Set the colours, data colours and fonts. The Preview shows every style with your kit applied as you edit.
3. Choose Save brand kit.

Company admins see two tabs: This workspace and Company default. To return a workspace to the company’s kit, open This workspace and choose Use the company’s brand kit.

Every change is recorded in the Audit log, with the kit as it was and as it is now.

Colour and font tiles

Each colour of the kit is a tile that shows the colour and its code; choose it to open the colour panel under it, and choose a colour there to set it. The panel lists:

• In this brand kit — the kit’s own colours, each with six shades from lighter to darker, so a secondary or data colour can be a shade of your primary;
• the colours of the style the Preview shows (Meridian style, as previewed), to start a kit from;
• From your logo — colours read from the kit’s logo picture.

Search, a pasted code, the eyedropper and Custom colour are there too. A kit’s colours are opaque #RRGGBB codes, so the panel offers no opacity. Each swatch shows its contrast where that colour sits: the text colour on your background and the background under your text at 4.5:1, every other colour on your background at 3:1. The warnings under each colour, with their Use #…, stay as they are (below). The cross beside a colour (Clear the primary colour) takes it out of the kit.

The Heading font and Body font are tiles that name the font in its own face, over a line of sample text. Each opens the font panel on the nineteen fonts decks and styles are set in; Use the style’s own font, at its foot, takes the font out of the kit. On a touch screen the tiles, their panels and the buttons beside them are at least 44 px.

Contrast is checked, never refused

A brand is the brand: a colour that is hard to read is saved, never refused. As you edit, the page checks each colour where the styles draw it, in the styles of your kit’s kind: the light styles, or the dark ones when your background colour is dark (the light ones when the kit sets no background). It is the same check each style makes (see Every look stays readable), so a colour is warned of exactly when one of those styles would replace it. The warning says in which styles, what the colour is too close to and its contrast ratio:

Colour	Needs at least	Against
Text colour	4.5 : 1	The page (your background colour, where the style keeps it) and the style’s cards
Primary colour	3 : 1	The page and the style’s cards
Background colour	4.5 : 1, and 3 : 1 for the accent	The text, secondary text and accent drawn on it
Data colours	3 : 1, or the style’s own data colour’s contrast there where it is lower	The style’s cards
Secondary colour	3 : 1	Your background colour, or white (no style draws it on its own)

Each warning offers the nearest shade that passes: the same hue, a little darker on a light background or lighter on a dark one, that every style of your kit’s kind keeps. Choose Use #… to take it, or keep your own colour. A shade is offered only when taking it leaves your other colours as they were: where your background, text and primary colours clash with each other, a shade of one can make the styles keep a different pair of them (see Every look stays readable), and then none is offered for it. Where the other kind of style replaces a colour (a dark text colour in the dark styles), the fit under the colours says so; there is no warning for it.

Your data colours are also checked as a set, to the same lines every built-in palette is held to, because they take the place of a style’s own series colours in charts. Charts draw series in your order, so each colour is compared with the one before it, and each with the colours a good or bad change is drawn in:

Check	Needs a difference of at least
Two data colours side by side, for every reader	15
Two data colours side by side, for a reader with red–green colour blindness	8
A data colour and the good or bad colour of the styles of your kit’s kind	15

The difference is measured, not judged by eye (in OKLab, the way the dataviz checks measure palettes, × 100). A colour that is too close is warned of as advice: Data colours 1 and 2 are too alike to tell apart in a chart, … look alike to readers with red–green colour blindness, or In …, data colour 2 is too close to the good colour, with the difference and the line. Its Use #… offers the nearest shade of that colour, same hue, lighter or darker, that passes every check the kit runs on it: its neighbours stand apart from it, it keeps clear of good and bad, and it reads on every page and card the styles draw it on. Every warning on a data colour offers that one shade, its contrast warning too (even when the colour is clear of its neighbours, as a shade that only read could come too close to one of them or to good or bad), so taking it starts no new warning; where no shade passes them all, none is offered.

Saving answers with the same warnings the page showed, and the API returns them with the kit.

Every look stays readable

Your kit is laid over a style colour by colour. A colour of yours that would be hard to read in that look is replaced by the style’s own colour there, and only there: the rest of your kit still applies, and every other style that reads with it keeps it.

Your colour	Kept in a style when
Text colour	It reads at 4.5 : 1 on the page and on the style’s cards (which are also its table headers and stripes)
Background colour	The text, secondary text (4.5 : 1) and accent (3 : 1) read on it
Primary colour	It reads at 3 : 1 on the page and on the style’s cards
Each data colour	It reads at 3 : 1 on the style’s cards, or at least as well as the style’s own data colour in that place

Every built-in style meets the lines for text and its accent itself. A few of their data colours sit just under 3 : 1 on their own cards, so a data colour of yours is replaced only when the style’s own reads better there. A replaced data colour keeps its place: the style’s own takes it, and your other data colours stay in your order.

Where your own colours clash, as many of them as read together are kept. Where as many would read either way, your background is kept before your text colour, and your text colour before your primary colour. A background that clashes with both your text and your primary colour is therefore replaced, even where it would fit the style on its own.

So a dark text colour is kept in the light styles and replaced in the dark ones, and a white text colour on a navy background is used in the dark styles but not over a light style, whose cards would hide it.

Under the colours, Administration → Brand kit says how your kit fits: in how many of the styles it is used whole, which of your colours are replaced in which styles, and, under Why, style by style, the reason for each. When every style takes the whole kit, it says nothing. The Preview shows each style as people will see it.

The logo

The brand kit shows the logo your workspace already has: the one set under Sharing → Embed for shared and embedded pages, or else your company’s own logo. To change it, change it there. A logo is shown only when it is an https link or an image.

Decks wear a logo picture of their own: a company admin uploads it under Company default → Brand locks (a PNG, JPEG or WebP, 20 MB at most; an SVG is refused, since a picture that can carry a script never goes on a slide). Each deck that takes the brand keeps a copy in its own store, so a deck and its versions draw it as they took it.

Where it is offered

Wherever people choose a style, its colours or its fonts, when the kit changes some look: its fonts, or a colour that some style keeps. A kit whose colours every style replaces (a mid-grey text colour reads in none) offers no colours, and without fonts is not offered at all: choosing it would change nothing.

• the brand kit’s colours come first, above the palettes;
• its fonts come first, above the font sets;
• Use brand kit puts the kit’s colours and fonts over the chosen style, wherever the kit sets them and they read in that style (see Every look stays readable). Choosing other colours or fonts that the kit would cover turns it off again. Before a style is chosen it comes first, above the styles; turning it on starts on the style that keeps most of the kit (where several keep as much, one of your kit’s kind), and its card says which of your colours that style replaces.

Note

Choosing a look changes only how something looks: never its data, its bindings or who can see it. The kit you save now is the one every style choice offers as it reaches each part of DataSquares.

Brand locks

A company admin can keep every workspace to the company’s brand kit: its fonts, its colours and its logo, each locked on its own. They are on the Company default tab, under Brand locks, and each is saved as you switch it.

Lock	Needs in the company’s kit	What it keeps
Fonts	A heading font and a body font	Decks set their text in the brand’s two fonts, and their master and a text box’s own font offer only those; their colours stay their own, and the brand’s colours can be put on or taken off. Reports, dashboards and stories keep the brand kit’s fonts on, with no other font set; a dashboard’s theme editor offers only the brand’s fonts, and its theme and colours stay its own
Colours	Colours that change a look: a primary, text, page or data colour	Decks wear the brand’s colours, and their colour fields offer only their theme’s colours (which wear the brand) and the brand’s own; reports, dashboards and stories keep the brand kit’s colours on, with no other palette, and a dashboard’s theme editor offers only its look’s colours and the brand’s own, its page and card background defaults included
Logo	The logo picture decks wear	Every deck shows the brand’s logo where its master puts it, at least 48 px on its long side, wholly on the slide and not covered by the footer or the slide number; no deck can hide, remove, replace or shrink it, and it goes with the deck to any theme, or to no theme. A logo moved, sized or hidden on a slide before the lock can always be put back

A lock the kit can’t back is offered with what it needs, and the server refuses it with the same reason. While a part is locked, the company’s kit keeps it (a save that drops it is refused, saying to unlock it first), and the logo picture stays while the logo is locked.

What a lock does

• Every workspace takes the company’s locked parts. A workspace’s own kit shows them as the company’s, read-only, and is saved without them; one that sets a locked part otherwise is refused, naming the lock and saying to leave it out or use the company’s.
• New decks wear what is locked: the brand’s colours while the colours are locked, its fonts while the fonts are, and its logo while the logo is. That is every new deck: a blank one, one from any template, from a dashboard or from a story (which start with no theme: under the logo lock alone they keep none and show the logo), one drafted by Draft from data and a copy for the next period. The template gallery draws each template as the deck will be made, and Use your brand kit adds the rest of the kit. A deck imported from PowerPoint keeps the file’s look and is shown as off the brand until someone applies the brand.
• New reports, dashboards and stories are made in the brand kit’s look while the colours or fonts are locked: one made without a style gets the style that keeps most of your kit, with Use brand kit on (a dashboard, that look’s colours and fonts in its theme editor too). A theme of its own typed into a request for a new report or dashboard, or a report’s accent that is not one of the brand’s colours, is refused, naming the lock and what to use. Under the font lock alone, a new dashboard that asks for a theme or colours of its own keeps them, in the brand’s fonts.
• What the app or the AI makes by itself never fails on a lock. A copy of a dashboard (Duplicate), an imported dashboard, and one the AI builds are made in the brand kit’s look under the colour lock, their own theme and colours left out, and you are told so: Made in your brand kit’s look: the company locks its colours. (under the font lock alone, Set in your brand kit’s fonts: the company locks its fonts.). The AI’s approval card says it before you approve, and its answer says it again.
• The server refuses what breaks a lock when anything is saved, not only the pickers. On a deck: a colour the deck doesn’t already have, a font, a text box’s own font the deck doesn’t already have, the logo hidden, removed, replaced, shrunk below 48 px, moved off the slide or under the footer, a theme the brand doesn’t dress under the colour lock, or the brand’s colours taken off under it. On a report, dashboard or story: a design with another palette or font set, or without the brand kit, or going back to its own look; on a report, a theme of its own or an accent off the brand; on a dashboard under the colour lock, a theme of its own, and any colour in its theme editor, its page and card background defaults included, that is not one of its look’s colours or the brand’s own (a colour is read the same in hex, rgb() or hsl(), and a theme reference such as theme:card is taken; a colour name or another form is refused); under the font lock, a font stack with any family that is not the brand’s or a generic one (serif, sans-serif, monospace, system-ui). Each refusal says which lock, and what to use.
• Nothing changes silently. A deck, report, dashboard or story made before a lock keeps its look; a save that leaves it as it was is kept, and so is a copy of what it had (a duplicated slide). A report, dashboard or story still in its own look keeps it until a style is chosen, then stays in a style. A deck shows its editors what is off the brand, with Apply the brand; a report’s, dashboard’s or story’s design shows Apply the brand in its design panel. See the brand and your deck.
• Reports’ Page setup (a theme and an accent) is a report’s own look: it applies only to a report with no style, and while colours or fonts are locked it offers neither; a report in a style can’t go back to it.

Publishing a deck off the brand

Under When a deck is off the brand, choose what Publish does:

• Say so at Publish (the default): the publisher sees what is off the brand, and may publish.
• Block publishing: Publish waits until an editor chooses Apply the brand.

Every change to the locks, and to the logo picture, is recorded in the Audit log with what it was before and after.

API

Method	Path	Who
GET	/api/brand-kit	Any member: the workspace’s kit, else the company’s, else none, with where it came from, its contrast warnings and the logo
PUT	/api/brand-kit	Workspace admins: save the workspace’s own kit
DELETE	/api/brand-kit	Workspace admins: use the company’s kit again
GET	/api/companies/{id}/brand-kit	Company admins
PUT	/api/companies/{id}/brand-kit	Company admins: save the company’s kit
PUT	/api/companies/{id}/brand-kit/locks	Company admins: lock fonts, colours and logo, and choose what Publish does with a deck off the brand (say or block)
PUT	/api/companies/{id}/brand-kit/logo	Company admins: the logo picture decks wear (a file)
DELETE	/api/companies/{id}/brand-kit/logo	Company admins: remove it, refused while the logo is locked
GET	/api/brand-kit/logo	Any member: that picture
GET	/api/presentations/{id}/brand	A deck’s contributors and up: the locks, the brand, and what is off the brand
POST	/api/presentations/{id}/brand	A deck’s editors: apply the brand, as one change, the draft kept as a version first
POST	/api/presentations/{id}/brand/undo	A deck’s editors: undo applying the brand, only while nothing in the deck changed after it (409 BRAND_UNDO_GONE otherwise: restore Draft before applying the brand from Versions)

A kit sent to the API holds only the parts above; anything else is refused with the reason, never dropped. Every answer carries the company’s locks and its deck_logo; a save refused by a lock answers 400 BRAND_LOCKED, and publishing a deck off the brand while the company blocks it answers 409 PRESENTATION_OFF_BRAND with what is off.