Guidelines
The rules the brand keeps, and where every chapter of the Brand Manual lives now, as files you can use.
The rules
Six lines every surface keeps, for Zostel and for Zo.
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LIVE IT. NOW
Always in capitals, a full stop after IT and none after NOW. NOW may take Warm Orange.
Type →: LIVE IT. NOW -
Short verbs
Present tense: RUN · CLIMB · CHASE · LAUGH. Say it, don’t explain it.
Type →: Short verbs -
Public facts only
111 Zostels · 80+ destinations · 5M+ travellers · since 2013. Business and fundraising numbers stay out of brand material.
The story →: Public facts only -
One dialect per surface
A Zostel page speaks Zostel; a Zo Trips page speaks Zo. The \z/ signs the community and never replaces a brand logo.
Logo →: One dialect per surface -
Flat colour, readable text
No gradients, glows or bevels. Small white text sits on Orange Ink, never on Warm Orange; ink on colour follows the roundel rule.
Colour →: Flat colour, readable text -
Compose, never redraw
Start from the master drawings and the library. A missing drawing is added to the library first, then used.
Illustration & motion →: Compose, never redraw
From the book
Where each chapter of the brand books lives now, and what changed.
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Logo: now Logo
Brand Manual p1, p39 · ZO Rooms guide p27
Six identical Zs at exact 60° steps (the book’s artwork was placed by hand), and a heavier cut for small sizes.
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Colours: now Colour
Brand Manual p10 · ZO Rooms guide p8
Converted exactly from the book’s CMYK and named, Marigold to Charcoal. One Warm Orange now for every brand.
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Typography: now Type
Brand Manual p28 · ZO Rooms guide p20
Futura, Gotham Narrow and Mrs Eaves, as the Brand Manual sets them; Gotham Rounded speaks for Zo. Each has an open fallback for the web.
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Icons: now Icons
Brand Manual p27, p38 · ZO Rooms guide p19
The roundels, line icons and ZO Rooms duotones, extracted exactly and extended: one drawing, four dialects.
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Graphics: now Illustration & motion
Brand Manual p32 · ZO Rooms guide p22
The drawings are exact vectors now, and build the five LIVE IT. NOW landscapes. The khovar texture is rebuilt as a seamless tile.
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Mascot: now Characters
Brand Manual p36
Captain Zo stays as history. Zobu, arms up in the \z/ pose, leads today.
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City graphics: now Places
Brand Manual p37
The Taj, India Gate and Charminar, kept exactly, and every place Zostel is live drawn the same way.
The brand books
The Zostel Complete Brand Manual and the ZO Rooms Visual & Identity Guidelines (VOL 2, June 2015) are the brand team’s reference, kept privately. What they set lives on this site as working files: the logos, the colours, the type, the icons and the master drawings, taken exactly from their pages.