Brand Guide
Pickle.ToursColour, type, logo, voice and the handful of rules that keep this consistent across a coach wrap, a paddle cover and a 16-pixel browser tab.
Colour, type, logo, voice and the handful of rules that keep this consistent across a coach wrap, a paddle cover and a 16-pixel browser tab.
Two brand colours carry the identity. Three supporting neutrals and one accent do everything else.
Optic Yellow is taken from the logo artwork and is the only yellow in the system. Near-matches sit close enough to read as a printing fault rather than a decision, so use #E7FB20 exactly. If a process cannot hold it, tell us before you substitute — don't approximate it.
Each face has exactly one role. A face used outside its role is the fastest way to make the brand look borrowed.
Blind-draw doubles means every guest plays with and against thirty-plus different people. Play is mornings only, by design — the road is the other half of the product, not the commute between courts.
The caption is where all four faces meet. Keep the structure even when the content is short.
The Pickle.Tours roundel is the company. The Route 66 badge is one product of that company. They are not interchangeable, and they are not a lockup — never set them side by side as a single unit.
| Use this | When |
|---|---|
| Pickle.Tours roundel | The company speaking. Letterhead, email signature, favicon, social avatar, anything covering more than one route, and every supplier or partner document. |
| Route 66 badge, dated | A specific season of a specific tour. Guest-facing 2027 material — brochure, itinerary, departure page, name badges, coach signage, merchandise. |
| Route 66 badge, undated | Evergreen route material with no season attached. If a piece will outlive the season, use the undated badge rather than dating it wrongly. |
| Neither — wordmark alone | Where a mark would crowd the layout and the name still has to appear. Drawn artwork on a fixed arc: place the supplied file, never re-typeset it. |
Pickle Green linework on an Optic Yellow ball. That is the whole mark. Flattening both colours into one turns it into a solid blob and the pickle disappears — if the process only gives you a single colour, use the supplied one-colour artwork (green linework, ball unfilled) rather than flattening the two-colour file yourself. No gradients, no alternate greens, no third colour, no drop shadows.
The badge is the exception, not a precedent. It carries Route 66 shield red and blue because those colours belong to the highway shield, not to us. That licence does not extend to anything else in the system.
We sound like a well-travelled tour director who has already thought of the thing you are about to worry about. Specific, warm, unhurried, quietly confident. Concrete nouns, real numbers, short sentences. The register is clear, adult and unpatronising — the reader knows what a dink is, and does not know what a motorcoach charter costs.
Not stylistic preferences. Every one of these reads as a timeshare pitch to the people we are writing for.
Also banned: rhetorical-question openers, “Picture this:”, and any sentence beginning “Whether you're a…”
| Say | Not |
|---|---|
| Nine mornings of pickleball and 2,400 miles of Route 66 | An unforgettable pickleball adventure |
| 32 players. 16 teams. Thirty-plus different partners. | Play with tons of new people! |
| 32 players plus up to 8 companions | 40 seats |
| Motorcoach | Bus |
| Tour · departure · the Route 66 Classic | Trip · vacation package · bus tour |
| Blind-draw doubles — always near the word “tournament” | Tournament, standing alone |
| 512 seats exist in 2027, and there will not be more | Only a few seats left — book now! |
| 16 departures, March through October | Eight round trips |
When a layout decision is genuinely close, one of these five decides it.
#F7F5EE is the default surface everywhere. Pure white reads as a template. The warmth is the point — it is what makes the green look like paint rather than a UI colour.
Clay carries a single eyebrow or a single call-to-action, then stops. At 3.10:1 on Chalk it clears AA for large text only — never body copy, never a second button.
No AI-generated photorealistic images, ever — not people, hotels, courts, coaches, landmarks or “lifestyle”. Real photography, illustration, typography and brand graphics. This one is absolute.
Lead with the concrete detail and let it persuade. 32 players. 2,400 miles. Eight states. A layout with room for an adjective has room for a figure instead.
PICKLE.TOURS is drawn on a fixed arc with custom letterfitting. Place the supplied file. Don't rebuild it, stretch it or rotate it — the arc sets the horizon and stays level.