Overview
Three brands. One mission.
Community Tax operates as one integrated brand family. Each brand speaks to a distinct audience, yet all three share the same wordmark, palette, and signature A treatment, so the family always reads as one coherent system.
CTAX Intelligence Flagship
The parent brand. Leads with insight, intelligence, and the answers that move communities forward.
CTAX Partners Partner
Built on collaboration and trust. Working together for stronger partnerships and lasting impact.
CTAX Socios Community
Empowering the Hispanic community through connection, opportunity, and shared success.
Open decisions to resolve before this guide is final
This guide organizes and extends the original brand sheet. Four things the source left unresolved, each with a recommendation to confirm.
- Hierarchy, confirmed. Community Tax is the corporate master brand. CTAX Intelligence is the market-facing flagship, with Partners and Socios beneath it. Confirmed
Follow-on: Community Tax has no master logo of its own in this system yet. Decide whether it needs one, or whether CTAX Intelligence is the public face. - The parent brand's symbol. Intelligence carries only the dot, while Partners and Socios carry the arc ring. That inverts the usual pattern where the master brand owns the hero mark. Recommendation: keep it intentional (dot as a point of insight, ring as connection) and state that rationale, or extend a ring to Intelligence for symmetry. Confirm
- Bilingual Socios. Socios is a Hispanic-market brand, yet no Spanish-language guidance exists. Recommendation: adopt the bilingual voice defined in Voice and tone. Confirm
- Corrected color value. The source sheet lists the light gray as
#DDDIDD, which is not a valid hex code. Corrected here to#DDDDDD. Verify
Brand architecture
How the family fits together
A branded house. One corporate master endorses a flagship brand, which anchors two audience-specific sub-brands. The hierarchy below is confirmed at the top tier.
When to use which
Company-level and master-brand communications: corporate, product, and anything that speaks for the organization as a whole.
Partner-facing programs, channel relationships, and collaboration initiatives.
Hispanic-market initiatives and community engagement, in English and Spanish.
Logo system
The logos
Each brand uses its approved lockup. The CTAX wordmark is custom and art-directed. It is not set in a standard font and must never be recreated or re-typed.
Intelligence. Wordmark, green dot, green A triangle.
Partners. Arc ring, wordmark, teal A triangle.
Socios. Arc ring, wordmark, orange A triangle.
Anatomy
- 1The wordmark. Custom-drawn CTAX with fixed letterforms. Never rebuild it in Montserrat or any font.
- 2The A treatment. The triangular A is the family signature. Its color changes per brand.
- 3The symbol. Intelligence uses the dot. Partners and Socios use the two-arc ring.
- 4The descriptor. INTELLIGENCE, PARTNERS, or SOCIOS, letter-spaced beneath the wordmark.
Clear space
Keep clear space of 1x on all sides, where X is the height of the green dot. Nothing (text, imagery, or edges) enters this zone.
Minimum size and reverse
On dark backgrounds, use the white reverse lockups for clarity and impact.
Visual DNA
The A treatment and symbols
The triangular A is the visual DNA that unifies the family. One shared form, three colorways, plus a symbol system that signals each brand's role.
The A treatment
The symbol system
Protected elements. The A treatment, the green dot, and the arc ring are fixed. Never recolor, reposition, redraw, or substitute them. See Usage.
Color
Palette
A confident, modern palette that communicates trust, intelligence, collaboration, and community. Navy is the shared foundation. Each sub-brand owns one accent. Click any value to copy it.
CMYK values are conversions for reference. For production printing, match to a Pantone spot color with your printer rather than relying on a process build.
Balance
Lead with navy and generous white space. Reserve each brand's accent color for emphasis (highlights, icons, and the A treatment), not for large fields of text.
Accessibility, the rules that follow from contrast
| Color | Text on white | Text on navy or near-black | How to use it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Navy | AAA, 15.4 | n/a | Primary text and headlines |
| Near Black | AAA, 16.5 | n/a | Body text |
| Teal | Large only, 4.3 | Large only | Headings 24px and up, links, fills |
| Green | Fails, 2.0 | AAA, 8.1 | Accent and fill only. Text only on dark |
| Orange | Fails, 2.3 | AAA, 7.3 | Accent and fill only. Text only on dark |
Bottom line. Green and orange are fill and accent colors, not text colors, on light backgrounds. They fail WCAG at any reading size. Use them for blocks, icons, and the A treatment. For colored text, use them only on navy or near-black, where both pass AAA.
Typography
Type system
Montserrat is the brand typeface across every application. Two core weights carry the system, and a full scale keeps hierarchy consistent. The CTAX wordmark is the one exception. It is custom-drawn and never set in Montserrat.
NOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklm 0123456789
Headlines, section titles, display.
NOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklm 0123456789
Subheads and body. Use Regular 400 for long-form body, Bold 700 for emphasis.
Scale
Web and fallback stack: Montserrat, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif. Uppercase labels always carry letter-spacing between 0.10 and 0.14em.
Voice and tone
How the family sounds
One family voice: confident, clear, and human. We lead with insight and follow through with partnership. Each brand shades that voice for its audience.
"Here is what the data shows, and what to do about it."
Clear, evidence-led, confident without hype.
Hedge, over-qualify, or bury the answer in jargon.
Sound cold or robotic. Intelligence still speaks human.
"Let's build this together. Here is how we support you."
Partnership first, reliable, generous with credit.
Talk down to partners or oversell.
Treat the relationship as transactional.
"Estamos contigo." / "We are with you, every step."
Bilingual by design. Socios means partners or members, so the name itself signals belonging.
Translate English literally. Transcreate, so Spanish reads naturally.
Flatten culture into cliché or afterthought.
Bilingual standard for Socios. Treat Spanish as a first-class language, not a translation layer. Match the same warmth and clarity in both languages, keep the CTAX Socios lockup consistent across English and Spanish materials, and have native speakers review customer-facing copy.
Imagery
Photography and imagery
Imagery should feel authentic and human. Real people and real moments over generic stock. Warm natural light, genuine expressions, and dignity throughout.
Do
- Real, candid people and community moments
- Warm, natural light and true-to-life color
- Diverse, dignified, optimistic subjects
- Intelligence leans to data and clarity, Partners to teams and collaboration, Socios to Hispanic families, small business, and celebration
Don't
- Obvious stock clichés like the suited handshake or forced laughter
- Heavy filters, cold or artificial color grades
- Staged tokenism or culturally generic imagery for Socios
- Busy backgrounds that compromise logo contrast
Note. No brand photo library exists yet. This is art direction to shoot and source against. Building a curated, licensed image set is a recommended next step.
Applications
The system in use
Reference layouts showing the rules in practice: navy foundation, one accent, generous clear space, approved lockups.
Business cards
communitytax.com
Email signature
Also in the system: letterhead (logo top-left, navy footer rule, 1x clear space), social avatars (the symbol on navy, never the full lockup at small sizes), social headers (navy field, one accent, the tagline), and presentation templates (navy title slides, Montserrat hierarchy, one accent per brand). Each follows the same rules: approved lockup, navy foundation, one accent, protected clear space.
Usage and assets
Do's, don'ts, and files
Consistency is what makes the family read as one. These rules are not optional. They protect the marks that carry the brand.
Do
- Use only the approved lockups from the asset kit
- Keep 1x clear space, where X is the green dot height
- Respect minimum size: 1.25 in, 32 mm, or 120 px
- Use the white reverse lockups on dark backgrounds
- Keep the wordmark, A treatment, dot, and ring exactly as drawn
Don't
- Change or recolor the A treatment
- Move or remove the green dot
- Alter the partnership or arc symbol
- Use unapproved colors, or stretch, rotate, or add effects
- Re-type the CTAX wordmark in Montserrat or any font
File formats
Vector files (.AI, .EPS, .PDF, .SVG) are preferred for all print and digital use. Use raster (.PNG, .JPG) only where vector is not supported.
Asset-kit gap
Today the only existing brand asset is the one-page brand sheet. There is no packaged, versioned logo library and no editable vector masters for the three lockups. The marks shown in this guide are cropped from that sheet and are not print-final. Recommended next step: produce a master asset kit (full-color, one-color, and reverse lockups per brand in .AI, .EPS, .SVG, and .PNG, plus favicon and social avatars) and store it in one versioned location.
Design tokens
Machine-readable tokens
The full token set is embedded below for people, developers, and AI agents. Copy the Markdown, or read the structured JSON in the page source under the id ctax-design-tokens. Everything an assistant needs to build on-brand, in one block.
# Community Tax Design Tokens
Version 1.0 / Montserrat type system / CTAX brand family
## Brand architecture
Master brand: Community Tax (corporate)
Flagship: CTAX Intelligence (accent green)
Sub-brand: CTAX Partners (accent teal)
Sub-brand: CTAX Socios (accent orange, bilingual EN and ES)
## Color tokens
| token | hex | rgb | cmyk | hsl | role |
| ---------- | ------- | ----------- | ----------- | ----------- | ---- |
| navy | #042350 | 4 35 80 | 95 56 0 69 | 216 90 16 | foundation, primary text |
| teal | #1184A2 | 17 132 162 | 90 19 0 36 | 192 81 35 | CTAX Partners accent |
| green | #00D166 | 0 209 102 | 100 0 51 18 | 149 100 41 | CTAX Intelligence accent |
| orange | #FF9100 | 255 145 0 | 0 43 100 0 | 34 100 50 | CTAX Socios accent |
| gray | #DDDDDD | 221 221 221 | 0 0 0 13 | 0 0 87 | neutral, dividers |
| near-black | #1A1F29 | 26 31 41 | 37 24 0 84 | 220 22 13 | body text on light |
Source sheet listed gray as #DDDIDD (invalid hex); corrected to #DDDDDD.
## Color usage and accessibility (WCAG)
Ratio: navy 60, white space 30, accent 10. One accent per layout; navy is the shared base.
navy on white: AAA 15.4 (text ok)
near-black on white: AAA 16.5 (text ok)
teal on white: large text only 4.3
green on white: FAIL 2.0 (fill or accent only; as text use on navy or near-black, AAA 8.1)
orange on white: FAIL 2.3 (fill or accent only; as text use on navy or near-black, AAA 7.3)
## Typography
font-family: "Montserrat", "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif
weights: 400 regular, 500 medium, 600 semibold, 700 bold
wordmark: custom art-directed, do not recreate in a font
display 48 / 1.1 / -0.03em / 600
h1 36 / 1.15 / -0.02em / 600
h2 28 / 1.2 / -0.015em / 600
h3 22 / 1.3 / 600
body 16 / 1.6 / 400
caption 12 / uppercase / +0.12em / 500
## Shape and space
radius: sm 8, md 16, lg 24, pill 100 (px)
space scale: 4 8 12 16 24 32 48 64 96 (px)
max content width: 1320 px
## Logo
lockups: intelligence, partners, socios (color and white reverse)
clear space: 1x, where X is the green dot height
minimum size: 1.25 in, 32 mm, or 120 px width
symbol: intelligence dot; partners and socios two-arc ring
A triangle color: intelligence green, partners teal, socios orange
## Voice
family: confident, clear, human
intelligence: authoritative, precise, insightful
partners: collaborative, dependable, warm
socios: inclusive, empowering, bilingual (transcreate Spanish, do not literal-translate)
## CSS custom properties
:root{
--color-navy:#042350; --color-teal:#1184A2; --color-green:#00D166;
--color-orange:#FF9100; --color-gray:#DDDDDD; --color-near-black:#1A1F29;
--font-sans:"Montserrat","Helvetica Neue",Arial,sans-serif;
--radius-sm:8px; --radius-md:16px; --radius-lg:24px;
}