Brand

Our brand is simple. We don't have a bunch of fancy buzz words to describe what LabMan is or who LabMan is for. We're not trying to be something we're not. We do have some basic guidelines though, purely to help promote LabMan in ways that respect our goals and our identity. To put things plainly, if you would like to use the LabMan brand marks, just reach out to us at [email protected]. If you're a sponsor or just want to help us promote LabMan, we have vector-based graphic assets for you! Otherwise, any use or our brand including the name, brand marks, identity, or other brand assets related to LabMan are strictly prohibited.

Seriously, please ask us first! before using our brand elements.

Who are we?

LabMan is first and foremost a community. Beyond this, we host a conference; an annual gathering of technologists to discuss our shared experiences. Our brand is expressed in that order for a very simple reason. It is not the venue, nor the host, nor the content of presentations, nor the theme of each year's conference that makes LabMan what it is. People make LabMan what it is. This may seem a bit cliche, but at the core, the mission of this community is to promote collaboration, innovation, and sharing safely and productively that allows participants from all walks of life to join us and feel included. This guide attempts to preserve these ideals in a brand that explains the struggles of computer lab management, with a bit of humor 😂 and a lot of heart ❤️.

LabMan

Although the word "LabMan" is indeed a portmanteau, we are not expressly "man", "men", "male", nor does the term equate to any specific sex, gender, gender identity, or gender expression. It is actually just a shortened version of the phrase, "Lab Manager". While some of our graphic brand elements do indeed feature a "man" with a mustache, the use of imagery is solely to help define a new brand identity that can be used to promote LabMan as a community and as a conference.

Even though genesis of our idea for creating this specific brand identity was inspired by a common trope, mad scientists, it's nothing more than an icon. The quirky characters that inspired our icon design are purely fictional. Some are truly beloved for their wackiness, but most are seriously misunderstood. Now you're probably wondering who we thought of? Well for starters there's one of the best portrayals of a mad scientist, albeit an altruistic one (mad does not necessarily = evil). He's a fictional character played by Christoper Lloyd. Emmett Lathrop "Doc" Brown, Ph.D. Yes, that one, from the Back to the Future film franchise. As a character, "Doc", is an inventor and refers to himself as "a student of all sciences". His experiments sometimes don't quite work out, but through perseverance he achieves great feats of innovation all the while making us smile with his larger-than-life personality. Other examples of this "mad scientist" trope include Dr. Wily of the Mega-Man franchise of video-games, Dexter of Dexter's Lab, and too many others to list. LabMan's graphic design is crafted to evoke humor and help us relate the daily struggles of managing technology. While the hope is that all can see our graphic elements as characters that are nothing more, the imagery we've designed is but one element in a brand identity that seeks to promote the LabMan community and conference.

Brand Marks (Graphics)

Our primary brand mark is the LabMan head logo with text.

Typography

We use a handful of typefaces and fonts, but our go-to for web and print media is Roboto. It carries an Apache 2.0 license and is available via Google Fonts making it easy to integrate without additional licensing constraints. In most of our web and print material, we use the following headings although in some cases we deviate it from these sizes slightly.

For the main logo we are using the Como Bold font from the Adobe Fonts Library.

Sometimes we use emojis. Mainly for fun, but also because its 🆒. We promise to use them sparingly.

Editorial Style

Most of our community members are not English majors. Well some of us might be. Either way, we don't take "editorial styling" too seriously and neither should you. Just a couple of things to keep in mind. Our name, "LabMan", is the only name we go by. Not "Lab Managers", "LM", or "LbMn". Just LabMan. Nothing more, nothing less.

Color

Our color pallete is pretty straightforward. Just a few colors really.

The primary color you see on this site and elsewhere in print media is a neon azure color with the following properties. The closest Pantone color we've found (if you're into that sort of thing) is Pantone 2995 C.

Some of the other colors we use include a dark gray (#3e3e3d), a pastel spring green (#4cbd94), and our host color NC State Unviersity's "Wolfpack Red" (#CC0000).