Who we are

Two studios — Leeds and Barnsley — practising dentistry as a considered discipline. Every smile we design is measured, proportioned and finished as a maker finishes an object intended to last. We are clinicians first, but we think like a maison: obsessive about detail, restrained in expression, generous in care.

What the name means

The Vitruvian Man is Leonardo da Vinci’s study of ideal human proportion — the circle and the square reconciled in the body. It is our namesake and our brief. Proportion is the difference between a treatment and a transformation; it is what we study in every face before we touch a single tooth.

The standard

Our reference points are not other dental practices. They are the houses that treat their craft as culture — where nothing leaves the atelier unfinished, where the client’s experience is composed end to end, and where the mark on the door is a promise. That is the league we hold ourselves to, in clinical work and in every expression of the brand.

Primary lockup

The figure sits centred above VITRUVIAN DENTAL STUDIO set in letterspaced capitals. This is the complete mark. Do not redraw, recolour, crop or separate the elements except as set out below.

Clear space

Leave clear space around the mark equal to the height of the wordmark capitals on all sides. Nothing — text, imagery, page edge — enters this zone. When in doubt, give it more room: the mark earns authority through space, not size.

Colour applications

On ivory or white, the mark appears in ink charcoal or in brand gold. On ink backgrounds, it appears in gold or ivory. Never place the mark on photography without a plain plate behind it, and never render it in any colour outside the palette.

Misuse

Do not stretch, rotate, outline, shadow, gradient, animate or place the mark at an angle. Do not pair it with taglines, straplines or partner logos without director approval. The mark never apologises and never shouts.

Proportion of use

A composition is roughly sixty parts ivory or white, thirty parts ink, and at most ten parts gold. If gold exceeds a tenth of the page it stops being precious. Hairlines, rules and small typographic accents are where gold lives; large gold fields are reserved for exceptional moments.

Backgrounds

Ivory is the default ground for print and digital. Ink grounds are for chapter openings, heroes and moments of drama. Pure white is permitted for clinical and functional contexts — forms, documents, patient communications.

Accessibility

Body text is always ink-on-ivory or ivory-on-ink. Gold is never used for long-form text — it is an accent colour and fails contrast at small sizes. Test every digital surface at WCAG AA or better.

Hanken Grotesk — display & headings

Display sets at 300 weight with −3% tracking; headings at 700 with −2%. Set them large, with tight leading — the lightness is the luxury.

Hanken Grotesk — text and utility

Body copy sets at 400 weight with 1.65 leading. Labels are 600 weight, uppercase, with +14% tracking — the house style for eyebrows, navigation and buttons. System fallback is Helvetica Neue / Arial where Hanken is unavailable.

Hierarchy

A page needs no more than three sizes: a display setting, a body setting, and a caption setting. Weight and spacing do the rest. If a layout needs a fourth size, the layout is wrong.

Digital fallbacks

Where the brand faces cannot load, fall back to Times New Roman for display and Century Gothic or system geometric sans for text. Never substitute decorative or rounded faces.

Principles

Say less, mean more. Prefer the specific to the superlative — “designed tooth by tooth” beats “amazing results”. Never use exclamation marks in brand communications. Never plead, discount-shout or countdown. We invite; we do not chase.

Lexicon — words we use

Studio, not clinic or surgery. Design, craft, compose, proportion. Smile design, not makeover. Consultation, not appointment, in brand contexts. Guests are patients in clinical settings and clients in commercial ones — choose deliberately.

Words we avoid

Cheap, deal, offer ends, pain-free (make the experience speak instead), perfect (we pursue proportion, not perfection), Hollywood smile, transformation Tuesday. Avoid emoji in brand-level communications; they are permitted sparingly in social replies.

Tone by context

Brand and marketing: composed and editorial. Clinical communications: clear, kind and unambiguous — clarity outranks elegance where care is concerned. Social: lighter, still precise. Internal: direct and human.

Portraiture

Soft directional light, shallow depth, calm expressions. Smiles are confident rather than performed. Retouching corrects light, never anatomy — we do not sell work we did not do.

The studios

Architecture and detail shots favour symmetry, negative space and material texture — stone, brass, linen, porcelain. Shoot wide and quiet; let the spaces feel composed rather than busy.

Clinical imagery

Before-and-after photography follows clinical standards: consistent angle, lighting and framing, no filters, written consent always. Present pairs with equal prominence — the honesty of the pair is the persuasion.

What we never use

Stock photography of generic smiling models, lens flares, heavy HDR, novelty props, clip-art and AI-generated faces. If an image could appear in any dental practice’s advertising, it does not belong in ours.

The golden grid

Pages divide on the golden ratio: a 38.2 / 61.8 split for asymmetric layouts, with the narrow column carrying labels and the wide column carrying content. Centred single-column compositions are reserved for moments of ceremony — heroes, statements, chapter openings.

Spacing scale

Vertical rhythm uses a scale of 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89 and 144 pixels — Fibonacci steps that keep proportion consistent at every size. Sections breathe: a chapter opening carries at least 144px of space above its title on desktop.

Components

Buttons are letterspaced small caps in Hanken Grotesk, square-cornered, ink or gold, with quiet hover states. Cards are ivory plates with bone hairlines — no drop shadows heavier than a breath. Navigation is minimal, sticky and typographic. Radius is 0 to 2px; the brand is rectilinear, like the square in the Vitruvian construction.

Motion

Motion is rare and earns its place: slow fades and small rises (300–600ms, eased), triggered once on scroll. Nothing bounces, spins or parallaxes. Respect reduced-motion preferences without exception.

Internal applications

Internal tools (the intranet platform) share the palette and type spirit in a more functional register — cream grounds, gold accents, clear data hierarchy. Function outranks ceremony inside the practice; the family resemblance remains.

Stationery & documents

White or ivory grounds, ink text, a single gold rule. Letterheads carry the mark top left or centred, never both. Patient-facing documents follow the document standard: white background, dark charcoal text, gold accent, the Vitruvian figure used as a quiet watermark where appropriate.

Signage

External signage is the mark in gold or ivory on ink, or ink on stone. Illumination is soft halo lighting, never internally-lit box signs. Interior wayfinding uses Hanken Grotesk small caps in ink on bone.

Social media

Feeds are composed like a gallery wall: imagery first, typography plates as punctuation. Templates use the chapter-plate style of this document — eyebrow, rule, statement. The grid should look considered at a glance; if a post would not hang in the studio, it does not post.

Uniform & environment

Clinical wear in ink, charcoal or ivory with the mark embroidered small in gold. Front-of-house dress is plain, dark and tailored. Scent, music and materials in the studios follow the same brief: warm, quiet, precise.

Logo files

Master logo files (full-colour, ink, gold and ivory versions, in vector and raster formats) are held by the marketing team. Request the correct version for your medium rather than converting one yourself.

Brand approval

New applications of the brand — campaigns, partnerships, signage, print runs, site designs — are approved by the directors before production. Allow time for this; the standard is the point.

Contact

Brand questions, asset requests and approvals: contact the marketing team at Vitruvian Dental Studio, or the directors for final sign-off. This document is maintained by the directors and updated as the house evolves.

Materials

Stone, brass, walnut, linen, porcelain. Surfaces are matte or honed rather than gloss; metals are warm and unlacquered so they age. Plastic appears only where clinical function demands it, and then in ink or white.

Light

Layered and warm — 2700–3000K throughout front of house. Daylight is composed, not blasted: sheer linen diffusion, never vertical blinds. Clinical rooms meet clinical lighting standards at the chair while keeping ambient warmth at the edges.

The palette in space

Walls in ivory and bone; joinery in ink or walnut; gold appears as hardware, trim and signage — the same one-tenth discipline as the page. One gesture of drama per room is enough: a dark wall, a sculptural light, a framed Vitruvian study.

Front of house

Reception reads as a maison lobby: a single composed desk, seating in linen and leather, a considered scent, music low and unhurried. No leaflet racks, no television, no clutter — print materials live in a single curated tray.

Moodboards

Interior directions for each space are kept as moodboards in the studio boards library — the working surface where materials, palettes and references are composed before anything is commissioned.

The working surface for the studios’ interiors — materials, palettes and references composed before anything is commissioned. Open a board to view it or export it as a PDF.