Brand Style

Public style guide

For partners, press, festival programmers, and anyone designing materials with our work in them. Logos, palette, type, and voice in one place.

Lockups

The McKool wordmark is the studio identity. The BASIC lockup is the project mark for our first film. Use them as supplied. Don't recolor, retype, stretch, or reflow.

McKool Productions wordmark on dark background
McKool wordmark, on dark
Primary studio mark. White on dark backgrounds.
McKool Productions wordmark on light background
McKool wordmark, on light
Inverted to near-black for light backgrounds.
BASIC film lockup on dark background
BASIC lockup, on dark
The film's display mark. Built-in scanline texture is intentional.
McKool M monogram favicon
M monogram
Used as favicon and small-format identifier.

Need EPS or higher resolution? Email press@mckoolproductions.com.

Download press kit ZIP

Palette

The studio site is intentionally near-monochrome matte grey. Warm marigold amber appears only as an accent and on BASIC project pages. Mauve carries small-cap labels and rules.

Void
#050507
Studio page background base.
Void Lift
#0C0C10
Top-of-page gradient stop.
Cream (silver)
#ECECF0
Primary text on dark.
Cream Dim
#B6B6BE
Body copy, secondary text.
Mauve
#9094A0
Eyebrows, small-cap labels.
Marigold
#E8731C
Single warm accent. Use sparingly.
Marigold Deep
#B85508
Hover and pressed states.
BASIC Mauve
#B9A6CC
BASIC project accent.

Type

Two typefaces, both Google Fonts. Display work uses Unbounded with tight tracking. Body copy uses Manrope.

Display, Unbounded 700
A small studio in Maypearl, Texas.
Headlines · titles · lockup-adjacent · -1.5% letter-spacing
Body, Manrope 400

McKool Productions makes small, character-driven genre films. Sci-fi and mystery, mostly. The kind that work in a quiet room.

Body copy · running text · 1.65 line height

Voice

Direct. Confident. Slightly understated. We write the way a person who's actually doing the work would talk. Plain words over flourish.

Do
  • Be specific. Numbers, places, names.
  • Use short sentences. Trust the reader.
  • Pick concrete words over hedging.
  • Lead with the fact, then the why.
  • Use commas, periods, and " · " separators.
Don't
  • Don't say "we craft" or "passionate about."
  • Don't use em dashes in body copy.
  • Don't market with adjectives. Show the work.
  • Don't pad. Cut anything that isn't load-bearing.
  • Don't promise what isn't shot yet.

Naming

Studio name: "McKool Productions". One word, capital M, capital K. Not "Mckool" or "McCool".

Film title: "BASIC". All caps. No subtitle. No quotation marks in body copy unless context requires.

One-liner: "Independent film company in Maypearl, Texas. Currently producing BASIC, a sci-fi mystery short."

Files for press

For now, the full press kit lives at /press-kit and the bundled ZIP at /downloads/BASIC-EPK.zip. The ZIP includes lockup, poster, wordmark, OG card, and PDFs.

For a request outside that bundle (vector formats, alternate sizes, on-set stills after June 2026), email press@mckoolproductions.com.