EPIPHANY BRAND GUIDELINES
UPDATED: JULY 25,2025
OVERVIEW
LOGO
THE SEMICOLON
COLOR
TYPOGRAPHY
IMAGERY
GRAPHIC ELEMENTS
APPLICATIONS
Overview
The brand identity for Epiphany is bold, graphic, and grounded in structure, yet alive with the kind of expressive, human irregularities that invite closer reading. At its core is the index—the magazine’s long-running back cover feature—whose irreverent, poetic web of references becomes both a visual metaphor and an editorial compass. Like an index, the magazine helps readers navigate, connect, and uncover meaning, guiding them toward unexpected resonances and overlooked details.
The visual system layers the clean order of cataloging and archival tools with the texture of marginalia: handwritten notes, collaged fragments, and spontaneous interruptions that bring a sense of intimacy and presence. The result should feel like wandering through the well-loved library of your most curious, interesting friend—literary but approachable, serious about ideas but playful in form. It honors Epiphany’s 20-year legacy while opening new space for discovery, delight, and contemporary relevance.
Logo
The logo is the primary identifier of Epiphany. It’s a custom geometric sans serif logotype that preserves the familiar semicolon as a visual anchor, but rendered within a clean, modern grid. The logo has been carefully designed to maintain consistency and legibility at all scales. Do not alter its construction and never recreate it using live text.
Size
Always use your best judgment when scaling the logo. Though application size will vary, whenever possible avoid using it smaller than 125px wide in digital uses and 1.25” wide in print.
125px
Logo Color
The logo—and the semicolon mark used on its own—should be used in black (#000000) as much as possible. If it needs to be legible on black or dark backgrounds, it should be used in the brand ivory color (#ffffe2) to ensure maximum impact and readability across all applications. If absolutely necessary in certain applications, such as black and white printing, it can also be used in white (#ffffff). See here for more on the brand color palette.
Don’ts
Don’t diminish the value of the identity. Avoid the following treatments.
250px
500px
The semicolon is Epiphany’s most distilled mark—quiet but declarative. Beyond its role within the logotype, it functions as a versatile graphic device that can adapt to countless applications: serving as the magazine’s social media avatar, anchoring layouts as a bold corner element, or abstracted into textural motifs. Like an epiphany itself, it suggests a pause, a turn, a moment of surprise. Its recurring presence offers both continuity and curiosity, a typographic gesture that invites the reader to look again.
Design Notes
Always use the custom-drawn semicolon from the logotype
Like the logo, the semicolon should be used in black whenever possible, ivory if appropriate, and white only if absolutely necessary
Scale and placement should be intentional
Usage
May appear rotated or cropped when used in ambient textures, but never distorted
When used on its own in a piece of collateral with square corners, the semicolon should be tucked into the top right corner so that it’s flush against the top and right edge of the composition.
When used as a social media avatar, the semicolon should be optically centered within the circle