Swift Hale

How the name, the swift, the colours and the words work for Swift & Hale, outdoor kit and walking shops since 1973.

A walker in a green jacket heads down a sunken lane between high banks of sandstone and tree roots.
Setting off along a holloway.
A walker in a green waterproof stands with the hood up on a wet moorland track.
Rain on the moor, and a jacket that keeps working.
Morning at a hillside camp: a stove, a steaming pan and a hand reaching for an enamel mug in the tent doorway.
First light at camp, home well the next day.

Swift & Hale has fitted boots, mended tents and led walks since 1973. The brand should be as plain and useful as the kit.

Our name

A common swift in flight against a blue sky, its long wings swept back like a crescent.

Swift

The bird

Swifts reach Britain in May and leave in August, and can stay in the air for ten months without landing. Our mark is a swift as you see it from the path.

A walker in a green jacket crosses a grassy ridge at first light with mist in the valley below.

Hale

The promise

An old word for healthy, as in hale and hearty. It is how we want people to come home, and it gives us the brand line: out sooner, home well.

Drawn from the wing

A common swift banking in flight, wings spread, against a soft grey background.

Two arcs make the crescent of the wings, and a tapered body ends in the forked tail. That is the whole mark.

Swift & Hale horizontal lockup in Gorse on Holloway green.

Horizontal lockup. Gorse on Holloway, the default for covers, signs and screens.lockup-horizontal-gorse.svg

Swift & Hale stacked lockup in Holloway green on Chalk.

Stacked lockup. Holloway on Chalk, for square spaces, bags and labels.lockup-stacked-holloway.svg

The swift symbol in Holloway green on Gorse. The app icon: a Gorse swift on a Holloway square.

The swift on its own. Holloway on Gorse, or Gorse on Holloway for the app icon, stamps and the repair ticket.symbol-holloway.svg, app-icon.svg

How the swift is drawn: the wings are the space between two circles, with the forked tail below.

Logo rules

Clear space

Keep the height of the capital H in the wordmark clear on every side of the logo.

Smallest sizes

Horizontal lockup 30mm or 120px wide. Stacked lockup 18mm or 72px. The swift on its own 6mm or 20px.

Colour pairs

Gorse or Chalk on Holloway. Holloway or Soot on Chalk. Holloway on Gorse. On a photograph, put the logo over a calm area: Holloway on pale sky, Chalk on dark ground.

Leave it alone

Never stretch, rotate, outline or recolour the logo, add effects to it, set the name in another typeface or redraw the swift. Use the files.

Colour

Four colours do the work. Holloway leads, Chalk carries long reading, Soot sets the text, and Gorse is kept for the logo and the one thing on a page that matters most.

Holloway

HEX #133621 · RGB 19 54 33 · CMYK 86 45 90 55

Named for the sunken lanes of Dorset, worn deep into the ground by centuries of feet. Our lead colour, for covers, signs and grounds.

Gorse

HEX #F4D96C · RGB 244 217 108 · CMYK 3 12 68 0

Gorse is in flower on the heath for most of the year. Use it for the logo on Holloway and for one thing on a page: a price, a button, a figure that matters.

Chalk

HEX #EEEFEA · RGB 238 239 234 · CMYK 5 2 6 0

The downs, and the paper. The light ground for the catalogue, the annual report and anything people read for long.

Soot

HEX #1B1E1A · RGB 27 30 26 · CMYK 60 45 60 90

The swift's own colour. Body text on Chalk, and the dark ground for photography pages.

Supporting colours, for panels, charts and maps

ColourHEXRGBCMYKUse
Heath#1A442926 68 4182 38 85 42Panels on Holloway
Lichen#B3A55E179 165 9430 25 72 8Second text on Holloway
Turf#4F7A4A79 122 7470 30 80 20Charts and maps
Sky#A8C1D6168 193 21435 15 5 0Charts and maps

Holloway 45%Chalk 35%Soot 12%Gorse 5%Supporting 3%

Contrast: Gorse on Holloway 9.5:1, Chalk on Holloway 11.5:1, Soot on Chalk 14.6:1, Holloway on Gorse 9.5:1, Lichen on Holloway 5.4:1. Lichen and Turf are too light for text on Chalk. CMYK values are starting points for coated stock, so always proof on press.

Type

One family does everything. Chivo is a grotesque by Omnibus-Type, free under the SIL Open Font License, with weights from Thin to Black and figures that line up in tables.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ &

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

0123456789 £185.00 20,000mm

Out sooner, home well.

RoleSettingScreenPrint
DisplayExtra Bold, capitals, tracking -0.04em8 to 14vw72 to 120pt
HeadlineExtra Bold, capitals, tracking -0.045em40 to 88px24 to 40pt
LeadBold20 to 36px14 to 18pt
BodyRegular17 to 19px on 1.459.5pt on 14pt
SmallRegular13 to 14px7.5pt on 10pt
FiguresBold, tabularAs bodyAs body
WordmarkBold, capitals, tracking +0.06emLogo files onlyLogo files only
Rolling chalk downland at dawn, a pale track running over the hill and mist in the valleys.

  1. How we write

  2. Say where and when.
  3. Name the weather.
  4. Give the number.
  5. Promise what we mend.
  6. Talk like the shop.

We writePlain words, real places, honest numbers. If a sentence would sound odd said across the counter, we rewrite it.

NotUnleash your inner explorer and conquer the great outdoors.

We writeLed walk from the Dorchester shop, Saturday at 9.30. Eight miles round Maiden Castle, back by two.

NotJoin us for an unforgettable adventure!

We writeKeeps you dry through a day of Dartmoor drizzle, then packs into its own pocket.

NotWeatherproof protection for every adventure.

We write1.2kg packed. Pitches in about four minutes.

NotUltralight and super quick to pitch.

We writeTear it, bring it in, and we will repair it for as long as you own it.

NotBuilt to last forever.

We writeTry them on with the socks you walk in. Take your time.

NotExperience our premium fitting service.

Photography

Shoot early or late, in real weather. Show people from behind or from a distance while they walk. Kit is Holloway green with a little Gorse and carries no other brand. Leave sky for type. The pictures in this guide were generated as stand-ins for a commissioned shoot.

Heathland at first light with gorse and heather in flower and one walker far off on a sandy path.
Half the frame is sky, so a headline has somewhere to go.
Five walkers follow a coast path below tall white chalk cliffs above a calm sea.
People stay small in the land.
A green tent beside a stream in a valley at dusk, someone sitting in the lit doorway.
Kit is shown in use, where it was made to go.

Applications

2027

Catalogue cover

Spring Summer, 120 pages. A full-bleed photograph with the logo over a calm sky.

Catalogue cover with a walker on a ridge at first light.

Spring
Summer
2027

Swift & Hale plc is a fictional company created by CHS for demonstration.

2026

Annual report

Annual Report and Accounts, 160 pages. Holloway cover, Chalk pages inside.

Annual Report and Accounts 2026

Out sooner, home well.

Swift & Hale plc is a fictional company created by CHS for demonstration.

2027

Product page

Four to twelve products to a page, on a lighter Chalk so the cut-outs sit cleanly. Prices in Extra Bold, tabular figures.

New for spring34
Hale Moor JacketHale Moor JacketThree-layer waterproof, 20,000mm. Lifetime repair.S to XXL. Holloway, Soot.£185
Hale Ridge BootHale Ridge BootFull-grain leather, waterproof lining, can be resoled.Sizes 3 to 13.£165
Swift 30 DaypackSwift 30 Daypack30 litres, 980g, rain cover in the lid.Holloway, Gorse.£85
Swift Two tentSwift TwoTwo people, 1.6kg packed. Pitches in about four minutes.Holloway.£280
2026

Tag and ticket

Hale tags are Holloway, Swift tags are Gorse. Every repair gets a ticket with a date it will be ready.

Hale Moor Jacket

Three-layer waterproof, 20,000mm. Packs into its own pocket.

Repaired free for as long as you own it.

£185

Holloway · M · 40211

Repair ticket
Number
48213
Shop
Dorchester
Item
Hale Moor Jacket
Job
Re-tape the left shoulder seam
Cost
Free, lifetime repair

Ready on Thursday 22 October

128

Shop fascia

Painted Holloway with the lockup in Gorse, lit from above. Windows show kit in use, never a sale banner.

Make a tag

Type a product and a price. The same line of product data sets the swing tag and the catalogue entry, which is how the catalogue is built from the product file.

Hale Moor Jacket

Three-layer waterproof, 20,000mm.

Repaired free for as long as you own it.

£185

Holloway · S to XXL

Product cut-out Hale Moor Jacket Three-layer waterproof, 20,000mm. Holloway · S to XXL £185

The cut-out picks itself from the product name: jacket, boot, pack or tent.