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Tilia Guidelines
A dentist for people who hate the dentist: quiet rooms, no rush, nothing done without your yes.
Introduction
Tilia is a dental clinic for people who would rather be anywhere else. Quiet rooms, no rush, nothing done without the patient’s yes; raise a hand and the work stops. The first visit can be a talk, with no treatment at all.
Tilia is the linden tree, planted in squares and courtyards for its deep, cool shade. In the wordmark the T’s crossbar stretches into one gentle arch over “ilia”, like a canopy: the letters sit in its shade. Nothing in the drawing is sharp; every end is round.
One deep linden green on blossom cream, with the yellow of linden flowers as the one bright note. Warm daylight and leaf shadow instead of clinical blue and chrome.
At a glance
Logo- Blossom#F3EEDF
- Linden#2C4A3E
- Shade#1E342B
- Aa Newsreader
- Aa Instrument Sans
A dentist for people who hate the dentist.
Wordmark scale
- 96 px
- 72 px
- 60 px
- 48 px
- 38 px
- 30 px
- 24 px
The wordmark is the logo: it carries its own symbol, the canopy, so there is no separate lockup (a tree beside it would show the T twice). Use it wherever the name can be read: the door, the fascia, the card, the website. The T-tree is for small square places only: the app icon, the profile picture, the favicon, a glazed cup. Never redraw the arch, close the gap under it or let it touch a letter.
Mark construction
Clear space is 1.5x on every side, where x is one stem. Every stem is one width and ends in a full round; the i dots are true circles of one size, set close under the arch; the arch is level at both ends and never touches a letter.
Signature
Three cuts
Small sizes
- Wordmark, 24 px
- Wordmark, 16 px
- T-tree, 32 px
- T-tree, 16 px
Logo on your background
Use the dark artwork: 8.3:1 against this ground. Logos need at least 3:1 (WCAG 2, non-text contrast).
Please don’t
Core palette
Taken from the linden tree in June: the deep green of its leaves for the logo, the cream of its blossom for the ground, the pale green of the bract that carries the flowers, and the flowers’ yellow as the one bright note. Shade and Bark carry the words. No clinical blue, no white tiles, no chrome. CMYK values are a plain device conversion for reference; proof the green and the yellow on press.
Color proportions
Blossom and Linden do most of the work. Bract is the soft second ground; Flower appears once per surface, on the one action that matters.
Readable combinations
- AaShade on Blossom11.4:1AAA
- AaLinden on Blossom8.3:1AAA
- AaBark on Blossom5.9:1AA
- AaBlossom on Linden8.3:1AAA
- AaShade on Flower8.3:1AAA
- AaLinden on Bract6.3:1AA
- AaBract on Linden6.3:1AA
- AaBlossom on Shade11.4:1AAA
- AaFlower on Linden6.1:1AA
- AaFlower on Blossom1.3:1Fail
Flower is never text on Blossom (1.4:1): it is a ground for Shade text, as on the Book a visit button, or large display on Linden. Bark is the lightest text colour that holds AA on Blossom. Ratios are WCAG 2 contrast, measured on the sRGB values above: AAA from 7:1, AA from 4.5:1, AA Large from 3:1 (large or bold text only).
Check a pairing
8.3:1AAA
Type system
Headlines and the warm, spoken lines, as on the website: light 300 at 57 px, tight but not cramped. A reading serif with soft details, so the clinic sounds like a person, not a system. By Production Type, SIL Open Font License 1.1, Google Fonts, about 90 KB for the variable roman. This preview doesn’t load it yet, so the line above falls back to your system’s face.
Text, forms, buttons and signs: 16 to 22 px, regular 400 and semibold 600 for the button in capitals. Open and friendly at small sizes. By Rodrigo Fuenzalida and Jordan Egstad, SIL Open Font License 1.1, Google Fonts, about 70 KB variable. This preview doesn’t load it yet, so the line above falls back to your system’s face.
Click any specimen line to try your own words.
Type scale
No rush.
A dentist for people who hate the dentist.
Nervous about the chair?
Start with a talk
Quiet rooms, no rush, nothing done without your yes. Raise a hand and we stop.
New patients welcome
Tone of voice
Tilia speaks like the kindest dentist you have met: slow, plain and on your side. It says what will happen before it happens, and it always says you can stop.
Short sentences, ordinary words, no clinical terms unless they are explained. Fear is taken seriously, never joked about.
Shade on a hot day
A linden tree in a square: somewhere to sit, cool and unhurried. The people reading are scared, embarrassed or both, so every line lowers the stakes and gives them control.
You’re in charge
Every page says how to pause, ask or stop. Nothing is done without a yes.
| Say | Avoid |
|---|---|
| Raise a hand and we stop. | Just relax, it won’t hurt a bit. |
| We’ll tell you what we see before we do anything. | Our expert team knows what’s best for you. |
Plain, slow words
Explain before you name. One idea per sentence, no jargon left unexplained.
| Say | Avoid |
|---|---|
| A filling: we clean out the soft part and close the hole. | Composite restoration of the carious lesion. |
Kind, never cute
Warm, not jolly. No jokes about pain, drills or dentists.
| Say | Avoid |
|---|---|
| Many people feel this way. You’re not the first. | Don’t be a scaredy-cat! |
Fascia
Blossom on Linden, hand-painted on the shopfront: the canopy over the name, a real linden over the canopy.
Front door
Appointment card
Reception desk
The wordmark routed into pale oak and inset in green: the first thing a nervous patient sees inside.
Aftercare pouch
Waiting-room cup
Device: the shade
The wordmark’s T and its arch, cropped so the canopy runs out past the edge: covers, signs and section openers. A tiled T-tree was tried and dropped; repeated, it reads as mushrooms.
Export assets
What’s inside the zip · 47 files · 1.7 MB
- svg/Vector logos (SVG)13 files · 54 KB
- export/PNG logos, favicons and profile pictures25 files · 951 KB
- pattern/Pattern tile and device (SVG, PNG)2 files · 43 KB
- scenes/Application images (WebP)6 files · 790 KB
- README.txtWhat each folder holds, and the colours1 file
