Brand guidelines
How Keyplan looks, sounds and marks a plan. It sits beside DG Vault and HM Intel as a CTS product, shares HM Intel's colours of meaning, and has a look of its own taken from building drawings.
The name
In a set of building drawings, the key plan is the small plan that shows the whole building and marks where you are. That is the product's job: show the crew the whole building and where the danger is. A fire safety plan also records where the keys are, which firefighters read as a second meaning.
Writing it
- One word, capital K: Keyplan. Never KeyPlan, Key Plan or KEYPLAN.
- On the CTS website and in sales material: Keyplan by CTS. Inside the product: Keyplan alone.
- In HM Intel, a building plan is credited as "Plan from Keyplan".
- Positioning line: Keyplan keeps a building's fire safety plan current, reviewed and in the crew's hands before they go in.
Before launch: a CIPO and USPTO trademark search. A first web search found nothing in fire safety, but an iOS home design app called Keyplan 3D exists.
Place in the CTS family
Each product keeps one kind of record. HM Intel is where responders read them. Keyplan has its own sign-up and works for an owner whose fire department does not use HM Intel.
DG Vault
Keeps dangerous goods shipping records. Used by shippers, carriers and drivers.
Keyplan
Keeps building fire safety plans. Used by owners, property managers and fire departments.
HM Intel
Puts both in front of responders: a truck by its unit number, a building by its location.
Logo
The mark is a key plan: the building outline with its entrance gap, and one area filled in the way a key plan marks where you are. The keyhole in the filled area carries the second meaning.
Clear space
Keep a margin the width of the filled area around the lockup. Nothing else enters it.
Smallest size
The mark alone down to 16 px, as the favicon. The lockup down to 20 px tall.
Never
Fill the area red, add a flame, put the mark in a circle, or set the wordmark in another typeface.
Colour
Brand colours are cool and quiet, so the colours of meaning stand out on the drawing. Meaning colours are the same values HM Intel uses, so a firefighter reads them the same way in both.
Brand
Meaning
Typography
Archivo carries the brand and the drawing: its narrow widths fit room names on a plan and its wide widths give the wordmark its weight. Inter carries the interface and every number, as it does in DG Vault and HM Intel.
Plan status
Every plan screen shows its status as a word, an icon and a colour, never colour alone. An approval covers one version: when the owner publishes a newer one, it starts again as owner maintained.
Plan symbols
Hazards are diamonds, the shape of a TDG placard, with the class number inside. Building features are ink tags with a short code. Each one is large enough to tap with a glove in HM Intel.
These are Keyplan's own symbols. Before release, compare them with the NFPA 170 fire safety symbols departments may already use for pre-incident plans, and adopt those where they differ.
Voice
Plain words, sentence case, no exclamation marks. Say who, what and when. A button and its confirmation use the same verb.
| Write | Not |
|---|---|
| Approved by ZZ Demo Fire Department on 9 Oct 2026, version 1. | Your plan is approved! |
| UN9999 is not in the HM Intel data. No hazard guidance will show for this material. | Oops, we couldn't find that. |
| Publish version 2, then: Published. | Submit, then: Success. |
| Returned with 2 comments from ZZ Demo Fire Department. | Rejected. |
| No fire department covers this location yet. | Unsupported region. |
Do and don't
Do
- Show the drawing first, then the details.
- Put the plan status in words on every plan screen.
- Keep tap targets at 44 px on the web and 56 px in HM Intel.
- Show the version number wherever a plan is shown.
Don't
- Use red for buttons, links or the brand.
- Imply approval with a green tick alone.
- Show guidance for a material that was not matched.
- Put a flame or a fire truck in the brand.