Features
Everything brand guidelines hold, in one place.
Here is what nexbrand does, from the first colour of a new client to the backup of the whole server. Most points come with a picture from the app, and where it helps, a tip from Pavo.
Every client at a glance
The overview shows every client you may see, with its logo, its colours as a strip, the version that applies and the number of its projects. Recently opened clients and the ones you starred sit in the sidebar.
Find instead of search
The quick search opens with Ctrl K, on a Mac with Cmd K. It finds clients by name, by sector and by the fonts they use. If you want to know which clients the agency has used a particular typeface for, just type its name.
- Client details: name, sector, contact, a colour, a note and up to ten addresses, such as the client's website and GitHub repository.
- Trash: A client goes to the trash for 30 days, with its versions and projects. Only someone who manages it may delete it for good, and only with their own password.
- No CI yet: A new client without guidelines offers three ways: with the wizard, by collecting, or starting empty.
Colours with a role and print values
Every colour has a name and a role: main colour, second colour, accent or neutral. The role decides how nexbrand checks and exports it.
What a colour card shows
Each card carries text in white or dark, whichever reads better, with the contrast ratio next to it. Below are the values to copy with a click: HEX, RGB, HSL, CMYK, Pantone and the name as a CSS variable. nexbrand computes CMYK itself, or you enter the value the printer gave you.
- Steps: In a draft every colour shows its steps from 50 to 950, with a hint what each is good for: text on white, ground for text or area only. A click turns a step into a colour of its own.
- Goes with it: From the main colour nexbrand computes the complement, neighbours, triad and split complement.
- Neutrals with a touch of the main colour: an off-white, a grey and a dark that suit the main colour.
Pavo saysUp to 48 colours fit in a version. Most good guidelines manage with eight.
Fonts with a licence, sizes with a system
A font in nexbrand knows whether it may be passed on. And the sizes of headings come from a base size and a ratio, not from gut feeling.
Three licences
- Free, may be passed on: such as a font under the SIL Open Font License. nexbrand ships nine of them, from Fraunces to Inter, with nothing to upload.
- In-house only: An in-house font never leaves nexbrand as a file, not through public pages, a review, a token or MCP. Outside, only its name appears. Uploaded fonts start this way.
- System font: a font the device brings along; it needs a fallback.
Type sizes
A base size between 14 and 21 px, a ratio from 1.125 to 1.5, and “Compute sizes” creates headings, lead, body text and small print. Each step can then be adjusted on its own, with weight, line height and font.
Logos, rules and examples
Logos on their ground
nexbrand shows a logo on the ground it was made for, with minimum width and a clear space you can show. SVG, PNG, JPG, WebP and other image formats go up, HEIC is converted, and EPS or PDF attach as extra files to download. Every SVG is checked for embedded scripts first.
Until a drawn logo exists, nexbrand sets word marks as stand-ins from the name, the heading font and the main colour, so developers can start building.
Do and do not
Rules stand in two columns. Three kinds point at colours, logos and fonts of the version and are checked: an allowed or forbidden colour pair, a logo only on certain grounds, a font from a minimum size. A free rule, about imagery or tone of voice, stays words and is marked plainly as not checked.
Examples and UI elements
Up to 60 example files per version, from letterhead to advert. The tab UI elements shows buttons, fields, a card and badges in the colours and fonts of the version, light and dark.
Dark mode is part of the guidelines
Many websites and apps have a dark mode, and mostly the developer makes it up. In nexbrand the agency decides which colour of the palette is what in the dark: page ground, surfaces and cards, text, quiet text, main colour for links and buttons, and text on the main colour.
“Suggest a dark mode” makes a first proposal from the palette and adds missing dark tones. Every mapping is checked at 4.5:1, appears in the export and can be switched on the sample page, the UI elements and in the review.
Versions and projects
Every change starts as a draft. Publishing gives it the day it applies from, and after that it never changes again. That way you can always tell what applied when.
- Time line: All versions of a client side by side, the current one marked, drafts dashed. A version may also apply only from a later day.
- As of: A date shows the version that applied on that day. “3 years ago” is one click.
- Compare: Two versions side by side, colours with their distance ΔE, and which hints of the checks were added or fixed.
- Projects with their own colours: A website or a trade fair stand builds on a version of the client and decides per part whether it inherits, adds or has its own. The project stays on its version until somebody moves it to a newer one on purpose.
Computed, never written by hand
The checks run while you edit and live in the tab Checks of every version. Every hint is computed, not made up.
Contrast of every pair
Each colour as text on each colour as ground, with its grade by WCAG 2.2: AAA, AA, large text only or fails.
How others see the palette
The palette for green blind, red blind and blue blind people and in greyscale, computed after Machado 2009. Pairs that blur are reported.
Colours nearly the same
Two colours less than 4 apart by CIEDE2000 look the same to most people. nexbrand asks whether you need both.
Word marks and type
A drawn word mark needs 3:1 against its ground, body text at least 16 px. In-house fonts and system fonts get a hint.
Rules
An allowed pair that is too faint, two rules that contradict each other, a logo that shows a forbidden pair: nexbrand checks the rules against the version itself.
Contrast checker
Type two colours, see the ratio and the grades, and get the nearest colour of the same hue that passes.
A new identity in the workbench
nexbrand is a workbench, not a drawing program. For a client without guidelines the wizard leads in six steps to the first draft: client, start, colours, fonts, sizes and logo, finish. The sample page and the checks run alongside all the time.
- From the description: A few words such as “garden centre, fresh, natural” give three directions with colour and font pair. With your own AI service, the AI proposes hue and font pair, and nexbrand computes the colours itself.
- From a picture: The colours are counted in the browser; the picture never leaves it.
- From one colour: The colour stays as you enter it. If it is not enough for text, nexbrand proposes the nearest colour that is.
- Empty, record a CI: for guidelines that already exist.
Review with the client and hand it on
A review without an account
“Send to the client for review” turns a draft into a link. The client sees up to four directions as a sample page with colours, reasoning and the agency's drafts to browse, comments, and picks one with “Choose this direction”. The choice is published at once. nexbrand shows what is new from the client at the review, at the client and in the sidebar.
Public pages
For the printer or a developer outside, there is a page with the whole set, read only: always the current version or fixed on one, with an end date and a password if you like. Checks and in-house fonts stay out, the code to copy is there.
As code, for programs and for AI tools
- As code: Every version and every project as CSS variables, Tailwind 4, SCSS or design tokens (JSON), with steps, fonts, type sizes and dark mode. Copy or download.
- API: A token reads clients, versions and code under
/api/v1, checks colour values or a whole style sheet against the guidelines and computes contrast. - MCP: An AI tool in your editor fetches the guidelines through eight tools instead of inventing colours. A token of the level “Read and propose drafts” writes a redesign back as a draft; publishing stays with a person.
- Collect: A website, a GitHub repository or a PDF style guide provides colours, fonts and logos as a draft, or nexbrand checks a site against the guidelines and finds the nearly right colours.
In a team, with rights per client
Access is per client, for people and teams, in three levels: read means view and export, write means change, publish, upload, create reviews and public pages, manage adds inviting, giving rights and ending other people's links. Whoever creates a client manages it.
A client somebody may not see does not exist for them, not even its name. Accounts come by invitation only, by link or by name, and the operator decides whether members may create clients themselves.
What you expect from a nex app
Second factor
With an authenticator app and eight recovery codes. The operator can demand it from everyone.
Sign-in service
OpenID Connect with any provider, authentik set up in one step.
Backups
An archive every night with the database and every file, checkable before restoring and good for a move.
A log in four levels
From quiet to everything; the deep levels switch themselves back after an hour. Designs, passwords and keys never appear in it.
Languages
German and English are included, the operator uploads more as JSON files.
Light and dark
nexbrand itself has both modes and follows the system until you choose otherwise.