Royal Queensland Golf Club · Brand Guide

Architecture

An endorsed sub-brand, not a spin-off.

The Knot has its own name, mark and palette, and it never stands entirely alone. Royal Queensland is the reason it is trusted before anyone has played it, so the endorsement is present at the edge of every surface.

Master Royal Queensland Golf Club The parent. Founded 1920, an Olympic venue, and the authority every other tier borrows from. Refresh Jul–Aug
Championship The Championship Course The main eighteen. Carries the master brand directly, with no separate identity of its own. No change
Short course The Knot · Golf & Social Endorsed sub-brand. Its own name, mark and palette, always shown beneath Royal Queensland. This guide
Event space To be named Independent sub-brand. Operates on its own across corporate, entertainment and community, because much of its audience will never play golf. Aug–Sep

Final

Royal Queensland Golf Club · the endorsing mark, final artwork

The endorsement

An endorsed sub-brand is free to have a personality but never free to imply it is a separate business. Royal Queensland appears on every surface The Knot owns.

Royal Queensland sits at the edge of the surface, not inside The Knot lockup. The two marks are never combined into a single device.
The endorsement is set in DM Mono, uppercase, at label scale. It supports; it does not compete.
On anything a non-member sees first (signage, the website, event collateral, advertising) the endorsement is required, not optional.
On items already inside the club and already understood, such as a ball marker or a coaster, the knot may stand alone.
Never place The Knot above or level with Royal Queensland in a hierarchy. It sits beneath it.

Writing the name

The full name is The Knot · Golf & Social. Golf & Social is the verbal anchor and does the heavy lifting in any context where the name is meeting someone for the first time.

Write it this way

The Knot · Golf & Social

The full lockup. First mention anywhere, all signage, anything public-facing or search-facing.

The Knot

Second mention onward, and inside the club where the name is already understood.

The Knot at Royal Queensland

Where the endorsement has to be carried in the sentence rather than in the layout.

Never

Knot Golf & Social

The article is load-bearing. Without it the name reads as a product, not a place.

THE KNOT

Never set the name in all caps. The wordmark is mixed case and the artwork is the only correct rendering at size.

the knot

Both words take a capital in running text.

Royal Queensland Knot

The two brands are never merged into one name.

The idea

Two loops, one crossover.

The short course runs as a figure eight. Ten holes that fold back on themselves and meet once, at the crossover. Walk it and you cross your own path exactly halfway through the round.

That shape is already a knot. The figure eight is the knot a climber ties when the rope has to hold under load, and the one a sailor ties so a line cannot run out through a block. It is the knot you use when the thing must not come apart.

So the mark is not a picture of the course, and it is not decoration. It is the course's own geometry doing a second job.

Royal Queensland, late 1930s · a putt, a liner and a flying boat in one frame Club archive

01 The routing
Two loops meeting once at the crossover. The plan of the course, drawn in rope.
02 The knot
A figure eight. Tied to hold under load and to not run out. The one you use when it matters.
03 The tie
Grandparent and grandchild round the same ten. A short course exists to hold generations together.

The Knot · Golf & Social

The mark, and how it holds together.

A figure-eight knot. It reads two ways at once: the short course's figure-eight routing, two loops meeting once at the crossover, and the tie between generations that the course is built to hold. Four forms, one palette, no separate export per colourway.

Primary lockup

The default. Mark above wordmark, with the descriptor set beneath. Use this wherever there is room to give the mark air.

Wordmark

Type alone, for contexts where the mark already appears nearby or the space is too narrow to carry it. Never redraw or re-set the letterforms.

The knot

The mark on its own. Social avatars, ball markers, embroidery, pin flags, anywhere the name is already understood.

Badge lockup

The contained form. Apparel, signage roundels, scorecards and anywhere the mark needs its own boundary against a busy ground.

Colourways

Live artwork, recoloured. Every mark is a single-fill SVG, so the whole palette is available from one file per form rather than a separate export per colour.

Ink on paper The default. Use unless there is a reason not to.

Cream on black The primary reverse.

Cream on petrol

Cream on red

Ink on sage

Ink on funnel

Clearspace

Clearspace equal to the height of the knot itself, on all four sides. Nothing enters that field, including type, rules, image edges and the trim of the page.

On the badge lockup, measure from the outer boundary of the badge rather than from the artwork inside it.

Minimum size

14mm Print, mark width
96px Digital, mark width

Below these sizes the knot's interior crossings begin to fill in. Where a smaller mark is unavoidable, use the wordmark alone rather than a knot that has gone solid.

Misuse

Do not re-set the wordmark in another typeface.
Do not change the relationship, spacing or scale between the knot and the wordmark.
Do not apply colours outside the approved palette to any part of the mark.
Do not use two colours within a single instance of the mark.
Do not outline, emboss, or apply a drop shadow.
Do not rotate, slant or italicise any form of the mark.
Do not distort or stretch the proportions.
Do not place the mark on a photograph without sufficient tonal separation.
Do not enclose the primary lockup in a shape. Use the badge lockup instead.
Do not reproduce the mark below the minimum sizes above.

Downloads

Colour

Nine colours, four jobs.

Two grounds, two inks, five accents drawn from the river, the turf and the light. Shown here at something like the area each will actually occupy.

Primary · text and mark #0C3347

Ink

The mark and body text on light grounds. A deep navy rather than a black, and the same navy the Royal Queensland crest is drawn in, which ties the two brands together without either mark changing. Never pure black anywhere in the system.

Primary · ground #F7F2F0

Paper

The default page. Scorecard stock, menus, the guide you are reading. Everything starts here.

Ground · reverse #1B1D1C

Black

The dark ground. Signage, apparel, the reverse of print, and the cover of anything that wants weight.

Primary · reverse ink #E7DFC8

Cream

The mark and text on dark grounds. A ground for small panels only, never a field for body copy.

Accent · the river #2E4B59

Petrol

The deepest accent and the one carrying the Brisbane River. Use where the course meets the water.

Accent · the turf #B5CCB0

Sage

Course-facing work. Hole diagrams, yardage, scorecards, anything about the ground underfoot.

Accent · the stacks #F4C23B

Funnel

Pulled from the funnels of the liners that berthed alongside the course. The social and wayfinding accent, and the only colour in the palette loud enough to be found from a distance.

Accent · premium #C29053

Gold

Milestones, member gifts, a substitute for foil. Use sparingly or it stops reading as premium.

Accent · alert #A13B2C

Red

Competition and emphasis, at small sizes only. Never a large field and never behind body copy.

Tints, shades and opacities

Every ground and accent carries a six-step tint ramp, a three-step shade ramp and a five-stop opacity scale. Generated from the base hex, so they cannot drift. Tints carry panels, table fills and hover states; shades carry pressed states and rules; opacities carry overlays on photography.

Ink

100 200 300 400 500 600 Base 800 850 900

8% 16% 32% 56% 80%

Paper

100 200 300 400 500 600 Base 800 850 900

8% 16% 32% 56% 80%

Black

100 200 300 400 500 600 Base 800 850 900

8% 16% 32% 56% 80%

Cream

100 200 300 400 500 600 Base 800 850 900

8% 16% 32% 56% 80%

Petrol

100 200 300 400 500 600 Base 800 850 900

8% 16% 32% 56% 80%

Sage

100 200 300 400 500 600 Base 800 850 900

8% 16% 32% 56% 80%

Funnel

100 200 300 400 500 600 Base 800 850 900

8% 16% 32% 56% 80%

Gold

100 200 300 400 500 600 Base 800 850 900

8% 16% 32% 56% 80%

Every approved pairing

All fourteen combinations, each with its measured contrast ratio and what that ratio permits. Anything marked display only is for the mark and large headings, never for body copy.