WAVEMAKERS
Brand board, version 1
13 October 2026
WAVEMAKERS

For advertising agencies and production companies, Wave Makers is the producer collective that writes music to the cut, not from a library.

precise

An agency has to be able to trust us to the second. So everything around the wave is as tight as a timeline.

contemporary

The tracks sound like now, made by producers who know what is playing this week. The hand-drawn wave and a sharp, light serif keep the look current.

opinionated

The difference from a library lies in the choices. One sender, one signature, never used twice.

never stock

No gradients, no headphone photos, no aqua-blue waves. Nothing that could come out of a catalogue.

A signature on the timeline

The wave is drawn by hand: a gesture, not a graph. Everything around it is as precise as an edit: timecode, cue numbers, frames. That tension is the brand. A person writing to the second.

00:00:00:0000:00:05:0000:00:10:0000:00:15:0000:00:20:0000:00:25:0000:00:30:0025 fpsOut 00:00:13:22In 00:00:06:00

We read the two dots of the wave as the 2-pop and the tail pop: the beep two seconds before the first frame and the beep after the last. The start and end of every cue. It is not a rule for the audience. It is a story for anyone who works in post.

Timecode is always written as hh:mm:ss:ff at 25 fps, the European broadcast standard. Cues are named as in film scoring: 1M1 is the first music cue of reel one. Precision as content, not decoration.

Logo

The mark stays exactly as it was. The wordmark is new: Geist in capitals, widely spaced, continuing the old Wave Two wordmark. In the logo the name is one word, WAVEMAKERS. In running text it is Wave Makers. Four fixed lockups, one file for the wave, two weights.

WAVEMAKERS

Primary, stacked. For covers, the website intro and the end cards of videos.

WAVEMAKERS

Horizontal. For navigation, letterhead and slide footers.

WAVEMAKERS

Wordmark only. For contexts under 24 px high, such as credits and metadata.

Seal. For social profile pictures and as a stamp on stems and invoices.

WAVEMAKERS

Inverted on paper. Black on light, no other changes.

WAVEMAKERS

Horizontal on paper.

WAVEMAKERS

On ultramarine, always in paper. Black does not reach enough contrast here.

WAVEMAKERS

On amber, always in black. Paper does not reach enough contrast here.

Size test

Below 48 px the hand-drawn line gets too thin. For that there is a second weight: the same wave, the same shape, only a heavier line. Never shrink the standard weight down to a favicon.

96 px, standard
48 px, standard
24 px, standard
32 px, small weight
24 px, small weight
16 px, favicon

Clear space

Keep at least a fifth of the wave's width empty all around it. No text, no edges, no photos inside that zone.

0.2 × width0.2 ×

Colour

Black is the canvas, paper is the text. Colour is a field, never an accent: a whole slide, a whole post, never a link or a button. Two colours, each with a fixed text colour on top. Amber may appear small on black for one thing only: the playhead.

Black
#000000
Canvas for website, deck and video. No tint, no gradient.
Paper
#ECEBE6
Text on black. Light pages: deck body, producer profiles.
Smoke
#8E8B85
Secondary text and rules on black. Never on paper.
Graphite
#55534F
Secondary text and rules on paper. Portrait fields without a photo.
Ultramarine
#2230D8
Field colour for statements. Pigment blue instead of sea blue. Text on it: paper.
Amber
#E9A23B
Field colour for social and the playhead. Text on it: black.

Contrast, measured

PairingRatioUse
Aapaper on black17.6 : 1All text
Aablack on paper17.6 : 1All text
Aasmoke on black6.2 : 1All text, including small
Aagraphite on paper6.4 : 1All text, including small
Aapaper on ultramarine7.1 : 1All text
Aablack on amber9.7 : 1All text
Aaamber on black9.7 : 1Playhead only
Aablack on ultramarine2.5 : 1Do not use
Aapaper on amber1.8 : 1Do not use
Aasmoke on paper2.9 : 1Do not use

Why these two colours

Ultramarine is the one blue that does not point to the sea: pigment, Yves Klein, the gallery. Amber is the peak light on a meter, the moment a track hits. Together they are the orange and blue of film grading, pushed to pure pigments. Neither appears in any library brand.

Typography

Two families. Fraunces, light, for headlines and statements: the character. Geist for the wordmark, body text, interface and all numbers: the precision. Numbers are always tabular, so timecodes line up.

Music written to the cut, never twice.

Fraunces 300, optical size 144. Open source, SIL Open Font License, via Google Fonts. Free for commercial use.

Wave Makers is a collective of producers composing for commercials, games and social. Every track begins with your edit and is never used twice.

1M1  00:00:00:00  96 bpm  F minor

Geist 300 to 700, shown at 400. Open source, SIL Open Font License, via Google Fonts. Fallback: Helvetica Neue, Arial.

Scale, ratio 1.25

  • 76Statement
  • 61Slide heading
  • 49Page heading
  • 39Positioning
  • 31Section heading
  • 25Intro
  • 20Body text, large
  • 16Body text
  • 13Metadata and timecode

Rules

  • Headlines in Fraunces 300, never heavier. Italic only for half a sentence, never for a single word.

  • Wordmark always in Geist 500, capitals, 0.42 em tracking. Never in Fraunces, never in lowercase.

  • Body text in Geist 400, at most 62 characters per line, line height 1.5.

  • No capitals for labels. Timecode and cue numbers are content and are set in the same Geist as the text.

  • Fallback for Fraunces: Iowan Old Style, Georgia, serif.

Photography

Black and white, 35mm grain, available light. People at work, never posing for the camera. The studio is a workplace, not a set. These six images set the direction for the real shoot with the producers.

A producer seen from behind, facing two monitors with a video edit, lit only by the screens
Screen light as the only light source. Subtle as a background behind the mark and positioning, as at the top of this board, and for the cover of a pitch deck.
Portrait of a producer at an analogue mixing desk, looking into the camera
Producer portrait at the console. Window light from the side, a direct gaze, no smile on demand.
Portrait of a producer against a wall of acoustic foam, half in shadow
Producer portrait against acoustic foam. Half the face in shadow is fine, as long as the person stays recognisable.
Hands on the faders of a mixing desk, shallow depth of field
Hands on the faders. The detail that shows precision without saying it. For in-between images on the website and for stories.
Two producers talking in a daylit studio, a piano in the background
The collective. Two people listening and talking, daylight, nobody looking into the lens. For the page about the producers.
A hand making a conducting gesture against a dark wall
The gesture. A hand writing in the air, like the wave. For posts and as an image next to a statement.

Always black and white

Grain is fine, contrast can go deep. Never colour, never HDR, never a filter that smells of an app. Colour in the brand comes from the fields, not from the photo.

Available light

Window, lamp or screen. No flash, no neon, no LED strips behind the monitors. If it is dark, it is dark.

People at work

No posing, no headphones as props, no sea or waves. The producers appear as an agency would find them at a session.

These six images are AI-generated with Artlist (Flux 2.0 Pro) to set the direction for the shoot. They are not the producers of Wave Makers. Replace them as soon as the real portraits exist, and never publish them as the collective.

Brand assets

Three things only this brand has, because they come from the work itself: the cue sheet, the timeline with its playhead, and the cutdowns. They replace icons, illustrations and stock imagery.

Cue sheet

CueTitleInOutLengthTempoKey
1M1Opening00:00:00:0000:00:11:1211.5 s96F minor
1M2Reveal00:00:11:1200:00:24:0012.5 s96F minor
1M3Tag00:00:24:0000:00:30:006 s96A♭ major

Example: a 30-second commercial at 25 fps. The document producers already deliver becomes the visual system of the website and the deck. Amber marks the cue that is playing.

Cutdowns

30 s
15 s
6 s

Every score is written so the 30, the 15 and the 6 each land on a hit. The bars are to scale and return in the deck and on the website.

Applications

Website and pitch deck first, social after that. Every example uses only the colours and type on this board. All copy is sample copy.

WAVEMAKERS
  • Work
  • Producers
  • Process
  • Contact

Music written to the cut.

Wave Makers is a collective of producers composing for commercials, games and social. Every track begins with your edit and is never used twice.

Send a briefListen to recent cues
00:00:00:0000:00:05:0000:00:10:0000:00:15:0000:00:20:0000:00:25:0000:00:30:0025 fpsOut 00:00:11:19In 00:00:06:00

Website, home page. The timeline with the wave is the first image. No hero photo, no video background.

Producers

One sender, six signatures. Every producer has a face and a story.

Producer name

Composer, sound design

Three sentences: where they come from, what their sound is, one cue they are proud of.

Producer name

Composer, mix

Three sentences: where they come from, what their sound is, one cue they are proud of.

Producer name

Composer, game audio

Three sentences: where they come from, what their sound is, one cue they are proud of.

Website, producers. One sender, every producer with a portrait and a story. Portraits in black and white, never in colour.

WAVEMAKERS
Pitch
Agency name
October 2026

Written to the cut.

WAVEMAKERS

What you receive

  • Full mix, 30 s
  • Cutdown, 15 s
  • Bumper, 6 s
  • Stems, 9:16

Pitch deck, 16:9. Cover on black, statement on ultramarine, content on paper. One idea per slide.

Gideon Bus

Producer

+31 6 0000 0000
gideon@wavemakers
WAVEMAKERS

Business card. The front shows only the wave on black. The back is paper with name and wordmark.

Don't

Three rules that keep the brand from feeling like stock.

Leave the wave alone

Do not stretch it, redraw it or fill it with colour or a gradient. One file, two weights. Only black, paper, or paper on ultramarine and black on amber.

Colour is not an accent

No amber links, no blue buttons, no coloured icons. Colour is a whole field or it is absent. The only exception is the playhead on black.

No images from the catalogue

No sea, no headphones, no neon-lit studio, no audio waveforms as illustration. Images are black-and-white portraits of the producers, or no image at all.

Specification

Everything a designer or developer needs to carry on, in one place.

Files

  • wavemakers-mark.svg: the wave, standard weight, vector
  • wavemakers-mark-small.svg: heavier weight for 48 px and below
  • wavemakers-brandboard.html: this board
  • wavemakers-brandspec.md: this specification as text
  • photos/: six mood images as jpg, originals as png in photos/originals

Type and licences

  • Fraunces, Undercase Type, SIL Open Font License 1.1
  • Geist, Vercel, SIL Open Font License 1.1
  • Both via Google Fonts, free for commercial use, including in decks and video

Colour in one line

  • Black #000000, Paper #ECEBE6
  • Smoke #8E8B85 on black, Graphite #55534F on paper
  • Ultramarine #2230D8 with paper on top
  • Amber #E9A23B with black on top