Logos
Logo rules protect the Landcare brands and the caring hands trademarks. The design system provides base usage guidance only: which approved artwork to use, how to keep it legible, how to preserve clear space, and how to handle common multi-logo situations.
Local groups should use the logo files supplied in their approved Landcare Australia brand kit. This repository does not create, generate, redraw, recolour, crop, or customise local group logos.
Logo Source
| Context | Use | Avoid |
|---|---|---|
| Landcare Australia and master brands | Use the approved master brand artwork supplied by Landcare Australia. | Do not rebuild a master logo from type, symbols, colours, or screenshots. |
| Local groups | Use the approved logo files from the group's brand kit. | Do not generate, redraw, recolour, rename, or alter the group logo locally. |
| Websites, Ghost themes, documentation sites, and tools | Reference the approved logo artwork and this guidance from https://landcare.dev. | Do not publish a separate local style guide that changes logo rules. |
| Partners and funders | Use the logo files supplied by each partner or funder, respecting their own rules. | Do not edit partner logos to make them match Landcare styling. |
Choosing A Logo Variant
Wherever possible, use the stacked colour logo as the primary logo. Use another supplied variant only when the format or production context needs it.
| Logo variant | Use |
|---|---|
| Stacked colour | Preferred for most websites, posters, flyers, reports, signage, presentations, and social graphics. |
| Inline colour | Use in narrow horizontal spaces such as headers, footers, toolbars, email-safe layouts, and compact partner rows. |
| Reverse | Use only when the supplied reverse artwork is needed on a dark or saturated approved background. |
| Black or single-colour positive | Use for single-colour print, photocopying, forms, stamps, restricted production, or low-colour contexts. |
| Black or single-colour reverse | Use on dark fields where full colour is not suitable and supplied reverse artwork exists. |
Clear Space And Minimum Size
Clear space and minimum size are protected brand rules. They are not local variables.
- Keep the required clear-space zone around every logo.
- Keep this zone free from text, images, borders, QR codes, icons, buttons, partner logos, and page edges.
- Do not reduce the logo below the minimum size supplied in the relevant brand guidelines or brand kit.
- If a layout feels too tight, reduce surrounding content before reducing clear space.
Landcare Australia logo rules
Preferred: stacked colour. Clear space: Height of the capital L in Landcare.
Minimum: stacked 18mm / 100px, inline 30mm / 160px.
- Use the stacked colour logo wherever possible.
- Use inline, reversed, or black and white variants only when layout, space, or colour limitations require them.
- Do not recolour, crop, distort, add shadows, alter proportions, apply transparency, or add extra branding.
- Always maintain clear space and sufficient contrast.
Legibility
Always place logos on a clean field with enough contrast.
| Use | Avoid |
|---|---|
| Place the logo on a quiet background area. | Placing the logo over busy image detail, foliage texture, water texture, or patterned backgrounds. |
| Use the supplied reverse logo on approved dark backgrounds. | Manually reversing, tinting, recolouring, or adding effects to a logo. |
| Keep the logo large enough to read at the intended distance. | Shrinking a logo to fit an overcrowded layout. |
| Use live text near the logo when context is needed. | Adding extra words, badges, icons, animals, or symbols inside the logo or caring hands. |
Incorrect Logo Use
It is important that every Landcare logo maintains its integrity and is applied consistently.
Do not place extra words, symbols, animals, badges, or partner marks inside the caring hands or logo artwork.
Use only the approved colour, black and white, and reverse versions supplied in the logo pack.
Do not use tints, opacity, faded marks, or shade variations of the logo.
Scale proportionately and follow the minimum-size rules for stacked and inline versions.
Never crop the logo or place it hard against the edge of an artwork, photo, page, or screen.
Do not add strokes, shadows, glows, outlines, filters, or other effects.
Group logos must include the approved group name. The caring hands are not a standalone graphic for groups.
Use current refreshed artwork. Contact Landcare Australia if a group is still using old pre-2010 artwork.
The caring hands must only be used as part of an approved logo. Groups must not use the caring hands as a standalone icon, badge, background, illustration, social avatar, watermark, or decorative device.
Groups cannot change their logo, logo colour, or the content inside the caring hands. If a group name or details change, update the National Landcare Directory details and contact Landcare Australia for a new approved logo pack.
Multiple Logo Setups
Many Landcare materials need to acknowledge partners, funders, sponsors, programs, councils, schools, agencies, or project collaborators. Treat these arrangements as a layout problem with rules, not as an opportunity to create a new combined logo.
One Landcare Logo
Use one approved Landcare or group logo when the material is primarily from one Landcare entity.
- Place the logo in a consistent header, footer, cover, or closing panel.
- Keep the logo clear but not larger than the main message.
- Use text elsewhere for organisation, project, event, and contact details.
Lead Logo Plus Partner Row
Use this setup when one Landcare group or master brand is the lead communicator and other organisations need acknowledgement.
- Put the lead Landcare logo in the primary logo position.
- Put partner, sponsor, or funder logos in a separate row or block.
- Keep partner logos optically consistent in height.
- Use at least the Landcare logo clear-space distance between the Landcare logo and the partner row.
- Keep the partner row quieter than the main message unless the material is specifically about the partnership.
Equal Partnership Row
Use this setup only when the communication genuinely comes from several organisations equally.
- Align logos on a common centre line or baseline.
- Use consistent optical height rather than forcing every logo into the same box.
- Keep clear space around each logo.
- Use a simple text heading or acknowledgement to explain the relationship.
- Seek Landcare Australia approval where the arrangement implies formal co-branding.
Funder Or Grant Acknowledgement
Use this setup when funding recognition is required.
- Follow the funder or grant program's acknowledgement requirements.
- Keep required funder logos in a controlled acknowledgement area, often the footer or closing panel.
- Do not let funder logos crowd or enter the Landcare logo clear-space zone.
- Use accompanying acknowledgement text where the funding agreement requires it.
Supplied Lock-ups
Use a supplied lock-up only when Landcare Australia or an approved program provides the finished lock-up artwork.
- Do not rebuild the relationship manually.
- Do not add or remove divider lines unless the supplied artwork includes those variants.
- Do not add extra logos into a supplied lock-up.
- Use the minimum size and clear-space rules supplied with the lock-up.
Multi-logo Use And Avoid
| Use | Avoid |
|---|---|
| Use a controlled logo row or acknowledgement block with consistent alignment and spacing. | Building ad hoc logo clusters with mismatched size, spacing, or alignment. |
| Keep the area between logos clean and quiet. | Placing photos, textures, colour blocks, or decorative elements between logos. |
| Keep the Landcare logo clear-space zone intact. | Letting partner or funder logos touch or crowd the Landcare mark. |
| Use supplied lock-up artwork where a formal lock-up exists. | Recreating lock-ups manually from separate logos. |
| Ask Landcare Australia where co-branding status is unclear. | Treating multi-logo layouts as local brand decisions. |
Reporting Misuse
Report logo misuse to Landcare Australia at [email protected] with logo Misuse in the subject line.