Everything the panel does

Install

Brand in second is a panel for Adobe Illustrator 2021 and later. The installer is for Windows; macOS is coming soon.

1. Close Illustrator.
2. Get the installer with the free version (your name, email and phone, no payment), or in My Account, under Downloads, after a purchase. Extract the zip, then run the installer inside: its README explains each step.
3. Open Illustrator and choose Window, then Extensions, then Brand in second.

The Windows installer is not signed with a commercial certificate yet, so Windows may show a SmartScreen notice on first run. Choose More info, then Run anyway. Nothing is installed outside your own user folder.

The five tools

Logo Grids

Select the logo with the Selection tool. For the best result, group the icon and the wordmark separately, then select both. Live text works: it is analysed through temporary outlines and your text stays editable. Everything is drawn on its own locked layers, and each action is a single undo step.

• Base: square, isometric, hexagon and golden rectangle grids. Size and stroke weight follow as you drag. Make guides turns the grid into Illustrator guides so the Pen snaps to the intersections.
• Construction: anchors and Bezier handles as the Direct Selection tool shows them, a keyline copy of the logo, and gridlines drawn from every straight edge. Clean up removes the lines that explain nothing, and a single undo brings them back.
• Clearspace: the exclusion zone around the logo, in pixels, millimetres, a percentage of the logo height, or a multiple of the component height.

Logo Grids has no generation limit, on the free plan as well. More on the Logo Grid Generator page.

Logo Presentations and Bento Grids

Generate a complete concept presentation from your logo, in RGB or in CMYK. The file is written to the Logo Presentation History folder in your Documents, never into the extension folder. Apply Changes redraws the file with your new values and keeps what you edited or moved by hand. Bento Grids lays the same concept out as a bento board and lives in the same tab.

More on the Logo Presentation Generator and Bento Grid Generator pages.

Brand Guidelines

Set your Brand Assets first: the logomark, the logotype and the full logo from the selection, then the brand name, two typefaces and six colors. Import copies all of that from a concept you generated in Logo Presentations.

• Fourteen templates are built in, from a single page to a hundred and one pages. Each one is drawn from your own logos, colors and fonts.
• Generate always works on a copy in the Brand Guidelines History folder. The template itself is never changed.
• Document language sets the language of the pages and the file name. In Arabic the pages are mirrored to read right to left and the text is set in the Arabic font you chose.
• Apply Changes draws every page again in the same file and keeps your edits: what you added stays, what you moved stays where you moved it, what you deleted stays deleted.

You can also build your own template with layer tags. More on the Brand Guidelines Generator page.

Logo Exports

Group each logo, select them all and click Add logos, up to ten. Your own document is never touched: the logos are copied into a separate export document that shows exactly what will be written, one artboard per logo and color.

• Colors: your own colors, inverted for dark backgrounds, black, white, and grayscale.
• Formats: AI, EPS, PDF and SVG as vectors, plus PNG and JPG at the pixel widths you choose, from 16 to 10000.
• Attachments: your fonts and brand guideline PDFs are copied next to the logos, so the folder you hand over is complete.
• Live text is turned into outlines in the copies, so the files never need your fonts.

Logo Exports is the one tool the free plan keeps locked, with a preview of what it produces. More on the Logo File Generator page.