Brand

A manual that is the website.

Everything below is rendered from the same tokens and components the rest of the site uses. Change a token and this page changes with it — so it can't drift out of date.

Positioning

One ARK. Different expertise.

We Are ARK is a group identity, not a trading brand. Its job is to make the group credible and to get people to the right business quickly.

ARK Assist, ARK Computer Repair and ARK Home are principal businesses. ARK Connect, ARK Care and ARK Backup are propositions offered through them, and must never be described as separate companies.

Colour

Paper, ink and one ember red.

The same palette the ARK Assist brand guide sets out. Paper is the background, ink is the text, and a single red does all the emphasis. If everything is highlighted, nothing is.

--ark-ember#DA2A1A
Buttons, links, eyebrows, key emphasis. Never a page background.
--ark-ink#1A1816
Body and heading text on light backgrounds.
--ark-paper#FBFAF8
Default page background everywhere.
--ark-surface#F2F1EE
Quiet alternating bands and hero backdrops.
--ark-muted-text#615D59
Supporting copy, captions, labels.
--ark-ink-band#151312
Dark emphasis bands: closing CTAs and the footer.

Brand accents

ARK Assist
--ark-assist-accent
ARK Computer Repair
--ark-repair-accent
ARK Home
--ark-home-accent
ARK Connect
--ark-connect-accent
ARK Care
--ark-care-accent
ARK Backup
--ark-backup-accent

Typography

Sora for headings, Manrope for everything else.

Headings — Sora 600, -0.02em

One ARK. Different expertise.

Body — Manrope 400, 65 character measure

Body copy is set at a comfortable measure and never justified. Sentences are short enough to read out loud. If a sentence can't be read out loud, it gets rewritten.

Eyebrow — Manrope 12px/600, 0.18em, ember

Section label

Logos & icons

One construction, one colour each.

Every ARK mark is the same letterform. The only thing that changes between brands is the colour. Use the horizontal lockup wherever there is room, and the square icon only where there isn't — avatars, favicons, app tiles.

ARK (group)
#E73228
Group mark. Used in the We Are ARK header and as the favicon. Never paired with a proposition name.
ARK Assist
#F93A1E
ARK Computer Repair
#FF3B1F
ARK Home
#5E17EB
ARK Connect
#243596
ARK Backup
#69BD5A
ARK CARE
ARK Care
#DA2A1A
No artwork issued yet. Until it exists, ARK Care is set typographically in Sora and uses the group ember red.

Rules

Clear space around the mark is at least the height of the A.
Minimum size: 24px high for the lockup, 16px for the icon.
Never stretch, rotate, outline, add a shadow, or recolour a mark.
On photographs, put the mark on a solid paper or ink panel — never straight over the image.
Only one ARK mark appears per page header. Sub-brands are named in words, not stacked logos.

Which mark, where

Group site, group documents, holding-company paperwork: the ARK group mark.
A trading business's own site, email signature and invoices: that business's lockup.
Propositions (Connect, Care, Backup) appear inside their parent business's site, using their own colour but never their own header.
Favicon, social avatar, Teams/app tile: the square icon.

Tone of voice

Say the thing plainly.

Write as if explaining it to the customer in the room. If a sentence would embarrass you said out loud, it doesn't go on the site.

Do

Describe the customer's situation in their words.
Explain the reasoning, including what wasn't done.
Use specific nouns instead of category language.
Admit limits and uncertainty where they exist.

Don't

Don't describe a capability in category language when a noun will do.
Don't oversell certainty — say what we know and what we'll confirm.
Don't write anything you wouldn't say to the customer's face.
The banned words list lives under Language, below.

Where this comes from

People first. Plain language. Explain the reasoning.

These are not lines invented for a brand guide. They come from the way ARK developed: fixing real problems for people, learning when we did not yet know the answer, and building processes so the next person gets a better experience than the last.

The group's founder, Rob King, describes ARK simply as “people helping other people”. That is the test for the brand too. If the language makes the company sound more important but makes the customer's problem harder to understand, it is the wrong language.

Read the founder story →

Communication style

How ARK talks, wherever it's talking.

The same person should appear to be writing whether it's a website page, a quote, a support ticket update or a text message about a delayed part.

Plain, not casual

Everyday words, full sentences, correct spelling. Friendly is fine; sloppy isn't. No slang, no exclamation marks stacked up, no emoji in customer-facing copy.

Say the situation first

Lead with what's happened or what's needed, then the detail. Nobody should have to read three paragraphs to find out whether their laptop is fixed.

Explain the reasoning

Give the why, including what we chose not to do and what it would cost. People accept decisions they understand.

Own the bad news

If it's late, broken, or our mistake, say so in the first line, then say what happens next and when. Never bury it or blame a supplier by name.

No jargon without a translation

Technical words are allowed when they're the accurate word — followed immediately by what it means in practice.

One clear next step

Every page, email and message ends with the single thing we want the reader to do, or the single thing we're about to do for them.

Instead of

We are pleased to inform you that our engineers have now remediated the incident impacting your infrastructure.

Write

Your email is working again. The mail server ran out of disk space at about 9am; we've cleared it and set an alert so we hear about it before you do next time.

Language

The words, and the ones we don't use.

This list is not a style preference. Getting the names wrong misrepresents the group's structure, and getting the tone wrong makes us sound like everyone else.

Naming — always

“We Are ARK” for the group identity; “ARK” on second mention.
ARK is set in capitals. Never “Ark”, “ark” or “A.R.K.”
Business names in full on first mention: ARK Assist, ARK Computer Repair, ARK Home.
ARK Connect, ARK Care and ARK Backup are described as propositions or services offered through a business — never as companies, divisions or brands in their own right.
The legal entity is ARK Business Holdings Limited (17062841) and appears in footers, contracts and invoices only.
British English, British dates (31 August 2026), 24-hour times where precision matters.

Never publish

industry-leading
bespoke
passionate
cutting-edge
world-class
seamless
synergy
solutions provider
revolutionary
one-stop shop

No claims we can't evidence — awards, numbers, accreditations, “24/7”.
No fear-selling. Describe the risk factually and let the customer decide.
No competitor names in marketing copy.
No customer named in a case study without written permission.
No AI-written copy published unedited.

Website standard

What every ARK website must have.

Any site carrying an ARK mark — group, business or campaign — meets all of this before it goes live.

Identity

Paper background, ink text, one accent colour — that brand's colour and nothing else.
Sora for headings, Manrope for body. No third typeface.
The correct lockup in the header; the square icon as the favicon.
Dark ink bands used only for the closing call to action and the footer.
Section rhythm of 64px on mobile, 96px on desktop.

Content

A single H1 per page that says what the page is.
The customer's situation described before the service is named.
Real prices or a real price range wherever we can give one.
No stock photography of unrelated offices or handshakes.
A visible link back to weareark.uk in the footer.

Contact & trust

Phone number, email address and response expectation on every page or in the footer.
Company name, number and registered address in the footer.
Privacy policy, cookie policy and terms, all reachable in one click.
Cookie consent that actually gates analytics.
Accessibility: 4.5:1 text contrast, visible focus rings, alt text, keyboard-usable forms.

Technical

Unique title under 60 characters and description under 160 on every page.
Open Graph and Twitter card tags, canonical URL, sitemap and robots.txt.
Organization schema naming the business and the group.
HTTPS, www redirecting to the bare domain, no broken links.
Analytics installed and consent-aware.

Email, documents & everything else

The same brand off the website.

Most customers experience ARK through an email, a quote or a ticket update long before they read a web page.

Every email

Sent from the business's own domain, never a personal or generic mailbox.
Subject line states the thing, not the department: “Your laptop is ready to collect”.
Opens with the answer or the ask, in one sentence.
Plain text or a single-column layout; no multi-column newsletters, no image-only emails.
One call to action, written as a sentence, not a shouty button.
Signature: name, role, business, phone, website. That business's lockup at 24px, nothing animated.
Legal footer with company name, number and registered address on anything marketing.
SPF, DKIM and DMARC set up before any bulk sending.

Documents, quotes and invoices

Business lockup top-left, ARK Business Holdings Limited details in the footer.
Paper background, ink text, that brand's accent for totals and headings only.
Line items in plain English with what each one does for the customer.
Dates as 31 August 2026; money as £1,250.00 including or excluding VAT, stated explicitly.

Social, signage and vehicles

Square icon as the avatar; brand colour as the background.
Handles and display names use the full business name, not abbreviations.
One brand per account. The group account speaks for the group, not for sales.
Physical branding uses the same accent colour and clear space rules as digital.

Source of truth

This page is the brand for the whole group. Where a brand guide, template or supplier file disagrees with it, this page wins and the other file gets corrected. Anything new — a site, a template, a signature, a sign — is checked against these sections before it goes out. Questions or changes go through the group, not brand by brand.

Components

The pieces this site is made of.

Rendered live. What you see here is exactly what appears elsewhere on the site.

Brand card

For business

ARK Assist

Technology that keeps the business working.

IT support, Microsoft 365, cybersecurity, phones, broadband, backup, networks and technology projects for businesses.

Visit ARK Assist What ARK Assist does

Proposition card

ARK Connect

Phones & communications

Business communications without needing to become a phone-system expert.

arkconnect.co.uk

Buttons

Primary actionSecondary action