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The City Lifestyle Brand Guide
Our mission is to be the local voice that people trust in their communities. We become the experts, offering guidance in where to go, who to know, and what's worth their time.
Built for publishers, editors, and HQ alike. You don't need a marketing background to use it. This site is the one source of truth for how City Lifestyle looks, sounds, and shows up everywhere.
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core elements
Brand Personality
The Insider Neighbor: How we sound, everywhere.
core elements
visual identity
Logo, color palette, type, and visual brand standards.
publisher toolkit
Visual identity
Logo, color, type, and imagery.
Application
Templates & resources
Ready-to-use files for every channel.
Application
Do's & Don'ts
The fast cheat sheet.
Support
FAQ & learning hub
Onboarding, questions, and updates.
About the brand
City Lifestyle is a network of 250+ city-based publications, each locally owned and locally written, unified under one national brand and one voice. HQ sets the brand rules; local publishers bring the on-the-ground knowledge that makes every market feel like its own city.
Mission & messaging
Everything the brand says ladders up to one line: “We don’t publish for cities. We publish in them.” Every team also has its own sign-off line. You'll find the full list in the table under Tone of Voice.
templates & resources
Publisher toolkit
Ready-to-use social posts, campaign and event kits, and client emails for your publication. Case studies for client outreach.
Social posts
seasonal postscity list & best ofcustomizable templatescalendar template & posting ideasCampaigns & events
Sales outreach
Case studies
Real results from co-branded Facebook and Instagram campaigns. Filter by industry, then open a case study for the full story and a results summary you can copy.
logos, colors, & type
Visual Identity
download the brand guideLOGO USE CASES
Corporate logomark vs. local publication logos
The City Lifestyle Corporate Logomark
USE CASE Corporate and national content, plus HQ-approved initiatives. HQ will create and share these materials.
Your Local Publication Logo Lockup
USE CASE Your local community work. Anything you produce locally: house ads, marketing materials, and other branding.
® Please note the correct usage of our Registered Trademark Symbol. The symbol ® should be legible, but unobtrusive. Do not use the ™ logos.
Magazine-specific Logos • Need your publication's logo files? Access through Arc or email marketing@citylifestyle.com and we'll send you the path.
CITY LIFESTYLE Logos
Main Logo
Logo + wordmark horizontal
Logo + wordmark vertical
Color palette
Primary
Secondary / Accents
Retired Colors • Use pure white #FFFFFF and black #000000 sparingly. Replace them with off-white #FBFBFB and off-black #0B0F0F, or primary colors, whenever you can. Teal #2B4447, Gold #CEB792, and Warm Gray #948C7C are no longer part of the brand.
Social rules of thumb
Typography
IvyPresto DisplayPaid license
Headlines and the emotional voice of the brand. Thin (100) at large sizes, Light (300) at smaller sizes. Title or sentence case with slightly tightened tracking, and italic for one emphasized phrase. Never for body copy or small type.
If IvyPresto isn’t available, use a free Google look-alike. In order of preference: Arapey or Gilda Display, both set at their lightest weight.
Special GothicFree
All sans serif type: body copy, captions, UI, labels, and buttons. Regular for body, 500 to 600 for emphasis and buttons.
Download Special GothicSpecial Gothic ExpandedFree
Eyebrows, overlines, and short section headers only. All caps with wide letter spacing, weights 400 to 700, one or two lines at most. Never for body copy.
Download Special Gothic ExpandedRetired Fonts • Proxima Nova (all weights) and IvyPresto Headline (regular, semi-bold, and bold weights) are no longer part of the brand. Don't start new social assets with them, and replace them with Special Gothic as assets are refreshed. IvyPresto Text remains reserved for magazine use only. Alternate Gothic remains reserved for logo use only.
Using These Fonts In Canva • IvyPresto must be purchased as a downloaded file and uploaded to Canva. We can't provide the license for you, because we're only licensed at the corporate level. Special Gothic is free: download it from Google Fonts and upload it the same way.
See Canva Help: Upload Fonts. If you can’t purchase IvyPresto, use one of the free look-alikes above.
core elements
The City Lifestyle Voice
Brand Personality: The Insider Neighbor
The voice of someone who lives where you live, knows the area better than most, and talks about it the way a trusted friend would: warm, sure of themselves, and specific. The Simple Test: Everything we write should inspire, teach, or uplift. If it does none of those, leave it out.
The Nine Traits
- 01 Confident and Trustworthy A local voice people rely on.
- 02 Upbeat, For A Reason Positive about something specific, never vague cheer.
- 03 Warm and Neighborly An insider letting you in, not a stranger selling to you.
- 04Local and Specific Real places, real people, real names.
- 05Nice, But Not Fancy Aspirational, never snobby.
- 06Selective and Sure We don’t feature everything, only what’s worth it.
- 07Detailed and Vivid Concrete details you can picture.
- 08Brings People Together We stay out of divisive topics.
- 09Written by A Real Person Never sounds like AI.
The one thing to remember: Write like a knowledgable neighbor telling a friend about the best parts of your town. Be specific, warm, and confident. Your message shouldn't sound like an ad.
The biggest mistake to avoid: Writing like an ad. It’s tempting to pile on praise for advertisers, but empty praise reads like a commercial. The fix: be more specific, not more flattering.
Naming & brand architecture
- Local editions are named “City Lifestyle [City Name].”
- Internal programs: Share the Lifestyle Podcast, CL Connect, future.citylifestyle.com.
- The yearly National Conference theme is internal-only training language. It never replaces the main tagline on anything customers, advertisers, or owners see.
Tone of voice
The one thing to remember: Write like a knowledgeable neighbor telling a friend about the best of your town. Be specific, be warm, be confident. Never sound like an ad.
Confident, upbeat, and friendly, and always about a specific place. Not an influencer. Not a sales brochure. More like a tasteful friend with great recommendations and real reasons behind them.
Five checks before you hit publish
- 1Lead with the good
- 2Be specific
- 3Warm, but not sloppy
- 4Confident, not salesy
- 5Report, don’t opine
Taglines & sign-off lines
| Team | Sign-off Line | Status |
|---|---|---|
| The magazine | We don’t publish for cities. We publish in them. | Locked |
| Paid ads | LOCAL | LUXURY | LIVING | Locked |
| Organic social | Every community has a story. We’re the neighbor who tells it. | Locked |
| Recruiting new owners | In business for yourself. Not by yourself. | Locked |
| Advertiser sales | Print, digital, and events. One partner. | Locked |
| Brand / corporate | Local, on purpose. | Locked |
| National content / podcast | Spotlighting impactful stories from the people around the nation. | Proposed |
| Local events | The magazine, off the page. | Proposed |
| Publisher updates (CL Connect) | One network. Every neighbor. | Proposed · internal |
Instagram bios
Corporate (@citylifestyle, locked, use exactly as written):
“The local voice of 250+ American cities. Published by a neighbor in each one. Share the Lifestyle Podcast.”
Local Publications (template):
“The local voice of [City]. Published by your neighbor, [First Name]. Your story, in print and online.”
Good vs. Bad
Do this“At Corbin, Chef María Sanz is rewriting the Saturday lunch with a short menu of wood-fired vegetables and a market-driven paella.”
Specific. Names the chef, the dish, the day.
Not this“Corbin is an amazing new restaurant with incredible food that you definitely need to try. You’ll love it!”
Sounds like an ad. Big empty words, no real details.
applications
Support & learning hub
Do’s & Don’ts
The short version. Check these before anything goes out.
Name the chef, the dish, the street, the day.
Write vague copy that could describe any city.
Recommend with specific detail.
Pile on empty praise for advertisers.
Use emoji rarely on social, never in the magazine.
Use hype language.
Report and celebrate.
Criticize or wade into divisive topics.
Use your publication’s logo and name on anything produced locally.
Use the corporate CL logomark unless it’s part of an HQ-approved initiative.
FAQ
Which tagline do I use?
It depends on what you’re making.
See every line in the tagline table. Anything marked Proposed isn’t approved yet.
Who approves new templates?
The marketing team. Send it to marketing@citylifestyle.com before you use it.
What if my content doesn’t fit a template?
Start with the customizable templates, which you can edit in Canva. Still stuck? Email marketing@citylifestyle.com.
Learning hub
2026 mock magazine (training)Questions or feedback about the brand guide? Email marketing@citylifestyle.com.