Brand bible
How Patio looks, sounds, and shows up.
One reference for the team and our partners, so Patio reads the same on a yard sign, an owner email, and the website.
01
How to use this
This is the single source of truth for who Patio is and how Patio shows up. It covers the words we use, the way we sound, the colors, the logo, and the small decisions that add up to a brand owners trust. When something is on this page, it's settled. When it isn't, the safe move is to match what's already here.
It's written for two audiences. Inside the company it keeps every owner email, listing, and proposal sounding like the same team. Outside the company it gives printers, sign shops, and any partner we work with the exact files and rules they need, so nothing drifts off brand on the way out the door. Link to it, copy straight from it, and when you're unsure, default to what's shown here.
02
Brand foundation
Everything Patio says and makes traces back to these five points. They're the answer to "why are we here and who is this for."
Purpose
The manager investors actually wish they had.
Patio was built on career-long industry knowledge, by people who've seen how management usually goes and decided to run it the way owners always hoped someone would.
Mission
Owners collect rent. We handle everything else.
Full-service, long-term residential management is the core of what we do. We'll take on select vacation rentals too, but only the ones that meet our criteria, like a pool and the right setup.
Vision
Five hundred doors, then a thousand.
The plan is 500-plus doors with a clear path to 1,000, and an integrated brokerage under one brand. The brand is built now so it carries that growth without a reset later.
Who we serve
Hands-off owners who want zero day-to-day.
Investors and relocated owners who value trust and don't want to touch the day-to-day. Single-family homes, duplexes, and small multi-family across Greater Tampa Bay, Central Florida, and Southwest Florida.
Brand promise
You always know your property is in good hands.
The proof is the first month: a clean transition, rent collected, a quality tenant placed, and easy access to your team. After that, owners stop checking in because they don't have to.
03
Positioning
Patio is the premier long-term rental property manager in Greater Tampa Bay.
Unlike other property managers, Patio handles everything so you can enjoy life without worrying about your investment.
Most owners don't leave a manager over price. They leave over silence, surprise charges, and decisions made without them. Each thing we do differently answers a specific reason owners walk:
We answer fast
Slow or no communication is the most common reason owners leave a manager. We reply the same business day, every time.
Honest property assessments
We tell owners what a property actually needs, not what's easiest to upsell. The read you get is the real one.
One transparent fee
One clear management fee with no junk charges hiding in the fine print. You know the number before you sign.
Zero markup on repairs
You see the vendor's actual invoice and pay it. We don't pad maintenance to make a margin off your home, and our local labor network keeps everyday fixes competitive to begin with.
Your sign-off on bigger work
Larger repairs wait for your approval. Nothing significant gets spent without you saying yes first.
No long-term lock-in
We earn the relationship month to month. There's no contract trap keeping you somewhere you'd rather leave.
04
Personality
Five traits, in Harris's words. Each one comes with a line on what it isn't, because the line we don't want to cross matters as much as the one we do.
Local
Rooted in Greater Tampa Bay.
We know the market we serve and we're part of it.
Doesn't mean: generic or national, a logo that could be any city.
Honest
Real assessments, real invoices, one fee.
We say the true thing even when it isn't the easy sell.
Doesn't mean: salesy or spun, telling owners what they want to hear.
No-nonsense
Plain, direct, handled.
We get to the point and get it done without the runaround.
Doesn't mean: cold or curt. Direct still sounds like a person.
Confident
Quietly sure of the work.
We let the track record carry the claim.
Doesn't mean: boastful or loud, hype in place of proof.
Accessible
Premium, and still easy to reach.
High standard of work, plain to understand and quick to get hold of.
Doesn't mean: cheap, and never stiff or corporate.
Carriage
If Patio walked into a room
Quietly confident. The track record speaks for itself, so we don't have to raise our voice to be believed.
05
Voice & tone
The voice is one thing, steady across everything we write. Tone is what flexes by context. Patio sounds premium without going cold or corporate, the way Compass reads.
Where the voice sits
Same voice, tone shifts by context
Reassuring owner email
"The roof leak is handled. We had a vendor out this morning, here's the invoice, and your tenant's all set."
Confident website
"You collect the rent. We handle the rest, and you see every number along the way."
Plain listing
"Three-bed, two-bath in Seminole Heights. Fenced yard, updated kitchen, available July 1."
The rules, do and don't
Do
- Write the way our team talks: "our team," "we," "your management team."
- Use contractions. They keep it human.
- Be concrete. Name the property, the number, the date.
- Convey confidence as "in good hands," "looked after," "staying informed."
- Use commas, periods, colons, or parentheses to break a thought.
Don't
- Use em-dashes. Ever. The client reads them as the tell of AI copy.
- Reach for clichés: nestled, elevate, seamless, world-class, hassle-free, "in today's world."
- Write "peace of mind." Say "confidence" or "looked after" instead.
- Sound small or new: no "I," "one real person," "not a call center," "we're new."
- Build symmetrical "not just X, but Y" lines. They read as filler.
Word bank
Use
Avoid
Before and after
"Patio elevates property management with seamless, world-class service that delivers peace of mind."
"Patio runs your rental the way you'd run it yourself, and keeps you in the loop the whole way."
"In today's fast-paced market, we leverage cutting-edge tools to unlock your property's full potential."
"We price your rental to the local market, fill it with a quality tenant, and show you the numbers behind both."
"I'm new to the area but I promise you'll always reach one real person, not a call center."
"When you reach out, your management team answers the same business day. You'll always know where things stand."
06
Verbal identity
The name
"Patio" came from the Floridian lifestyle: warm, inviting, rooted in the place it serves. In a Florida home, the patio is where life actually happens. It's where you end the day, where you have people over, where the house gets lived in and enjoyed instead of just maintained.
That's the feeling behind the name. Patio gives owners that easy, looked-after life back. You own the property, but the work of it isn't yours to carry. The name signals the calm that comes from knowing it's handled.
Messaging pillars
Four ideas everything we say should ladder up to. Lead with whichever fits the moment.
Always informed
You hear from us the same business day, and you see every number. No chasing, no wondering where things stand.
Everything handled
Leasing, rent, maintenance, inspections, reporting. You collect the rent. We carry the rest.
Straight answers, real numbers
Honest assessments, one clear fee, and the vendor's actual invoice at zero markup. What you see is the real thing.
Local and here for the long run
We're rooted in Greater Tampa Bay and built to grow with our owners, not to flip them to the next manager.
Boilerplate
Drop-in descriptions for bios, directories, and proposals. Copy straight from here.
Patio is a long-term residential property manager serving owners across Greater Tampa Bay.
Patio handles full-service, long-term residential management across Greater Tampa Bay, Central Florida, and Southwest Florida. Owners collect the rent while our team takes care of leasing, maintenance, inspections, and reporting. One clear fee, repairs at zero markup, and a reply the same business day.
Patio is a long-term residential property management company built for hands-off owners who'd rather not touch the day-to-day. Across Greater Tampa Bay, Central Florida, and Southwest Florida, we manage single-family homes, duplexes, and small multi-family properties end to end: pricing and leasing, rent collection, maintenance coordination, inspections, and clear monthly reporting. Our owners get honest property assessments, one transparent fee with no junk charges, the vendor's actual invoice on every repair, and a response the same business day. The result is simple. Your property is looked after, and you always know it.
Elevator pitch
We manage long-term rentals around Tampa Bay for owners who don't want to deal with the day-to-day. You collect the rent, we handle everything else, and you hear back from us the same business day. One fee, no markup on repairs, and you can leave whenever you want.
07
Logo
The mark is a doorway arch: a terracotta outer arch around a solid espresso door. It reads as a threshold, the way into a home, with the warmth of a Floridian patio. There's no dot. The earlier arch-and-dot mark is fully retired and should never appear.
Lockups and colorways
Four lockups, each in four colorways. Pick the lockup for the space and the colorway for the background. Full color and mono espresso sit on light surfaces; reverse and mono white sit on espresso or a dark photo.
Primary
Horizontal
Wordmark
Icon
Clear space and minimum size
Keep clear space equal to the height of the doorway opening on all four sides. Nothing, no text, no edge, no other mark, should crowd inside that margin. Below the minimum widths the mark loses its detail, so don't go smaller.
Minimum width per lockup:
- Primary (stacked)120 px
- Horizontal140 px
- Wordmark90 px
- Icon16 px
Misuse
The mark is fixed. Use the supplied files and leave them alone.
Don't stretch or squash. Scale it in proportion, never one axis on its own.
Don't distort or skew. No warping, no perspective, no condensing.
Don't rotate it. The arch sits upright, every time.
Don't recolor off palette. Only the four colorways shown here.
Don't add effects. No shadows, glows, gradients, or outlines.
Don't place full color on a busy or low-contrast background. Use reverse or mono white instead.
Don't use the retired mark. The old arch-and-dot is gone. This doorway arch is the only mark.
08
Color
Six colors, earthy and warm. Only these. No blue, no black, no white, no red. Click a swatch to copy its hex.
Approved pairings
Espresso ink reads on bone and sand. Bone reverses out on espresso and terracotta. Bone on terracotta is for large text only, so set small text on terracotta in espresso ink. Run one terracotta band per page at most, and keep olive as a quiet accent, never a headline color.
Contrast and accessibility
Espresso body text on bone clears about 14:1, well past the AA bar. For accent text and links on bone or sand, use Deep Clay deepened to #8A4528 so it holds AA. Primary buttons fill Deep Clay #9A4F33 with a bone label, which lands at about 5:1. When in doubt, set ink in espresso and let terracotta do the accenting.
09
Typography
Three families, each with a clear job. A Caslon serif for display, with its Text optical size stepping in for longer serif passages like pull quotes, a grotesk for everything you read, and a mono for small tracked labels. The specimens below are set in the real faces.
Owners collect rent. We handle everything else.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 0123456789
Regular / 400Your property is looked after, and you always know it.
Medium / 500Your property is looked after, and you always know it.
Semibold / 600Your property is looked after, and you always know it.
Eyebrow / table head / meta Regular 400: invoice #4821, same business day Medium 500: one fee, zero markup on repairs
Type scale
Each step at true size, with its token name and pixel range. Line heights: tight 1.04, head 1.12, snug 1.25, body 1.6. Eyebrow tracking 0.16em, label tracking 0.12em.
Pairing do and don't
Do
- Set display lines and headlines in Libre Caslon.
- Set everything you actually read in Hanken Grotesk.
- Use IBM Plex Mono for small, tracked labels and spec text.
- Make 600 the bold weight.
Don't
- Set body copy in Caslon. It's for display only.
- Use 700 as the bold. The bold is 600.
- Track or letter-space running body copy.
- Mix a fourth typeface in. Three families is the system.
10
The arch
The doorway arch is the one decorative device in the whole system. It's the outer frame of the mark, a single-color ring without the espresso door, used on its own to frame a thing or mark a spot. Use it sparingly. It should set the tone, never crowd the page. Ready-made files live in the kit under arch/, including watermark versions with the 12% opacity baked in.
--radius-arch) so a photo, once shot, sits under a soft doorway curve.- One transparent fee, no junk fees
- The vendor's actual invoice
- A reply the same business day
.arch-ico), tinted terracotta. It replaces the dot or check in short lists..divider-arch) to break two passages of text without a hard rule.The rule: the arch is the only motif we use to decorate. Reach for it to frame an image, mark a list item, or quietly fill a band. Don't stack it, don't repeat it across a layout, and don't dress it up. The decorative arch is always one color and never carries the door; the two-tone arch and door is the logo, and it appears only in logo lockups. As a watermark, let it bleed off an edge but keep the curved feet in view. One arch, used with restraint, does more than a page full of them.
11
Photography
Direction. Photography not yet shot.
This is the look to brief and shoot toward, not a finished library. Until the real photos exist, the arch image slot below stands in for every photo on the live site.
The look
Warm and Floridian, shot in real Tampa Bay homes. Natural daylight, lived-in and inviting, the way a place feels when someone actually lives there. People are optional and always candid, caught mid-moment, never posed for the camera. Grade everything earthy and warm so it sits next to the palette: terracotta, sand, and bone, with espresso for depth.
Do and don't
Do
- Shoot real Tampa Bay homes in natural daylight.
- Keep it lived-in and inviting: an open door, a set table, a patio at golden hour.
- Let people be candid and incidental, part of the scene.
- Grade warm and earthy so the image reads as Patio at a glance.
Don't
- Use cold blue-grey real-estate stock. It's the opposite of warm.
- Show empty, staged, sterile rooms with no sign of life.
- Pose people stiffly or pull obvious stock models.
- Push a cool or grey grade that fights the palette.
12
Applications
Where the brand actually shows up. The website is the live flagship. Social assets are real and in use. Print pieces below are art-directed mockups, and the email signature is a real block the team can copy.
Website
The Patio site is the flagship application and the reference build for everything here. The palette, the type, the arch, and the voice all live there first. When a new piece needs a decision, match the site.
Social
Square avatars for profile photos, mono white on terracotta and the reverse mark on espresso, and the share card that renders when a Patio link is posted. These are produced and ready to use.
Print collateral
Four pieces art-directed from the tokens and the logo. The letterhead is a working Word template in the asset kit (print/patio-letterhead.docx), ready to type into. The card and sign are producible from the vector masters on request.
Harris Gruman
Principal
patiopm.com
For Rent
(813) 447-9746
patiopm.com
Email signature
A real, copyable block. Swap the name, title, and direct line, and keep the rest as is.
Harris Gruman
Principal
Patio Property Management
13
Governance
Where the files live, how they're named, and how to get what you need. Send a vendor straight to this section.
The asset kit
Every master asset lives in the project's brand/ folder, sorted by type:
- README.mdStart here: what's in the kit and how it's organized.
- logo/The four lockups in four colorways, as SVG masters and PNG proofs.
- arch/The decorative arch ring in three colors, plus watermark versions with the 12% opacity baked in.
- favicon/Browser and app icons, from 16 px up to 1024 px.
- social/Square avatars in both colorways, plus the share card.
- colors/The palette as a swatch sheet, plus CSS and JSON.
- fonts/The three typefaces, with a specimen and the wired-up CSS.
- print/The working letterhead template, ready to type into.
Naming
Logo and arch files follow one pattern, so the right asset is easy to find:
patio_[lockup]_[colorway]_[size].[ext]
For example, patio_horizontal_fullcolor.svg or patio_icon_reverse_512.png. Favicon and social files are named by purpose and size instead, like favicon-32.png and avatar-terracotta-400.png.
What the colorways mean
- fullcolorThe default. Use it on light backgrounds.
- reverseFor espresso or a dark photo.
- mono-espressoOne ink, where color isn't an option.
- mono-whiteKnockout on color or a busy photo.
Getting files
For print or large format, ask our team for vector files. We produce PDF or EPS from the SVG masters on request. A commercial printer should get a true-vector PDF or EPS, or the bundled .ttf font files so the type sets correctly.
The three typefaces are licensed under the SIL Open Font License, so they're free to embed in documents, files, and signatures.
Built to grow
This system is built to extend to the brokerage under one brand, so it carries that growth without a reset. New pieces should slot into what's already here, not start over.
When in doubt, match what this page shows.