The app's own brand
In the portal: Nothing. Everything on this page is decided when the app is built.
What it is
Branding comes in two parts. You set them in two different places. They also take very different lengths of time to change.
This page is the first part: the app itself. The app build sets the icon on the phone's home screen, the name under that icon, the typeface, the artwork shown while the app launches, the sign-in screen, and the colours and copy every tenancy starts from. You choose each of those once. They are the same for every tenancy in the app.
The second part is branding a tenancy. A tenancy is one customer's own space in the platform, with its own participants, its own content and its own sign-up link. Most apps hold one. An app run across several clinics or employers holds a tenancy for each clinic or employer that needs its own look. Each tenancy can replace your colours, your logo, your copy and your information pages with its own. Those changes are made in the portal, and they reach a participant's phone within seconds.
The two parts take very different lengths of time to change. Anything on this page needs a new version of the app, released through the app stores. Anything on the other page takes an afternoon in the portal. So settle everything on this page first. A decision missed here costs you a week waiting for a new app-store release before it can be fixed.
What only a new app release can change
You choose all six of these when the app is built.
| What | What it covers |
|---|---|
| The typeface | The font files are built into the app, so the app never downloads one |
| The app icon | Including the artwork on the launch screen |
| The notification icon | Android only. The system tints it with your primary colour |
| The app's name | As it reads under the icon on the phone's home screen |
| The first-open disclaimer | If your app has one. It is shown before anybody signs in |
| The sign-in screen | Its colours and its copy |
The sign-in screen is the one that catches people out. Until somebody signs in, the app does not know which tenancy they belong to. So it cannot fetch that tenancy's colours or copy, and it paints the sign-in screen from what was built into the app. It shows your logo, your tagline and the sign-in boxes.
The sign-in screen carries no legal wording. Participants agree to your terms on the consent page, which opens straight after sign-in and before the rest of the app.
Keep the sign-in screen and the portal colours in step
Your brand is stored in two places. The app build paints the sign-in screen. The portal paints every screen after it. You have to update both.
If you change the colours in the portal but not in the app, the sign-in screen keeps the old colours. Every screen after sign-in shows the new ones. A participant sees both, one straight after the other. So whenever the colours change, book the new app release as part of the same piece of work.
Where your name shows after sign-in
Your name stays on screen after somebody signs in. It sits on the right-hand side of the co-branding bar, just under the greeting at the top of the home screen, written as By and then your name. The name of the tenancy the participant belongs to sits beside it.
You set that line in the portal, tenancy by tenancy, so it is not part of the app build. See the co-branding bar.
You supply the same fields for the app as you edit in the portal
You supply the same fields for the app build as you edit in the portal: the same twelve colour roles, the same corner-rounding numbers, the same four pieces of copy and the same five information pages.
Every one of those fields is described on branding a tenancy. That page tells you what to supply for the app build, and what you can change in the portal afterwards.
Settle these four before you commission any design
Each of these four needs a new app release, so none of them can be changed in an afternoon.
- The typeface. Supply your font files, or use the one already in the app. Anything you do not supply stays as the built-in typeface.
- The app icon and the app name. Changing either one later needs a new app-store release.
- The twelve colours the app ships with. They do two jobs. They paint the sign-in screen. They also paint every screen inside a tenancy until that tenancy sets its own colours in the portal, so they are what a brand new tenancy looks like on day one.
- The logo and the tagline on the sign-in screen. It is the last screen a participant sees before the tenancy's own colours and logo appear.
Once those four are settled, everything else about your brand can be changed in the portal in an afternoon.
What to hand over, and in what format
Send these to your Intervengine contact. Every one of them is optional, and anything you leave out keeps the built-in version.
| File | Format |
|---|---|
| The typeface | Three font files, for regular, medium and bold weights. .ttf or .otf. A single-weight brand is fine: any weight you do not send falls back to the built-in typeface |
| A display typeface | Optional, and used only for large screen titles. One more font file, at the weight you want it used at |
| The app icon | A square .png, at least 512 pixels, transparency allowed |
| The app icon for iPhone | A square .jpg, and it must be opaque, because the App Store rejects transparency |
| The launch artwork | A portrait .png on a plain background. 1280 by 1920 is the size to work to |
| The sign-in logo | A .png with a transparent background |
| The notification icon | Android only. A square white-on-transparent .png, at least 96 pixels |
| The twelve colours | As #RRGGBB values, one per role, using the role names on branding a tenancy |
Where to go next
Once those files are with us and the app is built, everything else is yours to change from the portal, without waiting for a release. Read branding a tenancy next. It describes every field you can set, and it is the page you will come back to.