Early morning on the 11th: the fairway climbs a steep valley between silver birch and pine, a wooden tee marker in the foreground and a wide blue sky with white cloud

The Millbrook · Ampthill, Bedfordshire · Laid out 1977

Brand guidelines

Video placeholder · still photograph

One man and his bulldozer.

Now owned by its members.

Before you start

This is a reverse-engineered brand system. It was compiled by reading the live website, pulling the actual colour values and typefaces out of the site's stylesheet, and sampling the logo artwork pixel by pixel. Everything about colour, type and factual detail is measured and checkable today. Everything about voice, values and messaging is a proposal drawn from how the club already writes, and needs the club to say yes to it.

The Millbrook has no written brand guidelines. The nearest thing is its 2024-25 brochure, published by Ludis, which was read page by page: its typefaces were read from the file, and its cover logo turned out to be drawn as vector paths. Facts from third parties, such as rankings, are named as such.

Measured Taken from the live site, its stylesheet, the brochure, or the club's own artwork and photographs. Verifiable.

Proposed Synthesis. Requires club sign-off.

Nothing here has been approved by the club yet.

Evening light down the 1st: the fairway drops into a deep grassy valley, shadow across the left bank, hawthorn and oak on the right, pines on the skyline

The club

In 1975 it was a field of barley and brussel sprouts. Since 2002 it has belonged to the people who play it. The land made the course, and the members kept it.

The story in one paragraph Measured

In 1975 the club's founder found 100 acres of barley and brussel sprouts on the Greensand Ridge: poor land, says the club's own history, but sandy. It was laid out in 1977, "a course that was created by one man and his bulldozer", who shaped 18 fairways and greens, dug 28 bunkers and planted more than 100,000 trees. Top 100 Golf Courses credits the design to William Sutherland and records the club's former name, Lyshott Heath. In 2002 the members took it on, and the website still opens its course page with the fact: "The Millbrook is owned by our Membership." Today pine and silver birch line thirteen of our eighteen holes, gorse and wispy fescue guard the other five, and links-style pot bunkers sit in sand that drains all winter. The course has hosted the Bedfordshire County Championship. A heathland course is not rare in this part of England. One planted by hand and owned by its players is, and that is the proposition.

The numbers Measured

1975The founder finds his land on the Greensand Ridge
100Acres of barley and brussel sprouts, on sandy soil
28Bunkers dug by one man and his bulldozer, who planted 100,000 trees
2002Owned by its members since
6,910Yards off the blue tees, par 72
13Holes of eighteen lined with pine and silver birch

Laid out in 1977 and open for play by 1980. Four tees: 6,910 yards at par 72, then 6,731, 6,274 and 5,700 yards, each at par 74, with course ratings from 71.0 to 74.3 and slopes from 131 to 135; the hole-by-hole guide adds up to the same totals. 4th in Bedfordshire on Top 100 Golf Courses. Membership from £150 for a junior to £1,498 for a full 7-day member. Society days from £50 a head.

What the club stands for Proposed

Decision 8

Vision

The course Bedfordshire golfers recommend first for a day out, and the club they would join.

Mission

Keep the course the founder planted in the best condition the members can afford, and share it with anyone who wants to play.

The club has no written vision, mission or values. These are drawn from how its website already talks. The line under each value is a proposal; where the second sentence is in quotation marks, it is the club's own.

01
Owned by the members
Every decision is made by the people who play here. "We reinvest our revenues in making the club the best it can be for members and day visitors alike."
02
The land comes first
The sand was the reason for the site. It drains, so the course plays in February, and the trees the founder planted are the scenery.
03
A welcome for everyone
Seasoned, occasional or brand new. "The warm welcome that we offer all, regardless of age or golfing experience."
04
Members for the day
Visitors get the same course and the same bar. "We treat all visiting golfers as members for the day."
05
Straight answers
Publish the price, name the person, give the number. A members' club has nothing to hide about what golf here costs.

Brand personality Proposed Unpretentious · Practical · Proud of the land · Generous · Plain-spoken

The pond in front of the 7th tee on a summer evening, reeds in the foreground, the water reflecting a pale sky, pines and a green beyond

Positioning Proposed

For golfers within half an hour of junction 13 of the M1 who want heathland golf they can play all year, The Millbrook is the member-owned course on the Greensand Ridge, with pine and silver birch on thirteen holes and sand underfoot in every season, because the founder chose the land for its sand in 1975 and the members have owned it since 2002.

The logo Measured

A wordmark and a device: The Millbrook in a bracketed serif, a swoosh that rises like the ridge to two trees, and a rule beneath. The version on this plate is rebuilt from the vector paths on the cover of the club's 2024-25 brochure and coloured as the website header colours it, in Millbrook Green.

How we look

Five versions of one logo are in circulation, and none of them is a master file. The master was in the brochure all along.

The logo Measured

Decision 1

The mark is not a crest. It is a wordmark and a device. The words The Millbrook are set in a bracketed serif with long, flat serifs, The small and stacked over Millbrook. Over them a thick swoosh rises left to right, dips, and climbs to two round-canopied trees with short trunks, the larger one behind. A heavy rule closes it underneath. Read against the club's story it is the ridge and the trees the founder planted, though nothing the club publishes says so.

Good news · the vector artwork is inside the brochure

The website holds no vector logo, no transparent file and nothing larger than 284 pixels wide. But the 2024-25 brochure is an InDesign file exported to PDF in January 2024, and the logo on its cover is drawn as 14 black vector paths, not a pasted picture. Every logo on this page was rebuilt from those paths at sixteen times their printed size, and an SVG of each is in the project folder. Ludis, who produced the brochure, will hold the InDesign file it came from.

Primary, two colours

Black wordmark, swoosh, trees and rule in Millbrook Green #072B0F, as the website header shows it in a 237 × 100 pixel JPEG. Rebuilt here from the brochure's paths.

Primary

Reversed, white

The version the club actually wears: white on the navy buggies and the staff hoodies. On the website it exists only burned into photographs. Shown here on Kit Navy.

Reversed

What is in circulation today

Five files from the club's media library, at twice their real pixel size. From the left: bright Fairway Green #4DA600 with the telephone number 01525 402269 baked in (284 × 130, 2015); black with "Members Golf Club"; black with "Golf Club"; black with a double rule (all three about 230 pixels wide, 2015); and the dark green header file (237 × 100). The brochure cover adds a sixth: all black, single rule.

Five versions

Finding · the wordmark is not a typeface the club uses

The serif in the wordmark appears nowhere else in the club's material. The website and the brochure set everything in Titillium and Lato, two sans serifs. That is fine, as long as nobody tries to retype the logo: The Millbrook in the logo is artwork, and it is only ever placed from the file.

What exists, and what is still missing

Mark	Where it lives	Best source	Status
Primary, two colours	Website header	237 × 100 JPEG	Exists, small
Black, single rule	Brochure cover	vector in the PDF	Exists
White, reversed	Buggies, hoodies, burned into photographs	no file on the site	Supplier artwork
Bright green with phone number	Media library, 2015	284 × 130 PNG	Retire
Black with descriptors	Media library, 2015	about 230px JPEGs	Retire
Master files	Ludis, and the buggy and kit suppliers	not located	Ask
Icon, for favicon and avatars	Website favicon is the theme's own	none	Missing

The blocker · the white logo is burned into the photographs

Every one of the eleven course photographs the club offers as wallpaper, and every image in the homepage slider, has the white logo stamped into its top left corner. Each one has to be cropped before it can be used anywhere else, and the slider shows the logo twelve times on one page. The photographs on this page are cropped from the club's originals for that reason. Separately, the link preview the site sends to Facebook and WhatsApp is a 2015 "Find Us" button, 442 × 159 pixels.

Clear space and minimum size Proposed

Minimum clear space on all four sides equals the height of the M in Millbrook. Nothing sets inside that boundary: no type, no rule, no photograph edge, no second logo. The swoosh and trees on their own, the device, are a single path in the artwork and the club's natural icon: this page uses them for its favicon and avatars.

Context	Minimum	Note
Primary logo, print	35mm wide	The word The closes up below this
Primary logo, screen	140px wide	The current header file is 237px
The device alone	32px wide	Favicon, avatar, embroidery on a cap

Colour Measured

Decision 2

Colour: green on paper, navy on the course

The club has never written its colours down, so they were sampled pixel by pixel from the logo files, the club's photographs of its own buggies, uniforms and flags, and counted from the website's stylesheet. Three sources, three answers:

1 · The logo files

#072B0FMillbrook Green, header

#4DA600Fairway Green, 2015 file

#000000Black, brochure and three files

2 · What the club buys

#121E34Buggies, 2026

#202432Staff hoodies, 2023

#F80131Flag, 2015

3 · What the website paints

#31B2EDCyan, 9

#333333Headings, 32

#777777Body text

#F5F5F5Light grey, 42

The website's stylesheet contains no green at all. It is a GolfNow theme in greys and cyan, and the cyan sits behind the logo on a phone. Meanwhile the club has bought navy for the things people actually see, and Millbrook Green and Kit Navy measure 1.08:1 against each other: from ten yards, both read as black.

Recommendation

Make Millbrook Green #072B0F the brand's one dark colour: the logo, print, signs and the website's dark grounds. Keep the navy buggies and hoodies until they are due for replacement, with the white logo only, and order the next set in Millbrook Green. Keep Fairway Green #4DA600 as the bright accent for large shapes, and use the darker Fairway Ink #3A7D00 whenever green has to be small text on white. Retire the website's cyan and the 2015 bright-green file.

On site today Measured

The brand is already out there, in three colours

Four of the club's own photographs of its identity in use. Between them they show the logo in white on navy, black on red, and white stamped onto the landscape.

The buggies. The fleet the club photographed for its website in 2026: navy bodies, black seats, and the white logo on every nose. This is the brand the most people see, and it is not in the club's colours on paper.

The flag. Black logo on a red flag, photographed on 28 May 2015. Red appears nowhere else in the club's identity, and the black logo on red is hard to read.

The greens team. Navy hoodies with the white logo, February 2023, with their dogs and mowers. The only photograph of people in the club's set.

The stamp. The 11th fairway as the club publishes it, white logo in the top left corner. Every course photograph on the website carries it.

Colour usage rules Proposed

Millbrook Green is the default dark. The logo's device and rule, headings in print, dark grounds, signs and the website footer.
Black is for the wordmark and for text. The logo's letters are black in every version but the reversed one.
Fairway Green is a large-shape colour. A band, a button with dark text, the device cropped on a card. Never small text on white, where it measures 3.1:1.
White is the only colour the logo goes on a dark ground. Never black on red, never green on navy.
Kit Navy is for kit already bought. It is not a second brand colour, and it never sits beside Millbrook Green.

The palette Measured

Every value, sampled or counted

Primary, from the logo

Millbrook Green

#072B0F
7, 43, 15
C84 M0 Y65 K83

Sampled from the header logo's swoosh, trees and rule. 15.42:1 on white.

Black

#000000
0, 0, 0
C0 M0 Y0 K100

The wordmark in every version, and the whole logo on the brochure cover.

Accent

Fairway Green

#4DA600
77, 166, 0
C54 M0 Y100 K35

Sampled from the 2015 logo file. Large shapes only. 4.97:1 on Millbrook Green.

Fairway Ink Proposed

#3A7D00
58, 125, 0
C54 M0 Y100 K51

Fairway Green darkened until it passes as text: 5.11:1 on white. This page's labels.

Fairway Pale Proposed

#9DCE73
157, 206, 115
C24 M0 Y44 K19

Fairway Green mixed 45 per cent toward white. A ground for Millbrook Green type, 8.45:1.

In use, not chosen

Kit Navy

#121E34
18, 30, 52
C65 M42 Y0 K80

Sampled from a sunlit photograph of the buggies, so approximate. The supplier's paint code is the true value.

Website cyan

#31B2ED
49, 178, 237

9 uses in the stylesheet, behind the logo on mobile. 2.41:1 with white. Retire.

Website body grey

#777777
119, 119, 119

The site's body text, in Lato 300. 4.48:1 on white, just under the 4.5:1 line.

Neutrals

White

#FFFFFF
255, 255, 255

Default ground. The reversed logo.

Light grey

#F5F5F5
245, 245, 245

42 uses on the site. The alternate section ground.

Mid grey

#5B5B5B
91, 91, 91

7 uses on the site. Body text that passes, at 6.79:1.

Charcoal

#333333
51, 51, 51

32 uses. The site's headings. 12.63:1.

CMYK values are conversions from the screen values, not Pantone matches. Check them against a printed proof before ordering signs or kit.

Accessibility Measured

Decision 3

Contrast, measured not asserted

Contrast ratios calculated to WCAG 2.1 from the measured hex values. Body text needs 4.5:1; large text, meaning 24px or 18.66px bold and above, needs 3:1. Each row below is rendered in the actual colours.

Millbrook Green on white15.42:1Pass

White on Millbrook Green15.42:1Pass

Fairway Green on Millbrook Green4.97:1Pass

Millbrook Green on Fairway Pale8.45:1Pass

Fairway Ink on white5.11:1Pass

Fairway Green on white3.1:1Body fail

The site's body grey on white4.48:1Body fail

Mid grey on white6.79:1Pass

White on the site's cyan2.41:1Both fail

White on Kit Navy16.65:1Pass

Millbrook Green on Kit Navy1.08:1Both fail

Flag red on white4.17:1Body fail

The hard rules this produces

Fairway Green #4DA600 fails as small text on white, at 3.1:1. It passes on Millbrook Green, and as large display type. Anywhere green has to be read at body size on a light ground, use Fairway Ink #3A7D00. This page sets its own green labels in Fairway Ink for that reason.

The website's body text fails by a hair, at 4.48:1, and it is set in Lato's thinnest loaded weight, which makes it read lighter still. Mid grey #5B5B5B, already in the stylesheet, fixes it.

White on the cyan fails entirely, at 2.41:1, and that is the block behind the logo on a phone. Millbrook Green and Kit Navy never sit next to each other: at 1.08:1 they are one dark blur.

Display type Proposed the recommended tagline, decision 4

Titillium Web 700, the club's own heading face.

Typography Measured

Decision 5

The website loads two faces from Google Fonts. Titillium Web sets every heading, and the stylesheet asks for weight 700. Lato sets the body, at weight 300 in grey #777777. The brochure agrees: its font list is Titillium for nearly all the text, Lato for small print, and Minion Pro for the contents page alone. So the club has a type system, even if nobody wrote it down. Both faces are released under the SIL Open Font Licence, free to use and to host anywhere, so there is no licence to buy.

Two faults in the implementation. The site asks for Titillium Web 700 but only loads 600, so every heading renders a weight lighter than specified. And body copy in Lato 300 at 4.48:1 is thin and pale on a phone. Do not substitute Exo 2 for Titillium Web, or Open Sans for Lato. They look close at a glance and they are different faces.

The typographic gap, and this page as the argument

The Millbrook's two faces are both sans serifs, and the only serif in its identity is drawn into the logo. That is a clean system: the logo carries the tradition and the type stays modern and readable. This page is set in the club's own faces, from the same Google files: Titillium Web 700 for display, Titillium Web 600 for headings, which is what the club's site actually shows, and Lato 400 for reading, one weight up from the site's 300.

AaDisplay and headings, Titillium Web

AaEverything else, Lato

Display · Titillium Web 700 · 56 to 72px

Golf on the Greensand Ridge

H1 · Titillium Web 600 · 40 to 48px

Owned by the members who play it

Body · Lato 400 · 17px · line-height 1.6

Indigenous pine and silver birch line thirteen of our eighteen holes. The remaining five holes are protected by gorse and wispy fescue grasses.

Label · Lato 700 · 13px · letter-spacing 0.06em

Book a tee time

Hierarchy Proposed

Level	Face	Weight	Size	Line height	Use
Display	Titillium Web	700	56 to 72px	1.05	Hero, covers, signs
H1	Titillium Web	600	40 to 48px	1.15	Page titles
H2	Titillium Web	600	30 to 34px	1.2	Section headings
Standfirst	Lato	400	20 to 22px	1.45	Opening paragraphs
Body	Lato	400	17px	1.6	Paragraphs. Never 300 on screen
Caption	Lato	400	14px	1.4	Photo captions
Label	Lato	700	13px	1.2	Buttons, eyebrows. Uppercase

Typographic rules

Line length 60 to 75 characters. Body copy sits in a column, not edge to edge.
Sentence case for headings. The brochure's contents page is in Title Case; the website's headings are mixed. Pick sentence case and keep it.
Load the weights you set. If a heading is specified at 700, the site must load 700.
Never retype the logo. The wordmark's serif is not a font the club holds.
Never centre a paragraph, and never justify.

Photography Measured

Decision 6

The club's course photography is one set: eleven frames on a Canon EOS 550D, ten of them taken in May and June 2015 and one in July 2013, all at dawn or in the early evening, edited in Lightroom 3.6. The light is good and the originals are large, up to 5,184 pixels wide. The editing is heavy: saturated greens, deep cyan skies and haloes round the clouds, the look of 2015. These three are the strongest, cropped to remove the stamped logo.

Hawthorn in white flower and dark conifers below a wooded hillside, a stone church tower among the trees at the top, a red flag on a green in the foreground — Filed by the club as the 16th tee: hawthorn in flower, a red flag on the green below, and a stone church tower in the trees on the ridge above. The only frame in the set that shows the course has a place around it.

The 15th fairway seen through gorse in yellow flower, long rough in low evening sun, the fairway rising to pines and broadleaf trees under a clear sky — The 15th through gorse in flower, at ten to five on an evening in June. The gorse and wispy fescue the club writes about are both in frame.

The 11th fairway in early morning running between dense walls of pine and willow, long shadows across the grass and big white clouds in a deep blue sky — The 11th fairway at nine minutes past seven in the morning, between walls of pine. The members' favourite hole, and the strongest frame the club owns, though the sky shows how hard the set was processed.

Measured The homepage slider is twelve 1,140 × 600 pixel images from June 2017, each with the logo stamped in. The brochure has newer pictures, drone views and rhododendrons by a green, but only at about 830 pixels wide inside the PDF; the originals are not on the website. The 2021 history images are photographs of old prints. None of the club's photographs carries an AI-generator marker. Nothing here is stock.

Dawn and early evening. The club already shoots at the right times. Keep it.
Trees in every course frame. Pine, birch and gorse are what make it heathland.
Show where it is. The ridge, the church tower, the view. Most club photography could be anywhere.
Natural colour. Lighter editing than 2015. Green grass, blue sky, no haloes.
Never stamp the logo onto a photograph. Place it beside the picture or over a plain area, as a layer, never baked in.

The gap · there is not one golfer in the course set

Eleven course photographs and nobody playing golf in any of them. The only people in the club's set are the greens team with their dogs in 2023 and group shots on the 1st tee from 2019. Nothing shows a four-ball on the 11th, a society at the bar, a junior lesson, or the Outside@The Millbrook marquee in use. Commission an autumn shoot that puts people on the course in the same dawn and evening light, plus the clubhouse and an aerial of the ridge. Working ratio: 60 per cent place, 40 per cent people, because the land is what this club sells first.

What to avoid

The stamped originals. Crop the logo out or do not use the frame
Heavy HDR. Re-edit the 2015 originals gently before using them large
Photographs of prints, for anything but a history page
Phone snaps on the homepage. The buggy photograph is right for news, not for a hero
Grey, flat, overcast light on the course. If the weather is poor, do not shoot
A competing logo in frame. Equipment brands on bags and banners are cropped out

In use Proposed

The brand on the things the club sends

Six pieces the club actually uses, drawn at their real proportions in the club's own typefaces and built from its own photographs. Every fact on them is from the website or the brochure. Only the website itself is measured; the rest is proposed.

Before you play

The 16th tee sits on top of the Greensand Ridge, so it is always windy.

Call the kitchen from the 9th tee and your order is ready at the turn.

Repair pitch marks, replace divots and rake the bunkers.

Millbrook, Ampthill, Bedfordshire MK45 2JB
01525 840252

Scorecard

Par 72 · 6,910 yards

On the Greensand Ridge, Bedfordshire

OutHoles 1 to 9

Hole				Par	S.I.
1	452	449	428	5	9
2	592	572	552	5	7
3	459	450	415	4	1
4	225	265	245	4	17
5	441	417	378	4	13
6	426	381	349	4	3
7	174	170	166	3	15
8	589	577	555	5	5
9	308	286	267	4	11
Out	3,666	3,567	3,355	38

Blue6,910

White6,731

Yellow6,274

PlayerDate

InHoles 10 to 18

Hole				Par	S.I.
10	188	188	119	3	12
11	321	312	286	4	4
12	457	467	446	5	16
13	425	409	373	4	2
14	372	366	342	4	8
15	531	514	500	5	14
16	164	157	148	3	18
17	354	330	321	4	6
18	432	421	384	4	10
In	3,244	3,164	2,919	36
Out	3,666	3,567	3,355	38
Total	6,910	6,731	6,274	74

MarkerHandicap

Scorecard Proposed

A folded card, 110 × 160mm closed. Outside, the cover in Millbrook Green with the white logo, and the back in white with the device cropped off the edge in Fairway Pale. Inside, all 18 holes off the Blue, White and Yellow tees, added up from the club's hole-by-hole guide to 6,910, 6,731 and 6,274 yards. Par and stroke index are the White tees', par 74; the Blue tees play the 4th as a par 3 and the 12th as a par 4 for par 72. The Red tees, 5,700 yards, would take a card of their own with their own par and index.

The 15th fairway seen through gorse in yellow flower, the fairway rising to pines in evening sun — Membership brochure Proposed
A4. The cover is the club's own photograph of the 15th through gorse in flower, over a Millbrook Green panel with the device cropped in Fairway Green. The inside page uses the membership page's own figures: 2026-27 prices from £150 to £1,498, the bar card discounts, and reciprocal golf at 40 courses. The site publishes no price for 5-day, family or flexible membership, so the brochure says ask Rob rather than invent one.

Hawthorn in flower below a wooded ridge with a church tower — Social posts Proposed
Three posts at 4:5, the shape Instagram crops to. Each one is a fact from the club's own pages on a club photograph: the ridge and its trees, the 11th, which the hole guide says most members would list as their favourite, and the winter society price on a Fairway Pale band.

The 11th fairway between walls of pine — Social posts Proposed
Three posts at 4:5, the shape Instagram crops to. Each one is a fact from the club's own pages on a club photograph: the ridge and its trees, the 11th, which the hole guide says most members would list as their favourite, and the winter society price on a Fairway Pale band.

The same homepage at 390 pixels wide — The website Measured
The live site, captured on 6 October 2026 at 20:36 UTC, 1440 and 390 pixels wide. A GolfNow WordPress theme, "Powered by GolfNow" in the footer, Titillium headings, the logo as a 237-pixel JPEG in the header and stamped again into the slider photograph, a cyan block behind it on the phone, and tee times booked on a separate BRS site. The pieces on this page are drawn as a replacement would carry them.

The Millbrook Golf Club
Millbrook, Ampthill
Bedfordshire MK45 2JB
01525 840252
manager@themillbrook.com

Owned by our membersthemillbrook.com

Rob BrightmanClub Manager
01525 840252, option 2
manager@themillbrook.com

Letter and card Proposed

A4 letter and an 85 × 55mm card for Rob Brightman, the Club Manager named on the contact page. The logo in Millbrook Green alone, the one-colour version for print, with the address in Lato. Body lines are placeholders. The card's back is Millbrook Green with the device cropped in Fairway Green.

2100

Golf
Clubhouse
Pro shop

Golf on the
Greensand Ridge

1200

Millbrook Green, the panel
White, the logo and the three destinations, cut vinyl
Fairway Pale, the line along the foot
Fairway Green, one rule
Plinth, 1375mm wide, set in the verge

Entrance sign Proposed

Drawn to scale at 1:12.5, in millimetres. There is no photograph of the club's entrance in its set, so the sign is drawn, not put into a picture. Paint colours need matching to a RAL or Pantone reference from a proof, because the club has none on record, and the logo needs cutting from the vector master (decision 1).

Social media

Avatar: the device alone, the swoosh and trees in white on Millbrook Green. The full logo is unreadable in a circle.
Handles: the site links facebook.com/TheMillbrookGolfClub, instagram.com/themillbrookgc, twitter.com/themillbrookgc, a YouTube channel and TripAdvisor. The Instagram icon on the site carries the alt text "twitter".
Post mix: roughly half the course and its seasons, a quarter people and competitions, a quarter offers, societies and the clubhouse.
Hashtags: a maximum of three, and they should be real. #TheMillbrook #GreensandRidge #BedfordshireGolf.

Print

Item	Specification
Scorecards	Millbrook Green cover, white logo, one table per set of tees. The hole-by-hole guide already holds every number.
Signage	From the vector master only. Millbrook Green ground, white logo, matched to a RAL reference from a proof.
Kit and buggies	White logo on Millbrook Green from the next order. Until then, white on navy only. Embroider from vector only.
Flags	Retire the red flag with the black logo. A plain flag, or the device in white on Millbrook Green.

Brand don'ts, the one-page checklist

Never retype or redraw the logo. Place it from the vector master
Never use the 2015 file with the telephone number baked in
Never stamp the logo onto a photograph
Never set Fairway Green #4DA600 as small text on white. It measures 3.1:1
Never put the logo in black on red, or green on navy
Never put Millbrook Green beside Kit Navy. They measure 1.08:1
Never set body text in Lato 300 or in #777777 on screen
Never substitute Exo 2 for Titillium Web, or Open Sans for Lato
Never write nestling, unrivalled, fantastic or delightful
Never use an em-dash, and never more than one exclamation mark in a social post
Never say Millbrook Golf Club without "The"
Never use a photograph of a print as if it were a photograph of the course

How we speak

The club sounds like the member who walks you to the first tee: proud of the course, plain about the price, and pleased you came.

Proposed The voice essence. The hole-by-hole guide already writes this way; this names it.

Tone dimensions Proposed

Dimension	Where it sits
Formal to casual	Friendly and direct. Contractions and the second person; never slang.
Serious to playful	Light. The 16th tee is always windy, so take one less club. That is the register.
Reserved to enthusiastic	Quietly proud. The land and the members do the persuading, not the adjectives.
Ornate to plain	Plain, always.

The voice, in seven lines Proposed

Nothing here is an adjective. Two of the lines are taglines the club has not yet chosen (decision 4). The rest are things that are true on a Tuesday in February.

Golf on the Greensand Ridge.

One man and his bulldozer.

More than 100,000 trees.

Owned by our members since 2002.

Members for the day.

Par 72, 6,910 yards.

Ring us on 01525 840252.

Voice qualities Proposed

Five ways to tell it is us

1. Specific, not superlative

Indigenous pine and silver birch line thirteen of our eighteen holes.

Don't

We are blessed with unrivalled views of our rural surroundings.

2. Grounded, not dreamy

Ten minutes from junction 13 of the M1, and two from Center Parcs Woburn Forest.

Don't

Nestling in woodland by the delightful village of Millbrook.

3. Helpful, not breezy

The 16th tee sits on top of the Greensand Ridge, so it is always windy. Take one less club.

Don't

There are fantastic views from the tee.

4. Open about money

Society days from £50 a head in winter: bacon rolls, coffee and 18 holes.

Don't

Green Fees for 18 holes of golf can be found on our tee booking site.

5. Human, not institutional

Rob runs the office. Ring 01525 840252 and choose option 2.

Don't

Please contact: Us for more details.

Measured Every Don't is quoted from the club's live website: the visitors page, the homepage, the hole-by-hole guide, the rates page and the clubhouse page. Every Do is built from facts on the same pages, and the first is the club's own sentence, which is the best line on the site.

Vocabulary Measured the three live words Proposed the lists

nestlingunrivalledfantastic

These three are live on the club's site today. Nestling is in the homepage copy and in the description Google shows under the club's name. Unrivalled is on the homepage, and on the visitors page in its American spelling, unrivaled. Fantastic appears twice on the homepage and once in the hole guide. The site also leans on delightful, picturesque and wonderful, which say less than the facts beside them.

We say

the Greensand Ridgeheathlandpine and silver birchgorsepot bunkersall yearowned by our membersmembers for the daybook a tee timesociety dayring usRobthe 11thThe Millbrook

We don't say

nestling liveunrivalled livefantastic livedelightfulpicturesqueblessed withpremierprestigiousworld-classa hidden gemstunningreach outMillbrook GCLyshott Heath

Writing style Proposed

House rules

British English throughout. Colour, organise, enquiry, programme, centre.
Oxford comma. Always.
Sentence length. Vary it. Average around 15 to 20 words. A short one lands.
Sentence case for all headings. Not Title Case.
No exclamation marks in club-published copy. One per social post at the absolute most.
No em-dashes. Use a comma, a full stop, or a colon.
Numbers. Spell out one to nine, numerals from 10. Always numerals for yardages, pars, handicaps, prices, dates and times: 6,910 yards, par 72, £50, 8.00am.
Dates. 1 March 2026, not 1st Mar.
The club's name. The Millbrook Golf Club on first mention, The Millbrook after that, always with a capital T. Never Millbrook Golf Club without "The", never Millbrook GC, never initials. The Greensand Ridge takes two capitals.

Messaging Proposed

Decision 4

Heathland golf on the Greensand Ridge, owned by the members who play it.

Proposed The core message.

Value proposition

The Millbrook is an 18-hole course on the Greensand Ridge in Bedfordshire, laid out in 1977 on 100 acres of sandy farmland by a founder who planted more than 100,000 trees, and owned by its members since 2002. It plays 6,910 yards at par 72 from the blue tees, with pine and silver birch on thirteen holes, gorse and fescue on the other five, and pot bunkers in sand that drains all year. It has hosted the Bedfordshire County Championship and ranks 4th in the county on Top 100 Golf Courses. Full membership is £1,498 for 2026-27, society days start at £50 a head, and it is ten minutes from junction 13 of the M1.

Tagline routes

Route	Line	Leans on
The place	Golf on the Greensand Ridge.	The club's own phrase for its land, on the course, visitors and hole guide pages
The owners	Owned by the members who play it.	"The Millbrook is owned by our Membership"
The welcome	Members for the day.	"We treat all visiting golfers as members for the day"

Recommendation

Pick one and hold it for at least three years. Golf on the Greensand Ridge is the recommendation: it names something only this club has, it is true on every hole, and no other club nearby can say it the same way. Keep Members for the day for the visitors page, where it works hardest.

Key messages, with proof

Message	Proof
It is a heathland course.	Pine and silver birch on thirteen holes, gorse and fescue on five, links-style pot bunkers, sandy free-draining soil.
It plays all year.	The founder chose the site in 1975 for its sandy soil. The club's own pages promise year-round playability.
The members own it.	Member-owned since 2002; revenues reinvested in the course and the club.
It is a proper test.	6,910 yards, par 72, course rating 74.3 and slope 133 off the blues, and a 10th green that measures only 15 yards from front to back. County Championship host. 4th in Bedfordshire on Top 100.
It is easy to reach.	Ten minutes from M1 junction 13, 25 from central Milton Keynes, two from Center Parcs Woburn Forest.
Groups are looked after.	12 players or more, from £50 a head in winter and £58 in summer, bacon rolls and coffee on arrival, and meeting rooms for a working day.

Audience angles

Audience	Lead with	Do not lead with
Prospective members	Ownership, the price against the clubs around it, and golf in February.	The joining fee
Visiting golfers	The 11th, the ridge, the green fee, and a tee time to book.	The dress code
Societies and companies	One person to call, a price per head, the meeting rooms.	Limited availability
Seniors	The section's own competitions, rollups and charity open.	Handicap tables
Short-break golfers	Two minutes from Center Parcs, golf breaks with local inns.	The membership year

Contacts and assets

Brand guardian: to be named by the club (decision 10). Rob Brightman, the Club Manager, is the natural owner day to day, with the board's sign-off.

Club officeRob Brightman, Club Manager01525 840252, option 2, manager@themillbrook.com
Pro shopChris and Matt01525 840252, option 1, proshop@themillbrook.com
Bar and kitchenSandravia the clubhouse page
The courseDuncan, named on the homepagethe brochure lists Duncan Steele, Head Green Keeper
The boardGavin Churchman, ChairmanCaptain 2026-27, David Kyle
Brochure artworkLudis, the brochure's publisher01273 510400, ludisgroup.co.uk

Club details for all published material

The Millbrook Golf Club
Millbrook, Ampthill, Bedfordshire MK45 2JB
01525 840252 · manager@themillbrook.com · themillbrook.com
facebook.com/TheMillbrookGolfClub · instagram.com/themillbrookgc · twitter.com/themillbrookgc

Asset location · to be established

The logo's best copy is inside a brochure PDF, the white version sits with whoever supplied the buggies and the hoodies, the photographs are spread across a WordPress media library with the logo stamped into them, and the brochure's newer pictures are with Ludis. A second telephone number, 01525 402269, is still printed inside one logo file and listed on the Find Us page. One shared folder holding the vector logo, the original photographs, the brochure files and this document should be the first action taken from these guidelines.

Open decisions

Ten things only the club can settle

These cannot be settled without the club, and each one blocks something downstream.

1
Adopt one logo master
The two-colour version rebuilt from the brochure's vector paths. Ask Ludis for the InDesign artwork and the kit suppliers for theirs. Retire the four other files, and adopt the device, the swoosh and trees, as the icon.
Committee
2
Choose the club's dark colour
Recommendation: Millbrook Green. The navy buggies and hoodies stay until they are replaced, then the next set is ordered in green.
Committee
3
Fix the website's contrast
Body text to Mid grey in Lato 400; retire the cyan behind the logo on mobile; keep Fairway Green off small text.
Club Manager
4
Choose one tagline and hold it
Recommendation: Golf on the Greensand Ridge.
Committee
5
Write the type down
Titillium Web for headings, Lato for reading, at the weights the site actually loads. Free faces, nothing to license.
Club Manager
6
Commission an autumn photo shoot
People on the course, the clubhouse, the marquee and an aerial of the ridge, in the dawn and evening light the club already favours. Stop stamping the logo onto pictures.
Club Manager
7
Publish the prices
Green fees on the club's own site, and one society price list: the brochure still says £37 and £43, correct at November 2023, where the website says £50 to £68.
Club Manager
8
Confirm the vision, values and voice
All proposed here, drawn from the club's own website copy.
Committee
9
One telephone number and one set of yardages
01525 840252 or 01525 402269. The course page and the hole guide say 6,910 yards off the blues; other club pages give other totals.
Club Manager
10
Name a brand guardian
Someone has to hold the master files and say no to the next stamped photograph.
Board

Brand guidelines

The club

Vision

Mission

Owned by the members

The land comes first

A welcome for everyone

Members for the day

Straight answers

How we look

Primary, two colours

Reversed, white

What is in circulation today

What exists, and what is still missing

Clear space and minimum size Proposed

Colour: green on paper, navy on the course

The brand is already out there, in three colours

Colour usage rules Proposed

Every value, sampled or counted

Primary, from the logo

Accent

In use, not chosen

Neutrals

Contrast, measured not asserted

Hierarchy Proposed

Typographic rules

What to avoid

The brand on the things the club sends

Before you play

Scorecard Proposed

A course you own a share of

Membership brochure Proposed

Social posts Proposed

The website Measured

Letter and card Proposed

Entrance sign Proposed

Social media

Print

Brand don'ts, the one-page checklist

How we speak

Five ways to tell it is us

1. Specific, not superlative

2. Grounded, not dreamy

3. Helpful, not breezy

4. Open about money

5. Human, not institutional

House rules

Value proposition

Tagline routes

Key messages, with proof

Audience angles

Club details for all published material

Ten things only the club can settle

Adopt one logo master

Choose the club's dark colour

Fix the website's contrast

Choose one tagline and hold it

Write the type down

Commission an autumn photo shoot

Publish the prices

Confirm the vision, values and voice

One telephone number and one set of yardages

Name a brand guardian