Horizons in 30 seconds

A Horizon is a custom section the team adds to a brand atlas when the eight standard sections do not cover everything the brand needs. Sub-brands, campaign systems, regional adaptations, partnership rules, internal-only guidance, product-specific identity. If the brand has it, a Horizon holds it.

​

When to create a Horizon

A Horizon is the right tool when the team finds themselves repeatedly needing material that does not fit cleanly into any of the eight standard sections. Common cases:

• A sub-brand or product brand. The parent brand has its atlas; the sub-brand needs its own marks, type, and rules without losing the parent connection.
• A campaign system. A campaign that runs for a quarter and has its own typography treatment, photography direction, and tone.
• A regional adaptation. Arabic typography for a brand whose primary language is English. Local imagery for a regional launch. A culturally-specific colour set.
• A partnership. Co-branding rules with a partner organisation, including their lock-up requirements and the boundaries of joint use.
• An internal-only guidance set. Onboarding decks, employer-brand material, HR-facing communication rules.

If the material is recurring, governed, and worth recording, it is a Horizon.

​

How to create one

There are three paths, gated by tier:

1. Visual editor. Available on every tier. Build a Horizon by adding blocks (text, image, table, code, gallery, embed) the same way a standard section is built.
2. MDX upload. Available on every tier. Author the Horizon in MDX in any editor and upload it. Useful for teams already writing in Markdown, or for material being authored by the studio.
3. Build-with-Oswald. Available on Guardian. Describe the Horizon to Oswald in plain language and approve the proposal Oswald drafts. Oswald produces the structure, the team edits and publishes.

All three produce the same kind of Horizon. The difference is the authoring path.

​

How Horizons appear

A Horizon sits alongside the eight standard sections in the portal sidebar. The team member sees it in the same place they see Logo & Identity or Typography. It is searchable, editable, and reviewable in the same way. Brand owners can reorder, rename, archive, and version Horizons.

​

Tier limits

Each tier governs how many Horizons the brand can have at once. The current limits are listed on the tier pages. Archived Horizons do not count against the limit. A retired campaign whose rules might be useful again later can be archived and restored without losing the work.

​

What a Horizon is not

A Horizon is not a replacement for a standard section. If something belongs in Voice, it goes in Voice; Voice does not become a Horizon. A Horizon is also not a scratchpad. Material that has not been decided yet does not belong in a Horizon, because every Horizon is treated as governed brand material by the team reading it.

​

Next steps