RelayCTX Creative · Brand
The brand system, from mark to motion.
The Relay identity and design language: the Open Signal mark and lockups, the v3.5 neutral-first tokens (source of truth for every page here), type, the interactive brand guide, the portable asset pack, and the gallery + motion lab explorations.
Brand — emblem & headlines
Fresh · Jul 19→
Trusted Context — emblem concepts
Four directions for the RCTX-799 apex mark, all in the seal/stamp/signature register: Seal of Provenance (microtype ring on the Open-Signal mark), Countersignature (drawn Cormorant flourish → core dot), Attestation Stamp (dashed eyebrow closed into a passport stamp, ink-starved), Claim Ring (the Loop rail bent closed — boundary-that-authorizes, kept abstract). Replayable stamp/sign/claim animations; variant strips on light/ember/teal. Governed by BRIEF.emblematic-headlines.
New · Jul 19→
The Ladder — headline specimen
The full RCTX-282 messaging ladder staged as a cinematic scroll, each tier in its own register: apex still with seal watermark, thesis behind a backstage gate, live A/B switch for the unresolved umbrella (284 vs 417), kinetic verb tier with an ID riding the teal→indigo rail, six moment/audience cards with micro-glyphs, hero close with motion-only pulse CTA. RAW band throughout — every line pending voice pass.
Naming Exploration
Fresh · Jul 30 · Start here→
Naming Map — every name, one sky
The main page of the naming work: all candidates as a constellation radiating from RelayCTX in the Open Signal geometry, clustered by metaphor field, statuses encoded, EC's priority five ringed in teal with post-check standings. Weft — the pick that had been leading — closed 2026-07-30 (letsweft.com, a live MCP-native competitor); Seurat closed on check; none of the five clear outright now. Also now includes Needle, Tooly, Trust, and Transparency, all closed on check. Click any star for its story; ranked list twin below the map.
Jul 22 · narrative→
Naming Exploration — the track
The story of the exercise as a journey: track pressure, exchange-zone clusters, the Baton and trust-field disqualifications, continuity-as-promise / trust-as-proof, the riff field, and what survives a rename. Exploratory — not ratified, RelayCTX is not renaming.
Jul 23 · specimens→
Naming Specimens — the field, set in type
Every live candidate rendered as a wordmark in the system (Outfit 600, bare + CTX suffix, light/dark), the riff wall with buried stories and clearance pills, and the drawn-line motif swatches. No ™ on candidates — nothing here is claimed.
Updated · Aug 4 · survivors→
Still Standing — the survivors board
The mirror of The Fence: everything still standing after the sweeps, sorted by how hard it has been checked. Tier one — Attacca, Selvedge, Changeover (verified clean twice). Tier two — Ferry and Passit (counsel tier). Tier three — the starter field, opened 08-04 (Biga, Levain, Poolish, Sourdough), now with an actual trademark register pass: Biga has three US records and all are dead, Classes 9/42 never touched. Each gets a full specimen row: why it holds, what it still carries, its next gate — plus the whole exploration as an attrition strip in dots.
Jul 30 · the fence→
The Fence — every name we didn't keep
The companion ledger to the specimens board: every closed name across the whole exploration, grouped by metaphor field, struck through with its one-line collision reason on record — so nothing gets re-proposed without context. Now 34 names across 12 fields, after the Jul 31 sweep added Packet, Retriever, Understudy; the carried-fire cluster added Opal, Ember, Hearth; and the starter field added Sugar and Flour.
Creative Gallery
New · riff wall→
Creative Gallery
The riff wall: all four masthead directions quoted in their own palettes, the copy riffs, animatic stings, eggs, and the motion lab — one room, everything clickable.
New · exploration→
Motion Lab — Interaction Concepts
The pulse family extended into the interaction layer: full relay lifecycle as one sequence, copy cascade, shutter toggle, stream arrivals, routing spinner, nudge blink. Eight proposed additions, each tagged ratified/proposed with its colour law.
Fresh · ported Jul 29→
Poster Studio — the riff machine
12 headline riffs × 5 lenses (Neutral, Minimal, Soft, Swiss, Maximal) × 3 formats, minted Code per deal, canvas-measured wrapping, SVG download with embedded fonts. Ported from the frozen prototype branch (relay FMZRNG).
Design System
Fresh · ported Jul 29→
Brand Playground — Open Signal, live
The identity, every sanctioned way it can appear, and only those — renders the canonical inline component live against relay-tokens-v35.css so the rules enforce themselves as you compose. What you build here maps 1:1 to a file in the versioned asset pack.
Tool · v3.5→
Accent Colour Explorer
Spin a wheel for the primary + secondary accent and see, with live WCAG math, whether each pick stays vibrant while legible on both neutral bases (#FFFFFF / #09090B). Computed legibility band, both-mode contrast badges, 50–400 ramp, mode-flipping dim variants, derived small-text ink, CSS/JSON export + a relay-this-config URL. Transfer WHEEL7.
Updated · Jul 18→
Identity Options — v3.5 Mark
The Open Signal mark (A, selected — unboxed broadcast, currentColor) vs B “Pulse” and C “The Relay” alternates, on the v3.5 neutral-first frame. The #00D9C8 motion-only pulse rule. Canon assets at /brand/.
Archived · pre-v3.5→
Identity Options (v3.5 pre-release draft)
Earlier draft of the identity-options exploration, before the v3.5 neutral-first rebuild above. Kept for reference.
v3.5→
Brand Guide
Fonts, colours, palettes, components, and multipage map. Start here.
Archived · v3.4.1→
Brand Guide (v3.4.1)
Predecessor to the current Brand Guide above, pre-dating the relay-brand-guide.html rename. Kept for reference.
New · exploration→
Motion Lab
Interaction-motion concepts on the real v3.5 tokens: lifecycle sequence, touch feedback, arrival moments, waiting loops. Proposed pulse-family additions 7–14.
v3.5→
Type Specimen
Full type scale on the v3.5 neutral-first frame. Cormorant display, Outfit UI + wordmark, JetBrains Mono. Syne retired.
Archived · v3.3→
Type Specimen (v3.3)
Predecessor to the current Type Specimen above. Kept for reference.
Archived · v3.4→
App Components
All 20 relay-app component classes — buttons, relay cards, onboarding, sidebar, toasts — at v3.4 spec.
Archived · pre-v3.4→
App Components (earlier v3.4 draft)
Earlier draft of the App Components reference above. Kept for reference.
Reference→
Font Options
Headline font comparison: Space Grotesk, Bricolage Grotesque, Syne, Outfit — side by side.
Archived · v3.4→
Font Options (v3.4)
Predecessor to the current Font Options above. Kept for reference.