RelayCTX Creative · Brand
The brand system, from mark to motion.
The Relay identity and design language: the Open Signal mark and lockups, the v3.6 tokens (generated from one JSON source and linked by every page here), type, the interactive brand guide, and the portable asset pack.
Two kinds of page live here, and the difference matters. The five below are canon — if an implementation disagrees with them, they win. Everything further down is the record: explorations, tools, rejected directions and superseded versions, kept because knowing what was tried and why it was dropped is worth more than a tidy index. Copy from the canon; read the record.
Start here — the canon, in the order you need it
1 · The guide→
Brand Guide
Fonts, colours, palettes, components, and multipage map. Start here. The identity section now links every asset it names — marks, lockups, pack, PNGs.
2 · One screen→
Brand Cheat Sheet
Grab-and-go: every lockup and mark with direct SVG + transparent-PNG downloads (spec teal, one-ink “black”, white knockout), the social profile kit table, click-to-copy colour chips, type, and the six travelling rules. Companion to the asset pack below.
3 · The files→
Asset Pack — portable canon
The versioned downloadable files: four lockup treatments, mark ink variants, avatar and app-icon tiles, OG card, and the full transparent-PNG matrix (marks 128–1024, lockups @1x–@4x), each with its rules. SVG is source of truth; one command regenerates every PNG.
4 · The tokens→
Design System v3.6 — the live card
What v3.6 is, in one page: the one-source/six-adapter pipeline, the accent role split (why the mark and the primary button are two different greens in light mode and one in dark), and the two contrast obligations a button owes. Every value and every ratio is read from the linked token stylesheet at runtime, so the page cannot drift from what ships. Carries the ink-flip verdict and where adoption stands.
5 · The type→
Type Specimen
Full type scale on the v3.5 neutral-first frame. Cormorant display, Outfit UI + wordmark, JetBrains Mono. Syne retired.
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 — tools, explorations, and the record
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.
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.
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.