MindChain's identity is a two-plate screenprint: one near-black ink plate on warm paper, one vermilion spot plate used sparingly. An abstract halftone brain — ink dots screened on a 45° lattice — holds one vermilion node of thought at the thalamus: consensus as a settling mind. Everything below serves that single idea.
01 · Mark
Anatomy & construction
The mark is an abstract brain in side profile, screened into halftone: ink dots on a 45° lattice over a 40-unit grid. Dot radius falls from ~0.95 at the center of the mass to ~0.3 at the silhouette edge, so the form reads as printed tone, never outline. The silhouette carries three anatomical cues — the frontal slope, the cerebellum, and the stem — and a single vermilion node sits at the thalamus (~19.5, 15.5): the point where thought settles. The mark is generated once from the master files and never redrawn freehand.
one vermilion #b8340f dot at the thalamus (~19.5, 15.5)
Variants — a two-density system
The mark ships in two densities. The display mark is the fine lattice (~200 dots, pitch 1.55) for use at 48 px and above. Below that the dots close up, so every smaller use switches to the small cut — a coarse 24-dot lattice (pitch 4.4; mindchain-mark-small.svg / favicon.svg) that keeps the silhouette and the node legible down to 16 px.
Primary — spot
One-plate ink
Inverse tile
Small cut · below 48px
Lockup
Clearspace & minimum size
Clearspace equals three lattice cells (3 × 1.55 ≈ 4.7 units of the 40-grid) on all sides. Nothing enters it: no type, no rules, no registration crosses. Minimum size for the display mark is 48 px; below that use the small cut, down to its minimum of 16 px (5 mm in print).
Misuse
Never place the halftone mark over data surfaces — hashes, QR codes, and seed phrases stay flat paper (see 05).
Never re-rasterize or blur the dots — the mark ships as vector dots only.
Never recolor individual dots: the lattice is one ink plate plus exactly one vermilion node.
Never rotate, stretch, outline, or drop the node; never use the fine lattice below 48 px.
02 · Color
Two plates, one accent
The UI palette is warm paper and near-black ink. Vermilion is a spot plate: it marks the active, the live, and the exceptional — never decoration. State hues (good/warn/bad) exist only for state.
Paper
#f7f2e5
page background
Ink strong
#1c1811
headings, values, primary buttons
Ink
#3a352b
body text
Muted
#6f6857
secondary labels
Vermilion spot
#b8340f
THE accent — scarce
Good
#2e6b45
success / confirmed
Warn
#8a6414
pending / caution
Bad
#8f1f0e
failed / reverted only
Cognition
#7a5a2e
explorer cognition lifecycle
Canvas plate palette
The halftone print canvas (landing hero) runs its own slightly deeper plates. Use these only inside halftone artwork, never in UI chrome.
Plate paper
#f2ebdb
Plate ink
#221d14
Plate spot
#d8401f
Contrast on paper (#f7f2e5)
Foreground
Ratio
WCAG
Rule
#1c1811 ink strong
15.8 : 1
AAA
any size
#3a352b ink
10.9 : 1
AAA
any size
#b8340f spot
5.3 : 1
AA
fine for text ≥ 12px; prefer for accents, not paragraphs
#6f6857 muted
4.9 : 1
AA
warning: labels ≥ 13px only; never for values, hashes, or safety copy
#96907f dim
2.9 : 1
fail
decorative furniture only — never carries information
03 · Typography
Space Grotesk speaks, Fira Code counts
Sans for labels and prose; mono only for identifiers, amounts, and controls. Never body copy in mono, never a hash in sans.
sans · clamp(38px,4.5vw,62px) / 1.04 · 700 · -0.025em
Section
sans · clamp(26px,2.8vw,34px) · 500 · -0.015em
Lead / Body / Compact
sans · 17/1.65 · 15/1.6 · 14
Mono data
mono · 13px · ink-strong
Controls
mono · 12px · UPPERCASE · 0.06em
Meta
mono · 11px · 0.06–0.12em
04 · System
Rules, spacing, motion
Rules over cards
Structure comes from 1px hairlines (rgba(28,24,17,.13)) and paper, not from filled or shadowed boxes. Control borders use rgba(28,24,17,.28). No shadows, no gradients, no starfields. Radius: 8px controls, 10px large panels — never pills.
Motion
Controls transition in 160–180ms. Nav and tab underlines grow from the left edge in 300ms cubic-bezier(.2,.7,.2,1). Focus is a 1.5px vermilion outline offset 3px. Nothing else moves without a protocol reason.
Registration furniture
Print furniture frames full-bleed surfaces: four corner crosses inset 4.6% from each edge, 1px strokes in rgba(34,29,20,.38), arm length 1.4% of the frame (see the corners of this page). Accompany with the ink swatch pair — one ink chip, one vermilion chip — where a plate legend is appropriate (posters, receipts, canvas plates). Furniture is static and never overlaps content.
05 · Application
Do / Don't
Keep the system honest
Vermilion is scarce: active nav, live state, focus, exceptional protocol events. One accent can carry a whole page.
Halftone texture on artwork, atmosphere panels, and posters.
States are readable by label text first — color reinforces, never replaces.
Hashes, amounts, and keys in mono 13px ink-strong on plain paper.
QR codes on pure white #fff for scan contrast.
Never
Halftone over hashes, QR codes, or seed phrases — data surfaces stay flat paper.
Vermilion for failure states (that's #8f1f0e) or as a background wash.
Gradients, shadows, pill radii, dark-mode panels inside the paper system.
Redraw, rotate, outline, or recolor the mark; never separate the node from the links.
Muted #6f6857 for critical values; dim #96907f for anything that carries meaning.
Primary — spot
One-plate ink
Inverse tile