brand

fastverk visual identity — parametric mark generator, per-platform icons, and a tectonic brandbook

bazel_dep(name = "brand", version = "0.3.1")

View source & releases on GitHub ↗

The fastverk visual identity, generated from one parametric source.

The mark plays off F, V, the down-triangle ∀ (universal quantifier) and the horizontal arms ∃/E — fitting, since Lean (and its quantifiers) does a lot of the work. It’s a deliberate, methodical construction on the unit circle and the golden ratio (φ = 0.618), not a hand-traced drawing.

The construction (one Spec)

gen/gen_mark.py builds the mark by exact boolean CSG (shapely):

1. Equilateral triangle on the unit circle, apex down → T_OUT.
2. Copy scaled to circumradius φ → T_IN. RING = T_OUT − T_IN.
3. Band thickness T = ½(1−φ) is the one gap/stroke unit.
4. gap_tr — the top-right cut: the right-leg segment whose height equals its own base (the leg’s horizontal width 2T/√3) → a 60° parallelogram; its ”/” sides are the triangle’s inner & outer ”/”. The flush line L derives from it (crossbar-top == cut-bottom, cut-top == top-bar-bottom).
5. crossbar — the F arm / ∀ bar / ∃ stroke, with a ”/” beveled right end.
6. cut — a ⊥ arrow cut through a chosen "" midpoint (mid_lower | mid_full).
7. arrow — the accent region (lower_inner | full_inner), unioned with the cut.
8. tertiary — cut (top-right gap) or interior (all inner negative space).

The family

Both members share the construction; the accent/field colors invert:

Build

Everything is hermetic — the generator runs in-build (shapely/svgwrite wheels):

bazel build //gen:svgs        # canonical layered SVGs, both variants
bazel build //icons:all       # per-platform rasters + .icns/.ico/favicon
bazel build //brandbook:brandbook   # the brand guidelines PDF

Each variant emits Icon-Composer-ready layers: .bg.svg, .tint.svg, .arrow.svg, .mark.svg, and a composite .svg.

Properties

fastverk is the reference property. verk is the same identity for verk.fast — a domain hack, since host + TLD read as “fastverk” backwards. It is the same construction and the same generator; the word is short and the amber is deepened (below).

bazel build //gen:verk_svgs           # verk_full.svg, verk_lower.svg + layers
bazel build //icons:verk_icon_set     # verk_*.png / .icns / .ico
bazel build //wordmark/verk:wordmark_set   # the "verk" wordmark + lockups
bazel build //skins:verk              # the verk meridian skin

Nothing about the verk mark is hand-drawn or hand-recolored: --prefix and --palette are generator flags, word is a field in wordmark/verk/wordmark.json, and the palette NAME lives once in gen/palette.bzl so the SVG set and the icon set cannot drift apart.

Palette

The geometry is locked; colors are Spec parameters (bg/fg/accent/accent2/tertiary), grouped into named sets in gen_mark.PALETTES. gen/gen_palettes.py renders every set and writes palette_contrast.txt, the measured WCAG ratio of each edge the mark actually has:

bazel run //gen:gen_palettes -- /tmp/palettes

The canonical tokens (the “deep” palette, canonical since 2026-08-07 — it was “midnight”, #F2C46A → #C9852B) are:

In the light skin the accent is #96560D rather than the canonical amber: there it is real text on the cream ground and has to clear 4.5:1, which #B5781A (3.00:1 on cream) does not. See skins/fastverk.textpb.

The amber sits between cream and ink, and cannot clear both

In the full variant the cream mark crosses the accent field (the F arm) and rings it on every side, so cream|amber is a real edge. The old canonical amber (#F2C46A) measured 1.32:1 against cream — the arm dissolved into the field it crosses — while measuring 11.09:1 against the ink ground. Those two move in opposite directions by construction: with cream at L .800 and ink at L .008, an accent between them tops out at √14.64 = 3.83:1 on both edges at once. 4.5:1 on both is unreachable, not merely unchosen.

deep clears the 3:1 WCAG 1.4.11 floor on the cream edge — the correct floor for a graphical boundary rather than text — and 4.5:1 against the ink ground, so the silhouette keeps its pop.

//skins:fastverk_contrast and //skins:verk_contrast run brando’s WCAG gate over both skins, and both pass. The gate used to be off for fastverk exactly because fastverk failed it — light:on_accent/accent (#ECE7DA on #C9852B) is 2.47:1, needs 4.5:1, the weak white-on-amber the brand carried in production. The light skin’s accent is now #96560D (4.68:1 on cream), so there is no longer a reason to leave the canonical brand ungated.

Skin (skins/)

The brand identity is also published as a meridian skin — a meridian.theme.v1.Theme that drives every meridian renderer (web console, SwiftUI app, JavaFX desktop, ratatui TUI) from one source, so the brand reads identically on every surface.

skins/fastverk.textpb authors the Theme once (the tokens above), validated against meridian’s theme.proto at build time. //skins emits both wire forms:

bazel build //skins:fastverk_binpb   # fastverk.binpb — native decoders (TUI/Swift/JavaFX)
bazel build //skins:fastverk_json    # fastverk.json  — web `applyTheme(skin, mode)`
bazel build //skins:fastverk         # both, as a stageable filegroup

fastverk.binpb is produced by protoc --encode (which also validates the textproto against the schema); fastverk.json is the proto3-JSON twin (snake_case field names matching meridian’s theme/web/theme.ts). Brand depends on meridian only for the schema — it pulls no renderer code, and meridian itself stays brand-neutral.

Conformance#

Dependencies#

Depends on

Used by (4 in the registry)

Versions#

4 published versions, newest first. Each resolves to an immutable, integrity-checked archive.

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