Brand · System
Brand
The system behind Daniel Hunt. Marks, typography, palette, page furniture, and the principles that govern them. The source of truth lives in docs/brand/IDENTITY.md and docs/brand/VISUAL.md; this page renders the rules in their native form.
I · Marks
Wordmark
Daniel Hunt
All caps, Instrument Serif, intentional letter-spacing. Masthead-style — anchored to a margin, integrated with the page. Never composed as a monument behind a figure.
Monogram
DH
The wordmark compressed. Same family, smaller container. Avatars, watermarks, sign-offs, compact contexts. No periods. No frame. No interlocking.
Internal codename
{D}
A private tribute to the tech background that shaped the brand. Lives in the repo, doc titles, source comments, the X bio. Not a public brand mark.
II · Typography
Instrument Serif · Display
A public search for a more human way to build, move, and pay attention.
Headlines, drop caps, wordmark, monogram, bylines. Sharp, contemporary editorial voice. One weight, regular and italic — the constraint enforces restraint.
Inter · Body + UI
Body copy, UI, captions, utility text, lower-thirds. Neutral, clean, doesn't fight Instrument Serif. No third font. No monospaced terminal aesthetic in public surfaces.
Two fonts, total. Anything else is scope creep.
III · Palette
Cool pole · Default canvas
White
--bg · #FFFFFF
Ink
--text · #111111
Quiet gray
--quiet · #8A8F91
The default canvas. Dominant in build-mode surfaces. The full gray family includes --muted (#5A5A5A), --quiet (#8A8F91), and --line (#E2E2E2) for hairlines.
Warm pole · Situational canvas
Cream
--cream · #F3EFE8
Espresso
--espresso · #2B1F1A
Dominant in offline-mode surfaces — magazine-style spreads, editorial blocks.
Personality · One accent
Burgundy
--accent · #6B1F2B
The sole personality color. Hover states, key markers, pull quotes, link emphasis. Used sparingly — its rarity is what gives it weight.
IV · Page furniture
No em-rules as page furniture.
Em-rules are not used as section dividers, decorative breaks, sign-offs, or typographic flourishes. The rule is scoped to page furniture; the em-dash remains available as ordinary English punctuation in long-form prose.
Mid-dot · Metadata separator
DANIEL HUNT · SIMI VALLEY · 2026
Hairline · Structural divider
1px solid. Used between major UI sections. Structural, not typographic.
Numbered section · Editorial heading
I · On building
Roman numerals or named labels in Instrument Serif, paired with a mid-dot and the section title. The scientific-paper convention applied to editorial surfaces.
Whitespace · The primary break
The most-used divider in the system. Generous margins, room to breathe, time between sections. Whitespace does what em-rules cannot.
V · Signature phrases
Build in public. Live offline.
The thesis.
Tech, movement, and culture.
The sub-thesis.
Scars, not wounds.
The editorial rule for the build half. Retrospective lessons, never open wounds.
Memory, not photoshoot.
The visual rule for the offline half. Lived images, never staged ones.
VI · Tie-break
Human, lived, curious wins over polished, aspirational. Always.
When choices conflict — between a tighter edit and a more honest one, between a more refined composition and a more lived one, between premium signal and human texture — the answer is always the more human one.
For the full strategic and visual identity, see docs/brand/IDENTITY.md and docs/brand/VISUAL.md in the repository.