The marks · v1.0 · Apr 2026

Every mark has a meaning.

formenzo uses four marks. Each one has a single sentence of intent. Anything beyond that intent is a violation — we list them here so the brand stays legible whoever picks it up.

Published externally because no UAE formation brand documents this layer. The asymmetry is the point.

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01Mark

The wordmark

formenzoThe live atlas of UAE company formation.

Source · apps/web/src/components/salient/Logo.tsx

Meaning

Lowercase always. Tight tracking. The period is not punctuation — it's a map marker.

Permitted

  • Primary brand identifier on every surface — web nav, email headers, footers, OG cards, documents.
  • Pair with the slogan ('The live atlas of UAE company formation.') on marketing surfaces — Fraunces italic, sub-ink.
  • Three variants: ink on cream, cream on ink, mono when gold would clash.

Violations

  • Capitalising the F (‘Formenzo’) — the wordmark is always lowercase.
  • Loosening the tracking beyond -0.055em — tight tracking is the signature.
  • Changing the pin colour — #F5CE47 is non-negotiable. Not red, not coral, not peach.
  • Adding a drop shadow, outline, or gradient — the mark stands on form alone.
02Mark

The F-marker

Source · apps/web/src/app/icon.tsx · apps/web/public/favicon.svg

Meaning

Architectural F. The displaced gold block is the match our software returns — one data point, not ornament.

Permitted

  • Favicon, app icon, and any square-surface application where the wordmark can't scale down.
  • Watermark behind hero content at 3-4% opacity (see apps/portal .../cases/page.tsx: ArchitecturalFWatermark).
  • Scales from 16px tab favicon up to poster without the gold block collapsing.

Violations

  • Filling the F with gold instead of ink — the block is the accent, never the body.
  • Losing the displacement — the gold block's offset IS the meaning. Centered = decoration, not product.
  • Rounded-chip backgrounds — the F itself is the mark; chips around it add nothing.
03Mark

The match

Source · apps/portal/src/components/portal/LivePin.tsx

Meaning

Live gold pin. Appears when something is being matched, computed, or watched in real time. The pulse is the product.

Permitted

  • Beside Fraunces-italic hero headlines — ‘your dossier / your docket / good standing’ all anchor on the pulse.
  • On the live atlas whenever a match lands.
  • Future: loading state for anything that ranks or matches. Never a generic spinner (Rule #10).
  • Respects prefers-reduced-motion — the pulse halts, the dot stays.

Violations

  • Using it as ornament on static surfaces — the pulse implies live computation.
  • Multiple match pulses on the same surface — kills the ‘singular event’ signal. One pulse per surface.
  • Pairing with blue / green — it's always gold accent #F5CE47.
04Mark

The pin

dot

Source · packages/ui/src/tokens.ts · color.accent.DEFAULT

Meaning

Singular gold dot. Punctuation + map marker in one glyph. The UAE category has no equivalent.

Permitted

  • As the period after ‘formenzo.’ in every wordmark usage.
  • As a divider dot between tracked-uppercase metadata (Plus Jakarta eyebrows, like THIS · THAT · OTHER).
  • As the accent dot in a hairline break at 4-6px radius.

Violations

  • Scattering more than one gold accent on the same surface — the research calls it ‘stops being a signal’.
  • Using blue / green / neutral dots — defeats the whole singular-accent discipline.
  • Making it much larger than 8px — beyond that, it reads as a bullet, not a pin.

Chapter 2 · motion

Three tokens. Everywhere.

Every transition on every surface derives from these three durations. If a component needs a fourth, the component is wrong.

Fast

120ms

hover · micro-feedback

Base

200ms

status flips · card reveals

Slow

480ms

atlas pan · match reveal

Recompute

150ms

dirham live-swap

The never-animate list

  • Wordmark

    Morphs the brand mark. Never.

  • Legal text

    Fine print and compliance copy never wait for a fade.

  • dirham — static render

    dirham figures animate ONLY on recompute, not on initial paint.

  • Channel-partner badges

    Trust signals must not move. The market reads movement as promotion.

Chapter 1 · photography

Product UI first. Stock never.

Four tiers of imagery, in priority order. If a surface can't show tier 1, it steps to tier 2 — never further. Tier 4 does not exist for formenzo.

  1. 01

    Product UI

    Live atlas, match reveal, portal docket, ops case timeline, quote line items.

    Benchmark · Stripe + Linear + Firstbase — all product-first heroes.

    Use freely

  2. 02

    Custom illustration

    Geometric icons for the F-marker family, abstract zone maps, commissioned graphics — never generic stock illustration.

    Benchmark · Notion illustration system. Mamo Pay vignettes.

    Use freely

  3. 03

    Named founder / customer portraits

    Real people, credited by name + role. Stripe Atlas scale — every portrait paired with a company logo + the customer's own sentence of intent.

    Benchmark · Stripe Atlas 'From Linear, Cursor, Copilot Money' wall.

    Use with care

  4. 04

    Stock photography

    Never. No exceptions, no campaign dispensations.

    Benchmark · Virtuzone + Shuraa failure mode: handshake / skyline / ATMs — the three explicit bans.

    Never

Three explicit failure modes

  • Handshake

    Consultancy tell. Virtuzone uses it. It's the category's most overused visual cue.

  • Dubai skyline

    Place-holder, not place. Everyone in the category uses it. Any rooftop photograph = immediate dilution.

  • Corporate boardroom

    Wrong audience signal — suggests enterprise + gatekeepers, not founder + software.

Chapter 3 · arabic

A peer language, not a toggle.

Tabby is the regional benchmark — their Arabic site is a first-class experience, not a translation layer. formenzo's Arabic follows the same rule: the Latin wordmark stays in place (it's the mark), every other surface is composed natively.

  • Commission an Arabic companion face

    Fraunces italic does not translate. Pair it with an Arabic serif of equivalent register (Ibn Al-Basri or bespoke).

  • Wordmark stays Latin

    ‘formenzo.’ lowercase + gold pin is the mark. Arabic goes beside it in the body, never re-drawn.

  • Gold pin flips to the LEFT of the wordmark in RTL

    Dot-as-period logic: period is always end-of-word.

  • Match symbol behaves identically in RTL

    The pulse has no directionality. Position it on the trailing edge of whichever word it anchors.

  • Arabic numerals for dirham prices

    Eastern Arabic numerals by default on the Arabic surface (‘AED  ١٢٬٢٠٠’). Keep Western numerals on Latin.

  • Voice is native, not translated

    Arabic register ≠ English register. Don't Google-translate the hero — hire an Arabic copywriter.

Chapter 4 · brand moments

Seven places the brand shows at full volume.

Everywhere else the brand sits quiet — letting product work. These seven surfaces are the exceptions: full Fraunces italic, full pulse, full vocabulary.

  1. 01

    Licence-arrived email

    Trigger · Ops flips case.status to APPROVED and the free-zone licence PDF lands.

    Fraunces italic ‘Your licence is live.’ headline. dirham figure big. Single accent CTA to download.

  2. 02

    First zone-match notification

    Trigger · Wizard submit → atlas recomputes → match reveals.

    Live MatchSymbol + Fraunces italic zone short-name (‘ifza’, ‘dmcc’).

  3. 03

    Founder portrait reveal

    Trigger · Case timeline hits ‘company formed’. Portal reveals the customer's first trade-name card.

    Named founder portrait + one-sentence intent quote. Stripe-Atlas scale.

  4. 04

    Channel-partner badge tooltip

    Trigger · Hover or tap any zone card. Reveals the ‘formenzo × IFZA channel partner since 2023’ credential.

    Logo-tier prominence (Lean Technologies template) — badges aren't footer furniture.

  5. 05

    Case timeline countdown

    Trigger · Case ETA calculated. Day count in Fraunces italic, decrementing on the dashboard.

    Fraunces italic numeral, ink body, gold accent beside. Timeline language stays case-specific.

  6. 06

    Compliance-green state

    Trigger · Every required filing is current. /compliance page flips to its emerald state.

    Fraunces italic ‘Good standing.’ headline with a single rubber-stamp badge.

  7. 07

    Banking-readiness tooltip

    Trigger · Hover the Banking Readiness Meter on /cases. Reveals the profile factors behind the route.

    Tabular-nums dirham + readiness score in Fraunces italic gold.

Rule #8 · channel-partner badges

Logo-tier, not footer furniture.

Lean Technologies positions ADGM + SAMA badges at logo-tier on their homepage — that's the template. Our 17 channel- partner zones (IFZA, DMCC, Meydan, RAKEZ, …) sit at the same tier: visible on every zone card, every quote header, every case banner. Burying them in the footer is the Shuraa/Virtuzone move we don't make.

  • Zone card: badge above the fold

    Every zone card on /free-zones renders the partner-since-YYYY line at the top. Not a tooltip, not a hover.

  • Quote header: ‘in partnership with’ line

    Public /quote/[token] header carries a small wordmark-sized lockup with the matched zone.

  • Case banner: ‘filed through’ credit

    Portal /cases active-case banner names the channel partner once, tracked uppercase.

  • Never: footer small-print only

    If a partnership is not visible without scrolling, it is not being claimed.

Rule #9 · case-specific speed

Timeline, not “fast”.

The product should show a case-specific ETA only after it knows the authority, activity, visa route, documents, and banking profile. That is more trustworthy than a generic speed promise.

Canonical render

Live ETA

Day-count in Fraunces italic gold. Unit (“days”) in Fraunces italic ink. No subtitle.

Violations

  • “Fast formation” — softens the claim; no numeral survives.
  • “Quick setup” — same softener, same loss.
  • “Approximately a week” — hedging a number is worse than no number.
  • “Starts in 5-7 business days” — ranges turn a claim into a caveat.

Rule #10 · loading states

The match pulse replaces every spinner.

Anything that ranks, matches, or recomputes gets the live MatchSymbol instead of a generic rotating icon. Three sizes, same pattern — inline with text, replacing a button label, or standalone as a hero loader.

size · sm

Recomputing…

Inline with status text.

size · md

Matching zone…

Button-replacement / card loader.

size · lg

Atlas loading

Hero / full-screen state.

Source · packages/ui/src/MatchSymbol.tsx

Research · one sentence

formenzo already leads six of nine brand axes in the UAE category — the work is closing three specific gaps, not rebuilding.

Brand guidelines research · v1.0 · Apr 2026