Every mark has a meaning.

formenzo is software that shows supported UAE formation routes, transparent dirham pricing, filing progress, banking readiness, and compliance reminders before a sales call.

If what you are about to ship doesn't ladder back to this sentence, cut it.

• Fraunces

  Display · italic serif

  Hero headlines, dirham figures, accent phrases. Italic only — never regular weight.

• Plus Jakarta Sans

  Brand · sans extrabold 800

  Wordmark + UI display. Tight tracking -0.055em. Always lowercase for brand.

• Inter

  Body · sans 400/500/600

  Long-form copy. Never below 15px in body contexts.

• JetBrains Mono

  Mono · 500

  Eyebrows, dirham numerals, chips, metadata. Tracking 0.18–0.22em uppercase.

1. Pillar · 1

   Software, not consultancy

   The CTA is ‘start the match’ — never ‘book a call’.

2. Pillar · 2

   Live & comparative

   Change an input, watch it recompute. That motion is the signature.

3. Pillar · 3

   Verified, not vibes

   Channel-partner badges, 2026 dirham pricing, banking-readiness by passport.

4. Pillar · 4

   Case-specific timeline

   Not ‘consultation’. Execution tracked by real milestones.

1. 01

   Product UI

   Atlas, match reveal, portal docket. Stripe + Linear + Firstbase pattern.

2. 02

   Custom illustration

   Geometric icons, abstract zone maps. Notion system scale.

3. 03

   Named portraits

   Real founders, credited by name + role + company logo.

4. 04

   Stock photography

   Never.

Three explicit failure modes

• Handshake

  Consultancy tell. Virtuzone owns it.

• Dubai skyline

  Place-holder, not place. Category cliché.

• Corporate boardroom

  Wrong audience signal — enterprise + gatekeepers.

Never animate

Wordmark · legal copy · dirham-static · channel-partner badge.

• Commission an Arabic companion face

  Fraunces does not translate. Pair with an Arabic serif of equivalent register.

• Wordmark stays Latin

  ‘formenzo.’ lowercase + gold pin. Arabic sits beside in body copy.

• Gold pin flips LEFT in RTL

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

• Eastern Arabic numerals for dirham prices

  (AED  ١٢٬٢٠٠) on Arabic surfaces. Western numerals stay on Latin.

• Voice is native, not translated

  Hire an Arabic copywriter. Don't Google-translate the hero.

1. Moment · 01

   Licence-arrived email

   Fraunces italic ‘Your licence is live.’ + big dirham figure.

2. Moment · 02

   First zone-match notification

   Live MatchSymbol + Fraunces italic zone short-name.

3. Moment · 03

   Founder portrait reveal

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

4. Moment · 04

   Channel-partner tooltip

   Logo-tier prominence — not footer furniture.

5. Moment · 05

   Case timeline countdown

   Fraunces italic numeral. Gold accent beside.

6. Moment · 06

   Compliance-green state

   ‘Good standing.’ + single rubber-stamp badge.

7. Moment · 07

   Approval-% tooltip

   Tabular-nums dirham + % in Fraunces italic gold.

• Wordmark

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

• F-marker

  The product returning one answer from forty-eight. The gold square is the match.

• Match symbol

  Two overlapping circles; gold lens is the intersection. Founder ∩ zone.

• Pin (singular dot)

  One answer, one pulse. Beside Fraunces italic headlines and any matching state.

1. #1

   Wordmark lowercase always. Capital F is a brand violation.

2. #2

   Three-colour palette only. Ink, paper, accent. No gradients, no second accent.

3. #3

   Italic Fraunces is the signature. Never set in regular weight.

4. #4

   dirham pricing is always a brand moment. Fraunces italic in gold. Name the number.

5. #5

   The CTA verb is ‘start’, not ‘book’. No ‘schedule a call’ as primary.

6. #6

   Wordmark never animates. No fade-in on entry, no morph on hover.

7. #7

   Legal copy stays static. Never behind a fade-in gate.

8. #8

   Channel-partner badges at logo-tier. Above the fold on every zone card, quote header, case banner.

9. #9

   Use case-specific timeline language. Never imply fixed approval or banking dates.

10. #10

    The match pulse replaces every spinner. Use <MatchSymbol> from @formenzo/ui.

11. #11

    Live recompute is the signature motion. 120–180ms value swap, never a page reload.

12. #12

    Stock photography never appears.

13. #13

    Arabic is a peer, not a toggle.

14. #14

    The gold pin carries the product metaphor. Never tint the pin.

15. #15

    Publish the brand. /brand is public because no UAE formation brand documents this layer.

• Say · match, compute, file, live, verified.
• Never · consultation, speak to an expert, our advisors, book a call.
• Dirham · never “starting from.” Name the exact number (AED  4,888).
• Arabic · wordmark stays Latin; tagline translates.

This PDF is a snapshot. The brand evolves. Here's how to keep it in sync without losing the discipline above.

The four-step update

1. 1. Edit docs/brand.md. Every brand change starts here.
2. 2. Mirror the wording into apps/web/src/app/brand/print/page.tsx (and /brand/page.tsx if a mark's meaning changed).
3. 3. Regenerate the PDF: pnpm brand:pdf. Writes ~/Desktop/formenzo-brand-guidelines-v<ver>.pdf.
4. 4. Bump the version string (hero + footer) and commit all three files in one PR. Git log is the changelog.

Versioning

• Patch (1.0 → 1.0.1) — wording tweaks.
• Minor (1.0 → 1.1) — a new rule, chapter, or moment.
• Major (1.x → 2.0) — palette, typography, or positioning change.

A committed snapshot of each version lives at docs/brand-guidelines-v<ver>.pdf. Open that file from the repo any time you need the canonical reference without regenerating.