# KushTunes Brand Guidelines
**Version 1.2, July 2026**
The official identity system for KushTunes, music distribution and event ticketing for independent African artists.

---

## 1. The idea

The name carries a kingdom. **Kush** was the Nile-valley civilization whose steep pyramids at Meroë still stand, a culture that met the world on its own terms. **Tunes** is what we move today.

The identity holds one image: **the Groove**, an eighth note for your music and a punched ticket stub for your show, carried inside an open circle that reads as a record's groove, a spotlight's ring, and the world the music travels. Distribution and ticketing in a single mark: always premium, always direct.

**Brand descriptors:** direct · premium · trustworthy · electric · proudly East African.

---

## 2. The logo system

<!-- LOGO_CONSTRUCTION -->

### 2.1 Versions
| Version | Use |
|---|---|
| **Primary lockup (horizontal)** | Default everywhere: web headers, documents, partner decks |
| **Vertical lockup** | Centered compositions: posters, splash screens, merch |
| **Wordmark only** | When the mark appears elsewhere on the same surface |
| **Icon / logomark** | Avatars, favicons, app icon, watermarks, embroidery |
| **Monogram (KT)** | Pattern use, premium merch, foil stamps |
| **Square lockup** | Social profile tiles, stamps, stickers |

### 2.2 Color variants
Every version ships in four colorways:
- **Dark (default):** white + Kush Lime on Void Black, the brand's home.
- **Light:** Ink + Lime Forest on white, documents, invoices, daytime surfaces.
- **Mono white / mono black:** single color for photography, print, engraving, one-color merch.
- **Lime solo:** the mark in pure #C4FF14, watermarks and accents only.

### 2.3 Clear space
Keep a margin equal to **one ticket-width of the mark (47u)** on all sides of any logo version. Nothing enters this zone: no type, no photos' focal points, no other marks.

### 2.4 Minimum sizes
| Asset | Digital | Print |
|---|---|---|
| Icon mark | 20 px (use favicon variant below) | 7 mm |
| Horizontal lockup | 96 px wide | 28 mm |
| Vertical lockup | 64 px wide | 20 mm |
| Wordmark alone | 72 px wide | 22 mm |

### 2.5 Do
- Place the dark version on Void Black or on photography darker than 40% luminance.
- Use the light version on white or Paper backgrounds.
- Use mono white over busy photography, inside a scrim if needed.
- Keep the mark's proportions locked, scale uniformly, always.

### 2.6 Don't
- Don't recolor the mark outside the four approved colorways.
- Don't add gradients, shadows, outlines, glows, or bevels to the logo.
- Don't rotate, skew, mirror, or animate the mark beyond the approved rise animation.
- Don't set the wordmark in another typeface or re-space its letters.
- Don't place lime-on-white (fails contrast) or lime-on-lime.
- Don't put the logo inside containers that crop its clear space.
- Don't create new lockups, event co-brands use the partnership lockup rule (§8).

---

## 3. Color

Dark mode is the brand's home, the night the music happens in. Light mode exists for paper, invoices, and daylight products.

### 3.1 Core
| Name | HEX | RGB | CMYK | Role |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| **Kush Lime** | `#C4FF14` | 196 255 20 | 23 0 92 0 | Primary accent. CTAs, the mark, key stats. |
| **Void Black** | `#0A0A0A` | 10 10 10 | 0 0 0 96 | Primary background. |
| **Pure White** | `#FFFFFF` | 255 255 255 | 0 0 0 0 | Text on dark; light-mode ground. |

### 3.2 Lime ladder
| Name | HEX | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Lime Press | `#B9F000` | Hover/pressed states of lime elements |
| Lime Deep | `#66B100` | Large accent text on light backgrounds |
| Lime Forest | `#4A7C00` | Small accent text on white (AA-safe) |
| Lime Glow | `#C4FF14` @ 15% | Halos, focus rings, glassy borders |

### 3.3 Neutrals
| Name | HEX | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Charcoal | `#121212` | Cards on Void Black |
| Slate | `#1A1A1A` | Elevated/hover surfaces on dark |
| Smoke | `#888888` | Muted text on dark |
| Ink | `#111827` | Primary text on light |
| Graphite | `#374151` | Secondary text on light |
| Fog | `#6B7280` | Muted text on light |
| Mist | `#F5F5F5` | Tertiary light surface |
| Paper | `#FAFAFA` | Secondary light surface |

### 3.4 Signal
| Name | HEX | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Ember | `#E8390A` | LIVE badges, alerts, destructive actions. Never decorative. |

### 3.5 Rules
- Lime is a **spotlight, not a floodlight**: it should cover well under 10% of any composition.
- Text in Kush Lime only on Void Black/Charcoal, and only at 18px+ (it fails contrast on white, use Lime Forest there).
- Never place Ember and Kush Lime side by side.
- Gradients: only lime→lime-press, subtle, and never on the logo.

---

## 4. Typography

Three voices, three jobs. All faces are free for commercial use (OFL / ITF licenses), partners can install them in minutes.

| Role | Face | Weights | Rules |
|---|---|---|---|
| **Display** | Big Shoulders | 700-800 | ALL CAPS. Tight leading (0.92). Headlines, stats ≥48px, posters. |
| **Body / UI** | Satoshi *(fallback: DM Sans)* | 400 / 500 / 700 | Sentence case. Leading 1.5. Everything readable. |
| **Data / Labels** | JetBrains Mono | 400-700 | UPPERCASE eyebrows with 0.14em tracking; stats, tables, ticket codes. |

### Hierarchy (reference scale)
- **Hero:** Big Shoulders 800, clamp(56-120px), uppercase, leading 0.92
- **H2:** Big Shoulders 800, 40-64px, uppercase
- **H3:** Satoshi 700, 24-28px
- **Body:** Satoshi 400, 16-18px, max width 65ch
- **Eyebrow:** JetBrains Mono 500, 12-13px, uppercase, +0.14em, Kush Lime (dark) / Lime Forest (light)
- **Caption:** Satoshi 400, 13-14px, Smoke/Fog

**The two-line rule:** hero statements break into short stacked lines with the payoff line in lime, *"YOUR MUSIC." / "EVERYWHERE IT MATTERS."*

---

## 5. Iconography

- 24×24 grid, 2.25px stroke, round caps and joins, terminals echo our pill radii.
- Icons are outlines, single-weight, one color (White, Ink, or Kush Lime, never mixed within a set).
- Metaphors stay concrete: upload, chart, ticket, wallet, QR, globe, play, calendar, split, waveform, spotlight, download.
- Never use emoji as interface icons. Never mix icon families.

## 6. Shapes & grid

- **Radii:** cards 20px · inputs 14px · buttons/pills 48px (full round). Sharp corners only where structural (tables, media).
- **The bar:** the brand's atomic shape, a rounded horizontal bar. Use bars for dividers, progress, charts and decorative rhythm.
- **Grid:** 12-column, 8px baseline. Section spacing in 96/128px steps. Generous negative space is a premium signal, when in doubt, remove.
- **Glass:** dark glass cards (`rgba(18,18,18,0.7)` + 1px Lime Glow border + blur) reserved for stat callouts and overlays.

## 7. Imagery

### Photography
- **Subjects:** real artists, real venues, real crowds, East African cities at night: studios in Nairobi, stages in Kampala, rooftops in Juba, street scenes in Dar.
- **Light:** hard directional stage light; lime/green gels welcome; deep shadows; grain over gloss.
- **Grade:** blacks crushed toward Void Black; one dominant hue per frame; skin tones true and rich, never washed out.
- **Never:** sterile stock, forced smiles at laptops, watermarked images, generic "Africa" clichés (sunsets with acacia trees).

### Illustration
- Flat vector, geometric, built from the brand's shape language (bars, steep triangles, pills, arcs).
- One accent (lime) + neutrals per piece. No gradients meshes, no 3D blobs, no mascots.

### Background rules
- Default ground: Void Black. Secondary: Charcoal cards.
- Light surfaces: White/Paper with Ink text.
- Photography behind type requires a scrim: bottom-up black gradient at 60-80%.
- Never place content on mid-grey (40-60% luminance), the identity lives at the extremes.

## 8. Partnership & co-branding

- **Partnership lockup:** KushTunes logo + 1px Smoke divider (24px padding each side) + partner logo, both at equal optical height, on Void Black or white only.
- In sponsored video, use the supplied "Sponsored by KushTunes" pill or corner bugs, never rebuild them.
- Broadcast: use broadcast-safe assets (no pure black/white) inside the 80% title-safe area; corner bugs at 5% margins, ≤90% opacity.

## 9. Motion

- **Signature move, "the rise":** elements enter from below and settle (250ms, cubic-bezier(0.4,0,0.2,1)), like a frequency bar hitting its level. No bounce, no elastic.
- Logo animation: bars of the mark rise in sequence (bottom→top, 400ms total), then hold. Reverse for outros.
- Micro-interactions: 150ms. Page transitions: 350ms. Respect `prefers-reduced-motion` always.

## 10. Voice & tone

**Principles**
1. Short declaratives. One idea per sentence.
2. Second person, present tense. *You upload. We deliver.*
3. Numbers before adjectives: "48 hours", "100%", "30+ platforms", never "blazingly fast".
4. Zero jargon. If an artist in Juba wouldn't say it, we don't write it.
5. Confidence without hype. *Straight answers. No fine print.*

**Tagline:** Your music. Everywhere it matters.

| Context | Tone | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Product UI | Plain, instant | "Release live. 34 stores." |
| Marketing | Bold, rhythmic | "DROP A TRACK ON FRIDAY. STREAMING WORLDWIDE BY MONDAY." |
| Support | Warm, precise | "Your payout left our side today, M-Pesa usually clears within an hour." |
| Press | Factual, proud | "KushTunes distributes to 30+ platforms in 180+ countries." |

**We never say:** "revolutionary", "disrupting", "solutions", "content creators" (we say *artists*), "users" (we say *artists* and *fans*).

---

## 11. File naming convention

```
kushtunes-{category}-{descriptor}-{colorway}[-{size}].{ext}
```
Examples: `kushtunes-logo-horizontal-dark.svg` · `kushtunes-icon-mark-mono-white-512.png` · `kushtunes-appicon-ios-1024.png`
Colorways: `dark` · `light` · `mono-white` · `mono-black` · `lime`

## 12. Contact

Brand questions & asset requests: **press@kushtunes.com** *(placeholder, confirm before publishing)* · kushtunes.com/press
