/ Brand Kit
Internal · v2026.04
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Brand Kit
Everything we use to keep our identity coherent — logo, brand colors, typography. Built for internal use across decks, marketing, partner-facing surfaces, and anywhere the Vela name shows up.
Logo system Brand color Typography Owner: Robert Salesas, CTO
01 · Identity

Logo System

Our identity is one SVG: logo-vela-intelligence.svg — the star and the wordmark locked together as a single file. The wordmark carries specific kerning, optical sizing, and forced uppercase that can only be preserved by using the vector file. Treat it as one unit. The icon-only star exists only as a fallback for square contexts (favicons, avatars).

Primary mark · use this everywhere logos/primary/logo-vela-intelligence.svg · 2272 × 307 · currentColor
Brand rule. The star and the wordmark "VELA INTELLIGENCE" must always appear together. Never re-typeset the name — the wordmark has its own spacing, weight, and all-caps treatment that the SVG preserves. Never crop the star away. Never substitute Montserrat or any other font for the wordmark.

The primary lockup on backgrounds

Same SVG, four contexts. The lockup is colored by currentColor — the surface chooses, the mark adapts.

Black on canvas
Default · highest contrast
White on brand
Hero · slide title pages
White on dark
Dark UI · video · broadcast
White on accent
Sparingly · campaign highlight

Alternate lockups

For contexts where the horizontal lockup doesn't fit — narrow columns, square avatars with the wordmark beneath, headers where only the name needs to appear. Each is shipped as its own SVG with the same locked spacing and all-caps wordmark as the primary lockup. Use these instead of the primary, never combined with it.

Star + VELA · stacked
logos/stacked/logo-vela.svg · 256 × 381 · narrow & square contexts
VELA · wordmark only
logos/wordmark/vela-intelligence-vela-wordmark.svg · 2498 × 700
SVG
VELA INTELLIGENCE · wordmark only
logos/wordmark/vela-intelligence-wordmark.svg · 9423 × 724
NOTE
The brand rule still applies: the wordmark in any lockup is the SVG — never re-typeset, always all-caps, always with its locked spacing. Picking an alternate lockup is a layout decision; the wordmark itself never changes.

Icon-only fallback

The star may appear alone only when the surface is square and too small to read the wordmark — favicons, profile avatars, app icons, social chips at < 32 px. Anywhere larger, use the full lockup.

Star · icon-only
≤ 32 px contexts only
Star · on brand
App icon · loading state
Star · on dark
Dark favicon
Star · brand tint
UI accents only

Usage

Do
  • Always use the full lockup SVG (logo-vela-intelligence.svg) whenever there is room for the wordmark to be read.
  • Keep the star and "VELA INTELLIGENCE" together as one unit — they ship as one SVG for a reason.
  • Preserve minimum clear space equal to the height of one star-point (≈ 25% of the lockup height) on all sides.
  • Render the file in currentColor when embedded in product code, so theme switches "just work" between light and dark mode.
  • Pair the white-on-brand variant with the primary 600/700 shades — not the lighter 50–300 shades.
Don't
  • Don't separate the star from the wordmark — they belong together. The star alone is only for square contexts under 32 px.
  • Don't re-typeset "Vela Intelligence" in Montserrat or any other font. The wordmark has its own kerning and forced uppercase — use the SVG.
  • Don't change the case — the wordmark is always all-caps. No "Vela Intelligence" in mixed-case as a graphic.
  • Don't change the spacing between the star and the wordmark, or rearrange them vertically as a custom stack.
  • Don't recolor the star and wordmark independently — they are one mark, one color.
  • Don't rotate, skew, outline, or stretch the lockup. Don't add drop shadows beyond the brand-supplied hero treatment.
02 · Color

Color Palette

Three primary families — Indigo, Emerald, Ember — plus two tertiary families: Slate (cool gray for text) and Gold (warm contrast). Each ramps across 11 shades. The canonical brand shades in practice are Indigo 900 (the dark canvas), Emerald 600 (voice / trust), and Ember 400 (action / CTA) — that last one is intentionally lighter than the 600 default because Ember at 600 reads as muddy, and the brand needs its accent bright. Hover any swatch and pick T to copy the CSS-variable token (e.g. --indigo-600), H for hex, O for the oklch() value — ready to paste into CSS or HTML.

Brand Primary · Indigo
hue 260 · light · default
Brand Secondary · Emerald
hue 163 · supports, signal-of-trust
Brand Accent · Ember
hue 50 · highlights · canonical at 400

Tertiary palettes

Two supporting families for roles the primary brand colors don't carry alone. They fill specific functional jobs — they don't compete with Indigo/Emerald/Ember for brand expression. Surfaces and borders are not in here: they use Indigo 800–950 directly, because the brand canvas IS Indigo.

Tertiary · Slate
hue 248 · text on dark · cool gray
Tertiary · Gold
hue 90 · warm contrast · used sparingly
Slate · use for
  • Slate 50 — primary body text on the dark navy canvas (near-white with a cool cast). Replaces a generic #F4F4F4 off-white.
  • Slate 200 — secondary text. Subheadings, descriptions under headlines, less-prominent paragraphs.
  • Slate 400 — tertiary text. Captions, metadata, timestamps ("Updated 2h ago"), source citations, helper text under form fields, disabled-state labels.
  • Slate 700–950 — extremely rare; used only when an element specifically needs a desaturated dark variant the Indigo ramp can't supply.
Gold · use for
  • Gold 100–200 — warm contrast slide backgrounds in formal pitch decks. The sand-coloured rest from the navy → emerald cadence.
  • Gold 300–500 — the "Social" pillar dot in ESG contexts, and similar single-purpose semantic markers.
  • Never as a brand voice or CTA color — Gold supports a moment of warmth, then steps back.
03 · Typography

Typography

Three type families. Manrope carries the headings and the numbers we want to feel confident. Inter handles everything that needs to read like a sentence. JetBrains Mono does the specific monospace work — eyebrows, code, token names, hex values, metadata.

Manrope Display & headings
Download Manrope.zip
AaBb
a‑z A‑Z 0‑9 · — ‘ ’ “ ” ( ) [ ] { } & @ # $ %
SemiBold
600 · subheads, labels
Bold
700 · default heading
ExtraBold
800 · hero, metric value
Inter Body, UI, captions
Download Inter.zip
AaBb
a‑z A‑Z 0‑9 · — ‘ ’ “ ” ( ) [ ] { } & @ # $ %
Light
300 · long-form fallback
Regular
400 · body default
Medium
500 · emphasis
SemiBold
600 · labels, strong
JetBrains Mono Code · eyebrows · tokens
Aa01
a‑z A‑Z 0‑9 · < > { } [ ] ( ) / \ # @ & %
Regular
400 · code, hex, oklch
Medium
500 · token names
SemiBold
600 · uppercase eyebrows

Type scale

Heading 1
36 / 1.20
The shape of intelligent finance
Heading 2
24 / 1.20
The shape of intelligent finance
Heading 3
20 / 1.20
The shape of intelligent finance
Heading 4
16 / 1.20
The shape of intelligent finance
Body Lg
16 / 1.50
The shape of intelligent finance — Inter regular, comfortable reading.
Body Md
14 / 1.50
The shape of intelligent finance — Inter regular, default body size used across product surfaces.
Body Sm
13 / 1.50
The shape of intelligent finance — Inter regular, used in dense tables and side panels.
Caption
13 / 1.40
Compliance · Risk · Onboarding
Overline
12 / 1.50
Section Label
04 · Color in practice

Gradient & Color Behavior

How the brand colors actually live on a page. Observed from the marketing site: a dark navy atmosphere, two-color pairings only, and "gradient" expressed more often as a colored glow than a literal fill. The working anchors below (navy, emerald, orange, sand) are pulled directly from the site CSS — they sit alongside the OKLCH brand palettes and are a candidate for a deeper color reconciliation pass.

A · The atmosphere

The brand's native habitat is dark navy, not white. Off-white type, emerald glow, orange singular CTA. Every page on the marketing site obeys this composition.

Vela Intelligence · Hero composition
From Documents
to Decisions.
Explainable intelligence for high-stakes decisions. Off-white on navy. Atmospheric emerald glow at opposite corners. One orange action.

B · Working anchors & roles

Every working color the brand uses, mapped to its canonical palette swatch. The hex is what currently ships; the palette name is the source of truth.

Canvas · atmosphere Indigo 900 · "Navy" oklch(0.260 0.087 260) · #07214D
Voice · trust · "yes" Emerald 600 oklch(0.450 0.114 163) · #006842
Singular CTA Ember 400 · "Orange" oklch(0.630 0.181 50) · #DB5F00
Focal · slides Indigo 950 · "Black" oklch(0.220 0.063 260) · #081937
Warmth · tertiary Gold 200 · "Sand" oklch(0.830 0.075 90) · #DAC68F
Text on dark · tertiary Slate 50 · "Off-white" oklch(0.980 0.011 248) · #F3F9FF
RULE
One orange per view, plenty of emerald, all on navy. Text uses Slate, never pure white. Surfaces and borders use Indigo 800–950 directly — no separate "dark surface" tertiary.

C · Pairing rules

CSS ONLY
Every gradient is a CSS function — linear-gradient(), radial-gradient(), conic-gradient(). Never a raster image (no background-image: url('gradient.png')) and never an SVG used as a page backdrop. Image-based gradients band visibly, leave hard seams where the image ends when users scroll or resize, and break on retina / ultra-wide / dark-mode. The single exception is inside SVG asset files — the Emerald → Ember labs gradient lives inside labs/zephlyn-icon.svg and labs/vaelth-icon.svg because those are vector icons, not page backdrops.

Gradients pair exactly two colors. There are four allowed recipes and one explicit "never".

Emerald → Ember
linear-gradient(135deg, Emerald 400, Ember 400)
Reserved for Vela Labs sub-brand only. Never on main brand surfaces.
Indigo 900 → 700
linear-gradient(160deg, Indigo 900, 800, 700)
Same-hue depth. Mood, atmosphere, slide backgrounds. Never chromatic shift.
Emerald 600 → 700
linear-gradient(160deg, Emerald 600, Emerald 700)
Positive signal in motion. Progress bars, "pass" states, slide accents.
Color → transparent
linear-gradient(90deg, transparent, Slate 700, transparent)
Fade in, fade out. Dividers and atmospheric strips only.
Indigo + Ember · never
— do not blend —
These are contrast colors. Ember CTA on Indigo canvas is the brand. Blending them flattens the relationship.

D · Glow as a brand technique

The site does most of its "colored light" with box-shadow, not with gradient fills. Hover any element below to see it.

Action glow
box-shadow: 0 0 20px oklch(Ember 400 / 0.30)
Regulated Environments
Hover — card lifts with an emerald aura.
Surface glow
box-shadow: 0 0 30px oklch(Emerald 600 / 0.20)
Environmental Social Governance
Pip glow
box-shadow: 0 0 8px oklch(brand / 0.6)
RULE
Glow alpha: 0.15–0.30 with blur 20–30px for surfaces. 0.6 with blur 8px for status pips. Same hue family as the element — emerald cards glow emerald, orange CTAs glow orange.

E · Translucency

Brand color at reduced alpha is the third "gradient" technique. Use these target alphas for tinted glassmorphic surfaces.

100%full
90%headers
50%scrims
35%borders
15%atmospheric
100%full
90%headers
50%scrims
35%borders
15%atmospheric

F · Gradient angles

Where direction matters, only these angles appear in brand-approved usage.

90°
Dividers · meters · utility
135°
Sand / warm surfaces · icons
160°
Slide backgrounds · cinematic
45°
Small icons · sub-brand marks

G · Accents for data — charts, graphs, multi-series

When you need more than the brand triad — bar charts, line series, donut segments, any data split into groups — extend the palette from the token families in the original brand tokens.

METHOD
(1) Lead with the brand triad — Indigo, Emerald, Ember. (2) Lock the lightness at L = 0.63 (the 400-shade) so every series sits at equal visual weight. (3) Step the hue ~30–60° around the colour wheel from the brand hues (260 · 163 · 50). (4) Pick only from the yaml token families: rose, coral, red, wine, crimson, clay, orange, amber, gold, yellow, lemon, lime, sage, green, jade, mint, teal, sea, cyan, pool, ice, azure, fjord, sky, blue, cobalt, iris, dusk, violet, lilac, orchid, plum, grape, fuchsia, pink, blush. (5) Never use Gold or Slate as a data series — they're surfaces, not signals. (6) Never use the Labs Emerald → Ember gradient in a chart.

Recommended chart palette · all at L = 0.63

Brand · 1 Indigo 400 #4E87E6 · hue 260
Brand · 2 Emerald 400 #339F75 · hue 163
Brand · 3 Ember 400 #DB5F00 · hue 50
Extra · 4 Lime 400 #879200 · hue 115
Extra · 5 Pool 400 #009DBD · hue 215
Extra · 6 Plum 400 #C85BA8 · hue 340
Extra · 7 Amber 400 #C07700 · hue 75
Extra · 8 Teal 400 #009FA0 · hue 195

The same palette on three contexts — see how each colour holds up

Almost-black · Indigo 950
IndigoEmeraldEmberLimePoolPlumAmberTeal
Brand canvas · Indigo 900
IndigoEmeraldEmberLimePoolPlumAmberTeal
Almost-white · Slate 50
IndigoEmeraldEmberLimePoolPlumAmberTeal

Picking order — what to reach for, in what scenario

ScenarioPalette
1–3 categorical seriesIndigo 400, Emerald 400, Ember 400 — brand triad at the chart lightness
4–6 categorical seriesBrand triad + Lime 400, Pool 400, Plum 400 — fill the gaps between brand hues
7–8 categorical seriesAbove + Amber 400, Teal 400
> 8 categorical seriesReconsider — aggregate, facet, or split the view; more than 8 hues stops being legible
Sequential (low → high)One brand or tertiary ramp end-to-end: Emerald 100 → 800 (growth), Indigo 100 → 800 (concentration), Slate 100 → 800 (neutral)
Diverging (neg ← 0 → pos)Ember 400 ← Slate 200 → Emerald 400 — brand contrast through a neutral midpoint
ESG pillarsE = Emerald 400 · S = Gold 300 · G = Slate 400 (already codified)
05 · Iconography

Icons

Vela uses two Font Awesome styles, picked by purpose — not by where the icon appears. Sharp Duotone (fa-sharp-duotone fa-solid) when the icon enhances — feature emphasis, illustration, decorative depth. Solid (fa-solid) when the icon is informational — bullets, button glyphs, chevrons, arrows, status pips, anything functional or directive. The signature feature-icon treatment is a 42 × 42 Emerald 600 tile with a Slate 50 icon at 18 px (1.125 rem).

Regulated
fa-shield-halved
Diligence
fa-clipboard-check
Layered
fa-layer-group
Balanced
fa-scale-balanced
Continuous
fa-arrows-rotate
Risk
fa-triangle-exclamation
KIT
The Vela Font Awesome Kit (b122b96a8f) is licensed under our account. velaintelligence.com and our approved related domains are enabled on the kit. Don't load it from a non-approved domain — license violation.
Embed & usage
<!-- in <head> -->
<link rel="preconnect" href="https://kit.fontawesome.com" crossorigin>
<link rel="preconnect" href="https://ka-f.fontawesome.com" crossorigin>
<script src="https://kit.fontawesome.com/b122b96a8f.js" crossorigin="anonymous"></script>

<!-- usage -->
<i class="fa-sharp-duotone fa-solid fa-shield-halved"></i>   <!-- enhancement: feature icon -->
<i class="fa-solid fa-arrow-right"></i>                      <!-- informational: button arrow -->
06 · Sub-brand

Vela Labs

A distinct visual language for experimental work and internal tools. Labs uses an emerald crystal mark and the emerald → orange diagonal gradient on its product icons — the only place this two-hue blend is approved. Labs borrows the navy atmosphere from the main brand, but speaks with a brighter, more playful voice on top of it.

Vela Labs · crystal
The crystal mark
Solid emerald (#2D6A4F) at three opacities — 1.0, 0.6, 0.4. The three facets create depth without ever leaving the emerald hue. Use this mark wherever Labs is named or branded; it replaces (never accompanies) the Vela Intelligence lockup.

Labs product icons

Each Labs product gets its own glyph drawn in stroke, filled with the emerald → orange diagonal gradient. Same gradient, different shape. This is the only sanctioned use of the two-hue blend.

Zephlyn
stacked planes glyph
Vaelth
circle + square glyph
Next Labs product
follows the same recipe
RULE
The emerald → orange gradient belongs to Vela Labs. Don't use it on Vela Intelligence main-brand surfaces — that's how the two brands stay legible side-by-side.
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