Brand book · version one · October 2026
Hither
How Hither looks, sounds and behaves, and why. For whoever designs, writes or builds anything with the seal on it, including the AI studio that builds most of it.
The idea
One line we hold everything to.
A gig poster for your weekend.
A good gathering already has a poster in it: the names, the dates, the lineup, the people. Hither makes that poster first, then hands every guest a ticket inside. The brand borrows from the printed things crowds have always gathered around: show posters, ticket stubs, stamps, family snapshots.
People first
Real photographs of real gatherings, from the public archive. A product about a crowd shows a crowd.
Paper and ink
Two inks, hard rules, a stamp, a ticket. Things look printed, because the best invitations always were.
Things you can handle
Seals you press, stickers you peel, a poster you type into. The page answers your hands.
The name
Hither: to this place.
It’s what you say when you call someone over. Every Hither place is a door someone gets called through, by name. We say it plainly: “check Hither,” “it’s on the Hither,” “made with Hither.” Lowercase in the wordmark, capitalized in a sentence.
Voice
A good host: warm, a little mischievous, never cute about it.
We say
- Short, plain sentences, with contractions.
- What the guest does: open, swipe, swear in, show up.
- Facts and instructions in the interface: “Tap any line to change it.”
- The specific thing: “Bring a toast,” not “come prepared.”
We don’t say
- Seamless, effortless, elevate, curated, unforgettable, magical, all-in-one.
- Anything that would fit a competitor’s page unchanged.
- Exclamation points in the interface.
- Lines that describe the page instead of the weekend.
The seal
A red circle with a doorway cut out of it. The brand’s one shape.
- The door is 28 units wide on a 96-unit circle, its arch a half circle, its foot on the line 80.
- Clear space all round: half the seal’s width.
- Smallest size: 16px on screen, 6mm in print.
- Red on paper, paper on ink, or ink on paper. Nothing else.
- It is the favicon, the press-and-hold button, and the “made with” mark on every place.
- Never outline it, rotate it, add a shadow, or put a face in the door.
Wordmark
“hither” in Alfa Slab One, lowercase, with the seal.
Inks
Two house inks and one ink per kind of weekend. Each kind prints its photograph in its own ink.
#F3EEE5
#E9E1D3
#1E1A2B
#5F5868
#B8321F
Type
Four faces, each with one job. All free, all from Google Fonts.
- No italics in any title or headline, ever.
- One Anton size per poster row; sizes step down, never up.
- Labels stay in Courier; never invent a fifth face.
- Body text never below 15px on a phone.
The archive
Our imagery: real gatherings from the public record, printed as one-ink halftones.
- Public domain only, mostly the Farm Security Administration and Office of War Information collections (1935–1945), via the Library of Congress.
- Gatherings only: dances, reunions, weddings, picnics, birthdays, meetings. People together, not landscapes.
- One ink on paper, a 45° dot screen about 6–7px at full width. Never two colors, never a gradient.
- A credit line in Courier on every photograph, with what it is and where it’s from.
- Never crop the faces out. The faces are the point.
- Never use a real client’s photos or guests in marketing without their written yes.
Objects
The small printed things that carry information. Each one means something; none is decoration.
The ticket: a guest’s own link
The badge: your faction
the date
The stamp: one per poster
The date stub
Place skins
Inside the phone, each place wears its own skin. The brand frames it and never fights it.
In use
What the system makes, beyond the page.
The save-the-date, printed from any draft
FIThe recap card each guest gets after
For planners · every guest gets their own door · your cut on every weekend you bring
The planner’s leave-behind card
Motion
Motion reports what your hand did. Nothing fades in on its own.
A ring fills over 1.1 to 1.2 seconds. Let go early and it empties. Done, the door changes color.
Stickers lift under the pointer and stay where they’re dropped.
One slow line along the foot of the poster. Still for reduced motion.
Buttons press into their shadow in 120ms. Nothing over 200ms answers a tap.
Never
The tells that make a page look generated.