Brand guidelines · v1.0 · 24 October 2026
Keep the take you meant.
The honmay identity: one drawn kanji, a lowercase wordmark, paper and vermilion. Everything here is measured, and the files are below.
01foundation
A teleprompter that knows what you meant.
honmay is a native Mac teleprompter that edits. You read your script at the lens, retake any sentence with one key, and it keeps the take of each paragraph that matches what you meant to say. The brand makes one promise at every touchpoint: keep the take you meant. It should feel the way the product works: calm on camera, exact about the words, and never mysterious about its choices.
The script is the ground truth
The edit follows what you meant to say, not just what a transcript heard. This is the one real difference, and the brand says it first.
Retakes are free
One key, any number of takes, nothing thrown away. Perfection gets cheap, so the brand is relaxed about mistakes.
It shows why
Every pick has a reason you can read and change. No black box, in the product or in the copy.
Everything stays on your Mac
No account, no upload, one price with no subscription required. Independence is a feature; say it plainly.
Tagline
Read it. Retake it. Keep the one. The app’s three screens, Script, Studio and Review, as verbs, always in this order with the full stops. Short form: Keep the one. Descriptive, in the nokko pattern of category, mechanism and terms: Talking-head video. Cut by your script. On your Mac. App Store subtitle: Teleprompter that edits takes (29 characters).
02name
honmay, always lowercase.
The name is written honmay in every position in marketing: start of a sentence, headline, button. Inside the app, in the menu bar and as the App Store name it is Honmay, the way nokko writes Nokko. It is pronounced HON-may. It comes from 本命 honmei, “the one you really mean”: the favourite, the first choice. The spelling is anglicised so English readers say it right the first time; the mark carries the Japanese.
Never use 本番 (honban, the take “for real”) in copy, even though it is what a Japanese set calls before rolling: it also has a vulgar sense. When ambiguity is possible, write “the honmay app” or “honmay for Mac”. Don’t attach the kanji to the name in running text.
03the mark — 本
One character with the product's meaning in it.
The mark is a drawn, geometric 本 (hon). It is 木, a tree, with one short stroke across the trunk at the root. That stroke turned “tree” into “root”, then “the real thing”, then “book”. Three everyday words cover the whole product:
- 台本 daihon · script
- 本物 honmono · the real thing
- 本命 honmei · the one you meant
Our reading of the shape: the root stroke is the take you keep, the one mark that makes the footage into the real thing. Tell it as our reading, never as etymology.
Integrity of the character. The mark stays a well-formed 本 to a Japanese reader: five strokes, none removed, merged or added; the root stroke sits between the legs, just above their tips. It was checked against Hiragino Sans and Hiragino Maru Gothic. Five strokes hold at 16 px, which nokko’s twelve-stroke 順 does not.
04logo system
Three assets, one vector master.
The lockup (mark and wordmark), the mark alone, and the app icon. The wordmark is Figtree Bold at −20 tracking, outlined once and never re-typeset. The kanji is set the way Japanese sets kanji beside Latin: on the full em, from just above the ascender into the descender. Source of truth: lib/mark.ts.
App icon
The icon is the seal: white 本 on vermilion, the hanko stamped on the take you keep. It is a layered Icon Composer file with its own dark appearance (warm ink, Shu Light glyph); tinted and clear are drawn by macOS. The icon’s gradient, #E2542F → #C2381A, is the only gradient in the system. These are macOS’s own renders of the shipping file.
Clearspace and minimums
1× is the gap between the mark and the wordmark. Keep at least 1× clear on every side of the lockup. Minimums: lockup 112 px wide, mark 16 px. At 32 px and under, use the small-size cut (stroke 12.5 instead of 11), which every exported asset already does. The menu bar uses the mark alone as a template image.
05colour
Paper, ink and one vermilion.
nokko is violet on ink; honmay is vermilion on paper, the colour of a hanko seal and of a camera’s tally light. Shu means “the one you keep”: the mark, the primary action, links and the kept take. It never decorates and never signals an error. Meaning is never carried by colour alone. Inside the app the UI keeps the system accent, because red already means recording there.
Shu
#CE3F1D
Vermilion, 朱. The mark, primary buttons, links on paper or white, the kept take.
Shu Deep
#A8321A
Pressed and hover states; vermilion text on Washi.
Shu Light
#FF7759
The mark and accents on Ink. Never on paper.
Ink
#16120F
Text, the wordmark, dark bands. Warm near-black, never #000.
Paper
#FAF8F4
The page. Warm off-white, like washi.
Washi
#F1EDE6
Sunken bands and tables. One step down from Paper.
Stone
#6B645D
Secondary text on Paper, White and Washi.
Line
#E5DFD6
Hairlines and borders. Never text.
White
#FFFFFF
App windows and cards on Paper; type on Shu.
Contrast (WCAG 2.1, measured)
| Pair | Ratio | Use for |
|---|---|---|
| AaInk on Paper | 17.6 : 1 · AAA | headlines, body |
| AaStone on Paper | 5.5 : 1 · AA | secondary text |
| AaWhite on Shu | 4.8 : 1 · AA | buttons, the icon, the reversed mark |
| AaShu on Paper | 4.6 : 1 · AA | links, the mark on light |
| AaWhite on Shu Deep | 6.7 : 1 · AA | pressed buttons |
| AaShu on Washi | 4.1 : 1 · large only | never body text; use Shu Deep |
| AaShu Light on Ink | 7.1 : 1 · AAA | the mark and links on dark |
| AaMuted on Night | 7.4 : 1 · AAA | secondary text in dark bands |
06typography
Geometric for the brand, native for the app, mono for the timecode.
Figtree
Marketing, the site, the store and this book. 700 for display, 600 for emphasis, 400 for body. Shared with nokko, so the studio reads as one. Self-hosted; open source.
SF Pro
The app. honmay is a native Mac app and uses the system font, including the prompter (SF Pro Semibold) and the menu bar.
JetBrains Mono
Timecodes, file names, keyboard keys, section labels. The ¶ mark leads every section label: honmay thinks in paragraphs.
07voice
Say the true thing, plainly.
The voice is a careful editor explaining their cut: specific, calm, a little dry. It earns trust with claims anyone can check. Short sentences, active voice, the script’s vocabulary: script, take, paragraph, keep.
Do say
- “Record as many takes as you need. honmay keeps the one that matches your script.”
- “Your pitch never leaves your Mac.”
- “Lifetime means lifetime.”
- “Take 4 skipped seven words.”
Don't say
- “AI-powered editing”
- “Magic”
- “Go viral”, “10× your content”
- Anything a sceptical founder couldn’t check in the app.
Rules
- honmay lowercase; Honmay in the app.
- State limits in the open: macOS 26+, languages, Mac App Store only.
- Numbers and keys exactly: ⌘⇧R, 720p, 20 MB.
- No invented testimonials, ratings or logos.
Boilerplate
honmay is a native Mac teleprompter that edits. Paste your script, read it at the lens, retake any sentence with one key, and get a finished MP4 with captions. Each paragraph uses its best take, matched to your script, on your Mac. No account, no upload, no subscription required.
08applications
Where the identity has to work.
Website
Paper ground, Ink text, Shu for the mark, links and the one primary action per view. Dark bands only where the app is dark: the Studio. Product windows are drawn at the app's own point sizes from one demo fixture, and replaced by real captures as they exist.
App Store
Screenshots on Paper with one Figtree headline each, the app window large. The subtitle is “Teleprompter that edits takes”. Keywords: prompter, autocue, retake, captions, subtitles, srt, script, record, video, talking head, linkedin, hook, voice.
Video
Free exports carry “Made with Honmay” in the corner. The brand never sits on a Pro export. Social cards: the lockup on Paper or Ink with the tagline, nothing else.
People in pictures
honmay's promise is a real person on camera, so the brand never uses a generated face. Until the founder's own footage exists, frames show a photograph of a real presenter, never a drawing or a render.
09don'ts
Six ways to break it.
10files
The files.
Every file is generated from the vector master by npm run brand. The app icon itself lives in cutless-app (Art/make-icon.swift), from the same numbers.
honmay brand guidelines v1.0 · 24 October 2026 · Anemo, Kaunas · 本 hon · root / the real thing