Brand Standards v2.0 · Brand Book
Regenerative
Development Corp
The reference that governs every surface RDC ships — palette, typography, voice, marks, and the design principles beneath them. Life before Profits.
Strategy
The operating argument
RDC is a regenerative investment company building the infrastructure for a development economy that values life, not just yield. The brand exists to make that thesis legible to stewards, investors, and partners — and to hold the gains where they are grown. Every later rule in this book obeys this premise.
03
Primary Lane
Stewards and aligned capital evaluating regenerative development. Write for the reader who must decide where to place patient capital and trust.
04
Positioning
Category, promise, proof, and the boundaries RDC will not cross. The checkpoint before any visual or verbal work is accepted.
05
Proof Model
Verified, not narrated. Claims trace to real data, governance records, and whole-place metrics — never mock arrays or hypothetical performance.
Voice
Verbal system
06
Voice
Grounded, confident, unhurried. Financial precision fused with ecological literacy. Lead with 'Stewardship' — never 'ESG', 'sustainable', or 'green' alone.
07
Copywriting
Short declarative anchors among longer technical passages. Contrast extraction with regeneration. The '→' suffix is the canonical CTA marker (e.g. 'Investor Access →').
“Design that heals, finance that nourishes, and rules that hold the gains where they are grown.”
Wordmark & Logo System
Marks and assets
Wordmark set in Sora. Minimum clear space equals one cap-height on all sides. Gold accent permitted on paper; reverse to --paper on dark bands.
The chord encodes Regeneration · Development · Capital. Letters keep their fixed token colors; co-branding never alters the chord hues.
Color
17 tokens · WCAG-graded
Every swatch reads from a --token in globals.css. Contrast ratios are computed against white and black; use the grade to choose legible text on each surface.
Core palette
--paper
Paper · body ground
--anthracite
Anthracite · body text
--dark
Dark · movement bands
--gold
Gold · brand accent
Mark chord
--rdc-green
R · Regeneration
--rdc-amber
D · Development
--rdc-navy
C · Capital
Five Capitals
--cap-natural
Natural
--cap-human
Human
--cap-social
Social
--cap-built
Built
--cap-financial
Financial
Long-arc spectrum — conventional → regenerative
Typography
Sora · DM Sans · JetBrains Mono
Display · Sora
Regeneration is the operating system.
Body · DM Sans
Patient capital, whole-place metrics, and governance that holds the gains.
Mono · JetBrains Mono
NAV · readiness gate · covenant · 3.5% band
Imagery & Iconography
Subject, treatment, defaults
Real places, working landscapes, human scale. No stock abstractions.
Diagrams use the five-capital token hues; labels in mono.
Icons defer to words; never decorative. Consistent stroke, no fills.
Layout & Components
Composition before components
14
Reading frame
Max reading width ~5xl. Generous vertical rhythm. Dark movement bands (.dark-section) signal seriousness, chosen deliberately.
15
Components
Shared @regen/ui only — never shadcn or radix directly. Editorial ProjectCard is the canonical portfolio surface.
14b
Density
Spacing, type, and grid trace back to tokens or an explicit book exception. Increase density only with reason.
Applications
Print first, web second
16
Materials
Paper #FBF8F1 ground, gold foil accents, anthracite ink. Decks, PDFs, and social cards reuse the same tokens.
17
Print First
The book must export cleanly to print/PDF before web-only enhancements count as complete. Use the Print button above.
18
Web Second
Screens prioritize scanning, keyboard reachability, and token-backed density. prefers-reduced-motion is always honored.
Patterns & Spacing
Technical system
19
Patterns
Hero, lineage band, portfolio grid, investor CTA. Each pattern is token-backed and reused, never re-authored per page.
20
Spacing
A consistent 4px base rhythm. Section gaps scale with viewport; cards keep stable internal padding for print.
Decree, Tokens & Handoff
Legal + engineering
Messaging is governed: PRT-adjacent surfaces lead with “Stewardship,” avoid guaranteed-return or hypothetical-performance language, and keep internal canon out of public copy. The token table below is the single source of truth — apps consume :root vars, never hand-rolled hex.
| Token | Hex | vs white | vs black |
|---|---|---|---|
| --paper | #FBF8F1 | Fail | AAA |
| --anthracite | #1F2A33 | AAA | Fail |
| --dark | #0F1418 | AAA | Fail |
| --gold | #B0892E | AA Lg | AA |
| --rdc-green | #548235 | AA | AA |
| --rdc-amber | #C55A11 | AA Lg | AA |
| --rdc-navy | #002060 | AAA | Fail |
| --cap-natural | #1D9E75 | AA Lg | AA |
| --cap-human | #00E5FF | Fail | AAA |
| --cap-social | #7F77DD | AA Lg | AA |
| --cap-built | #378ADD | AA Lg | AA |
| --cap-financial | #C8A84B | Fail | AAA |
| --spec-conventional | #7E2D20 | AAA | Fail |
| --spec-green | #A8642A | AA | AA |
| --spec-sustainable | #C9A23A | Fail | AAA |
| --spec-restorative | #6E8F3C | AA Lg | AA |
| --spec-regenerative | #2F6A48 | AA | AA Lg |
23
Handoff
Tokens live in apps/rdc-website/src/app/globals.css and sync to Studio brand 'rdc'. Changes flow token-first, then to components.
24 · Colophon
Regenerative Development Corp · Brand Standards v2.0. Maintained by the RDC design system.
Life before Profits.