THE FRONTIERS ENGINE — BRAND GUIDE
==================================

Short version: use the files as they ship, on a background with enough
contrast, with some room around them. That covers almost everything.


THE MARKS
---------

The wordmark
    FRONTIERS set in a swash serif, with a four-point compass rose
    replacing the O. This is the primary mark. Use it whenever there is
    room for it.

The compass mark
    The compass rose on its own. Use it where the wordmark will not fit:
    avatars, favicons, square crops, small badges.

Do not rebuild either one. Do not set the word "Frontiers" in another
typeface and call it the wordmark.


COLOURWAYS
----------

    Cream ....... #F3EAD7 on dark. The default. Use this one unless you
                  have a reason not to.
    Gold ........ cream wordmark with a #E8B24A compass. The full-colour
                  version, for hero placements and anywhere the mark is
                  the focus.
    Black ....... #000000, for light backgrounds and print.
    White ....... #FFFFFF, for photography, video overlay, and dark
                  backgrounds that are not the brand dark.

The compass mark ships in gold #C89243, black, and white.

Choose from these four. Do not generate a fifth.

Note: the gold wordmark is cropped slightly tighter than the other three.
If you are aligning variants against each other in a layout, check the
edges rather than assuming identical bounding boxes.


PALETTE
-------

    Background ........... #1B1611
    Surface .............. #241D15
    Text ................. #ECE2CF
    Muted text ........... #B9AD97
    Gold ................. #D4A24C
    Gold, bright ......... #E6B863
    Logo cream ........... #F3EAD7
    Compass gold ......... #C89243

Light mode background is #E7DEC7.


TYPEFACES
---------

    Body ......... Inter
    Monospace .... JetBrains Mono

Both are open source. The wordmark's lettering is artwork, not a font,
and is not available for setting text.


CLEAR SPACE
-----------

Leave clear space around the mark equal to the height of the compass rose
on all four sides. Nothing else goes in that margin — no text, no rules,
no other logos, no image edges.


MINIMUM SIZE
------------

    Wordmark ......... 120 px wide on screen, 25 mm in print
    Compass mark ..... 24 px on screen, 8 mm in print

Below those the compass rose inside the O closes up and stops reading.


BACKGROUNDS
-----------

The mark wants contrast and quiet. On the brand dark, use cream or gold.
On light, use black. On photography or video, use white or black,
whichever separates cleanly, and avoid busy areas.

Do not place the mark on a background that competes with the compass —
starbursts, radial gradients, and other compass or map imagery all fight
it.


WHAT NOT TO DO
--------------

    Do not recolour outside the four supplied colourways.
    Do not stretch, squash, skew, rotate, or mirror.
    Do not add effects: no drop shadows, outlines, glows, or bevels.
    Do not rearrange the parts, or pull the compass out of the O.
    Do not put the mark in a box, badge, or holding shape.
    Do not crop it, or let anything overlap it.
    Do not rebuild it in another typeface.
    Do not use it as an element inside your own logo.
    Do not combine it with your own marks so it reads as a partnership.

If you need something the supplied files do not cover, ask rather than
edit. contact@jaykepaver.me


THE STARTER SET MARKS
---------------------

Each Starter Set has its own lockup: the Frontiers wordmark with a
coloured compass and the set name beneath it.

    Fantasy ........ green compass and rule, script subtitle
    Sci-Fi ......... magenta compass, cyan chromatic edge, boxed
                     subtitle
    Wasteland ...... orange compass, distressed cream wordmark, stencil
                     subtitle on a rough slab

Use these to illustrate coverage of a specific Starter Set. Do not build
new ones for settings of your own — a Starter Set lockup means an
official Starter Set. If you have made your own game on the engine, use a
compatibility line instead. See template-attribution.txt.

The same rules above apply: do not alter, recolour, or rearrange them.

A note on resolution: the Starter Set lockups are supplied at their native
640 px width, which is what they were produced at. Unlike the wordmark and the
compass mark, they are not vectors, and there is no larger version. They are
sized for web, video, and social use. If you need one for print at size, ask
rather than upscaling — contact@jaykepaver.me

Animated versions of all three lockups, and of the base wordmark, are on the
site rather than in this kit, to keep the download small:

    https://frontiersengine.dev/assets/frontiers-base-loop.webp
    https://frontiersengine.dev/assets/frontiers-fantasy-loop.webp
    https://frontiersengine.dev/assets/frontiers-scifi-loop.webp
    https://frontiersengine.dev/assets/frontiers-wasteland-loop.webp


THE MECHANICAL GLYPHS
---------------------

The glyphs used inline in the rules — ❖ ✩ ◉ ◬ ✚ ⊗ ⊖ ϟ ⛊ ⛉ ⇉ ➤ ✦ ✧ ✽ ⌗ —
are NOT brand assets and are NOT Reserved Material. They are part of the
engine's mechanical vocabulary and are free to reproduce along with the
rules text they appear in.

They are standard Unicode characters, not a custom font. See
icon-reference.txt for the full list and what each one means.


WHY THIS IS RESERVED AT ALL
---------------------------

The rules are free. The brand is not. That split is deliberate: the marks
are what keep official work and community work distinguishable, which
matters more, not less, when the rules themselves are wide open.

None of this restricts what you can build. You can publish a complete
commercial game on Frontiers without touching a single brand asset.
