Understanding our Brand
Our brand is defined by the perception of our audience. We can only influence this perception by delivering consistently. It cannot be dictated. These guidelines should serve a single point of origin for everything we say and do.
This guide exists to empower NEAR contributors and ambassadors. It is not for external use. Please review early and often.
Jump to LogosPurpose We exist...
to enable community-driven innovation to benefit people around the world.
Vision We seek to empower...
an inclusive global ecosystem that rewards merit (not manipulation).
Brand Attributes Everything we do should feel...
Bold
We are brave, courageous, and willing to take chances, even if we stand alone.
Think: Inspirational, Aspirational, Futuristic
Open
We are inclusive, human, and fun. As our tech reaches the stars, we remain down-to-earth.
Think: Human, Inclusive, Friendly, Warm, Approachable, Community-Driven
Intuitive
Everything in Blockchain is complex. We're here to make it easier. We simplify. We clarify.
Think: Clear, Simple, Usable, Easy
Comprehensive
We cover our bases. We're building the foundation for a new world. We don't skimp on the amenities.
Think: Well-documented, Well-supported, Functional, Scalable, Fast
Secure
We believe that dealing with people's money and data is serious business. We prioritize security.
Think: Trustworthy, Technically Superior
Voice & Messaging
Consistency in communication is key. Adhering to the following principles will keep us on track.
Brand Voice
We are clear, not convoluted
We simplify. We clarify. We speak in the language of our audience. We translate blockchain babble into something thoughtful and helpful.
We are open, yet opinionated
We are experienced, but not arrogant. We are experts in our field, but we remain approachable. We have a take, but we are open to collaboration and the ideas of others. We are inclusive, not exclusive.
We are bold, not brazen
We are courageous. We are pioneers. We take on hard challenges and persevere. We speak our minds, but respect the opinions of others. We tell the truth, even when it's hard.
Samples
NEAR is...
NEAR exists to enable community-driven innovation to benefit people around the world. NEAR is a decentralized application platform that secures high value assets like money and identity with the performance necessary to make them useful for everyday people, putting the power of Open Finance and the Open Web in their hands. NEAR's unique account model allows developers to build secure apps that consumers can actually use similarly to today's web apps, something which requires multiple second-layer add-ons on other blockchains.
Technically speaking, NEAR Protocol is a brand new public, proof-of-stake blockchain which is built using a novel consensus approach called Doomslug. NEAR Protocol uses a new sharding mechanism called Nightshade which splits the network into multiple pieces so that the computation is done in parallel. Parallelism radically increases throughput and allows the network to scale up as the number of nodes on it increases. With NEAR, there isn’t a theoretical limit on the network’s capacity.
NEAR is (Short version)
NEAR is a decentralized application platform that is secure enough to manage high value assets like money or identity and performant enough to make them useful for everyday people, putting the power of Open Finance and the Open Web in their hands.
Distinguishing between the entities
The NEAR Protocol
A permissionless, Proof-of-Stake blockchain protocol that anyone can access, add transactions to, or read from. The public NEAR blockchain is an instantiation of the reference code at http://github.com/nearprotocol/nearcore, but theoretically this repo could be forked and deployed as a separate chain, as much as many protocols have done to build upon the core Bitcoin code.
The NEAR Foundation
A non-profit foundation headquartered in Switzerland, and is responsible for contracting protocol maintainers, funding ecosystem development, and shepherding core governance of the protocol.
Near Inc
A US-based software research and development company that did much of the early development of the protocol and its tooling. While Near Inc does not own or run the NEAR Protocol (which is decentralized), it continues to propose changes to the reference implementation codebase as one of multiple third party entities performing R&D work for the protocol.
Logos
Correct usage of our logo is essential for consistent brand communication.
Download All Logos
Logo Usage
Be sure to let the logo breathe. The following guidelines will help you with proper spacing.
Colors
Our colors are key visual identifiers for our brand. Please use them correctly and consistently.
NEAR Black
Pantone 426c
HEX: #25282A
RGB: 37/40/42
CMYK: 94/77/53/94
NEAR Slate
Pantone 7540c
HEX: #4B4F54
RGB: 75/79/84
CMYK: 41/28/22/70
NEAR Red
Pantone 178c
HEX: #FF585D
RGB: 255/88/93
CMYK: 0/70/58/0
NEAR Blue
Pantone 310c
HEX: #6AD1E3
RGB: 106/209/227
CMYK: 48/0/9/0
NEAR Yellow
Pantone 393c
HEX: #F0EC74
RGB: 240/236/116
CMYK: 6/0/55/0
NEAR Green
Pantone 337c
HEX: #8FD6BD
RGB: 143/214/189
CMYK: 39/0/22/0
NEAR Royal
Pantone 285c
HEX: #0072CE
RGB: 0/114/206
CMYK: 90/48/0/0
NEAR Earth
Pantone 7534c
HEX: #D1CCBD
RGB: 209/204/189
CMYK: 5/5/15/8
Typography
As an integral part of our brand, the following fonts should be used. These typefaces are our unique handwriting and add emphasis to the personality of our identity.
BW Seido Round
For use in headlines and intro-esque copy.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmopqrstuvwxyz
9876543210
ABCDEFGHIJKLMOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmopqrstuvwxyz
9876543210
Benton Sans
For use in all subheads and body copy.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmopqrstuvwxyz
9876543210
ABCDEFGHIJKLMOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmopqrstuvwxyz
9876543210
Source Code Pro
For use in all instances of source code.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmopqrstuvwxyz
9876543210
Imagery & Illustration
The NEAR Brand is more illustrative than photographic.
Illustration
Our illustrations are built on a grid. The are geometric, yet fun, chunky and approachable. Illustrations are primarily literal with some conceptual tendencies.
They can be used as primary elements like this:
or as background textures like this:
Iconography
Our family of icons should be used consistently.
Marketing Icons
Our marketing icons are chunky, fun, and a little cartoony. The aesthetic is that of a comic book, yet primarily literal in representation. They are primarily black and yellow. Other colors are incorporated primarily when used in careers or company culture sections.
Icon Construction
Each icon is built on top of a grid. Then, a highlight layer is added for style and depth.
Product Icons
Our product icons are much thinner than the marketing icons, but should not dissappear at small sizes.
Nearkat
Our mascot helps to guide our audience through the complexities of blockchain while adding a bit of fun along the way.
Like NEAR, Nearkat is never the hero. Our customer is the hero in our story.
NEARKAT Lore
As you may know, Meerkats are small burrowing animals who live in large underground networks. Similarly, the much rarer Nearkats live in large P2P networks where they work tirelessly to facilitate faster throughput, fix vulnerabilities and improve scalability.
The Nearkat, much like the Meerkat, is an insectivore. It scours the network looking for bugs to devour. While Meerkats originated in Africa, Nearkats were born on the interwebs and are more of a nomadic clan.
They learned to speak the King's English by watching BBC, so they all carry an accent and a bit of British humor with it. As native Interwebians, they only seek what is best for the people of the web.
If thou wouldst scaleth, thou must shardeth.Wisdom of Nearkat
The Faces of Nearkat
Nearkat can appear in various poses. All poses should be anatomically correct.
Roles of Nearkat
Nearkat can take on unique personas for special promotions
The not-so-fine print
This is a friendly legal reminder that these graphics are proprietary and protected under intellectual property laws.
Please do amazing things like...
- Use the NEAR Logo and link to nearprotocol.com
- Use the logo to advertise that your project is built on NEAR
- Use the logo in a blog post or news article about NEAR.
- Use the logo properly with plenty of breathing room (margin).
Please don't do things like...
- Use the NEAR Logo or Icon as your application's icon
- Create a modified version of the NEAR Logo
- Integrate the NEAR Logo or Icon into your logo
- Use NEARKat without permission
Naming projects and products
Please avoid naming your projects anything that implies NEAR’s endorsement. This also applies to domain names.
Legal
In short, NEAR Logos and NEARKat represent only NEAR Protocol and should not be used to represent your products.