the brand book
this is the studio's own identity, held to the standard the studio sells. it is the fourth case file and the only one with no client compromises in it, which makes it the clearest example of the method and the least representative of the job.
edition one, september 2026. twelve sections. the corrections found since it shipped are on the colophon and this page follows the corrected version.
01 the idea
elesur is a sign in the night. the name is two words: ele, her name, and sur, south. the mark lights the first letter of each and leaves the rest of the word in the dark, the way a building stands behind its own sign.
the light is one colour. the dark is a full grey ramp. nothing glows, nothing fades, nothing is soft. a coated neon tube is flat colour seen at night, so the drawing is flat colour too.
06 colour
one light, and a full ramp of dark. the accent exists twice, once for each ground, and never a third time. the ramp is eleven steps so that interface work never needs a colour that is not in this book.
- night 000 #0A0C12 the page on dark 1.00 / 17.95
- night 050 #101420 the one raised band 1.06 / 16.87
- night 100 #171B27 a card. deliberately unused 1.14 / 15.78
- night 200 #222736 a decorative hairline 1.31 / 13.66
- night 300 #31363F the unlit run, the hatch 1.61 / 11.15
- night 400 #4A4F5C unlit letters, tube mark 2.39 / 7.52
- night 500 #6E7482 control borders, solid mark 4.17 / 4.30
- night 600 #8A8F98 secondary text, all notation 6.02 / 2.98
- night 700 #B7BCC5 body on dark 10.25 / 1.75
- night 800 #DCDEE4 headings on dark 14.53 / 1.24
- night 900 #F5F5F7 the page on light 17.95 / 1.00
- light #FB006B the sign, on dark 4.95 / 3.63
- light deep #CD016C the sign, on light 3.55 / 5.05
the two figures are the contrast against the dark page and against the light page, computed from the hex values at build. the full ledger, and the pairs this site actually uses, are on the report page.
08 the pattern
a bender draws the route of the glass full size before touching the tube, and draws it in reverse, because the glass is bent face down on the paper. that drawing is the agency graphic. it shows the thinking under the light, it is made for every name the studio lights, and it is the one place the whole word appears as an outline.
10 motion
it ignites. it does not fade. a neon tube strikes in steps, so the mark does too: the e first, then the s, in hard cuts with no fade and no blur. the whole event is under a second and it happens once per visit, not on every scroll.
a flickering neon sign is a sign with an open fault ticket. that is why there is no flicker loop here, and why the settled state is the default that everything falls back to.
- 0.00 sneither lit
- 0.35 sthe e strikes
- 0.55 sthe e drops and the s strikes
- 0.80 sboth hold
reload this page in a new tab to see it. it runs once per session, so a second view shows the last frame, which is also what reduced motion and javascript off show.