EmbeddedEra brand guide¶
The one place brand decisions live. The website is the reference implementation; anything printed (cards, flyers, booth, swag) must match this file. Written 2026-09-11 by Claude from the live site; Angel owns the open choices marked (decide).
Related: embeddedera-site · embeddedera-business · website-stack
Download the kit: EmbeddedEra-brand-kit.zip — this guide as PDF, every logo file (SVG and PNG), the palette as CSV. Rebuilt on every notebook deploy, so it is never stale.
Name and legal¶
| Trading name | EmbeddedEra (one word, capital E, capital E — never "Embedded Era", never "EmbeddedERA") |
| Legal name | EmbeddedEra LLC |
| Founded | April 2024 |
| Location | Clayton, North Carolina — "Clayton, NC, serving Raleigh and the Triangle"; Raleigh only as an area served, never our address (owner 2026-10-15; NC filings) |
| Public email | hello@embeddedera.com (machines: alerts@) |
| Web | embeddedera.com · booking embeddedera.com/book/ (own system since 2026-10-23; cal.com retired) |
Industries served (2026-09-15)¶
Robotics and automation controls; automotive aftermarket electronics (ethanol and boost gauges); consumer hardware start-ups; small manufacturers replacing obsolete boards. One line for the About page; update here first, then the site.
Tagline and description¶
- Tagline: From schematic to tested board. (sentence case, full stop, no exclamation)
- Spanish: Del esquemático a la placa probada.
- One-liner: PCB design, firmware, software and small-batch assembly — designed, built and verified on our own line in Raleigh, North Carolina.
- Standard paragraph (Google Business Profile, directories, LinkedIn — 748 chars, keep in sync with the site's About page):
EmbeddedEra LLC is an electrical engineering practice in Raleigh, NC, and an outsourced R&D department for companies without a hardware team. We design PCBs and embedded firmware, assemble small batches on our own SMT line, and test every unit on automated fixtures before it ships. Services: PCB layout (KiCad), schematics, BOM and DFM review, firmware for STM32, ESP32, Nordic nRF, Microchip and TI with BLE, Wi-Fi, Ethernet and CAN, companion apps and browser device tools, mechanical CAD (SolidWorks), enclosures, membrane overlays, test fixtures, lead-free SMT assembly, obsolete part replacement and board redesign, and reverse engineering. One accountable engineer, schematic to tested board. Research Triangle and remote clients nationwide.
Logo¶
| Asset | File | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Hex mark, copper on dark | embeddedera-site/public/favicon-mark.png, favicon.svg |
nav bar, favicon, avatar, swag |
| Wordmark + mark, white (vector) | embeddedera-site/public/logo-white.svg — source logo v2 ~/design/logo-v2/ (approved by Angel 2026-10-23; live on the site since 2026-10-23, PR #8) |
dark backgrounds, footer, contact blocks |
| Wordmark + mark, black (vector) | embeddedera-site/public/logo.svg — same source |
light/print backgrounds |
| App icons | apple-touch-icon.png (180), icon-192.png, icon-512.png |
phone home screen |
| Link preview | og.png (1200×630) |
shared links |
| Social profile art | Notes/brand/artwork/social/ — x-avatar-400.png, x-header-1500x500.png, fb-cover-1640x624.png; regenerate with build.py |
X and Facebook profile/banner (made 2026-09-30) |
- Clear space: at least the height of the hexagon's inner opening on all sides.
- Minimum size: mark 20 px / 6 mm; wordmark 120 px / 30 mm (below that use the mark alone).
- Never: stretch, rotate, recolour outside the palette, add effects, or put the dark logo on a dark ground. The mark may be pure white, pure black or copper — nothing else.
- SVG lockup traced from the original raster and approved 2026-09-15 (task 141); print never pixelates. Copper print match: PMS 7515 C, drawdown before a big run. Print typeface: the system stack, no licensed font.
Colour¶
Dark is the brand. White layouts are the exception (print where dark ink coverage is silly).
| Token | Hex | RGB | CMYK | Use |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| bg | #0b0d10 |
11,13,16 | 31/19/0/94 | page background, card backs |
| surface | #14181d |
20,24,29 | 31/17/0/89 | raised panels |
| border | #232a32 |
35,42,50 | 30/16/0/80 | hairlines, dividers |
| text | #e6e9ee |
230,233,238 | 3/2/0/7 | body text on dark |
| muted | #9aa3ad |
154,163,173 | 11/6/0/32 | secondary text, captions |
| copper | #c8813f |
200,129,63 | 0/36/68/22 | the accent: links, buttons, eyebrows |
| copper hover | #e09a57 |
224,154,87 | 0/31/61/12 | hover/active only |
| gold | #e8c46a |
232,196,106 | 0/16/54/9 | sparingly, highlights |
| ok / error | #6fbf73 / #e2685c |
status only, never decoration |
- One accent at a time. Copper is the brand colour; gold is a seasoning, not a second brand.
- Print: CMYK above is a conversion, not a proof. (decide) a Pantone match for copper if a printer asks — start from PMS 2026 C / 1385 C and eyeball against a swatch book.
- Contrast: text on bg passes AA comfortably; never put muted text on surface below 14 px.
Type¶
- Screen: system UI stack (
ui-sans-serif, system-ui, -apple-system, Segoe UI, Roboto…). Deliberate: zero webfont requests, looks native everywhere. - Mono: JetBrains Mono, falling back to the system mono. Used for eyebrows, table headers, specs and anything numeric.
- Scale: headline
clamp(2.5rem, 6vw, 5rem), section titleclamp(2rem, 4vw, 3.25rem), body 1.125–1.25rem. Headlines: tight tracking (−0.02em), line-height 1.05. Body line-height 1.6. - Eyebrows: mono, uppercase, 12–13 px, letter-spacing 0.14em, copper.
- (decide) print typeface: the system stack is not a licensable font. Free pairings that match the feel: Inter (text) + JetBrains Mono (numbers), or Söhne-alike free option Public Sans. Pick one for cards/flyers and record it here.
Voice¶
- "We" in all company writing. "I" only where Angel speaks personally (the About page's "Who I am").
- Plain, specific, unhedged. Numbers and part names beat adjectives. No "premier", "cutting-edge", "passionate", "solutions".
- Short sentences. One idea per screen or paragraph.
- Say what the client receives, not what we enjoy doing.
- Spanish: neutral Latin-American, "nosotros", technical terms stay in English (PCB, firmware, SMT, BOM, BGA, QFN, RoHS).
AI disclosure (2026-09-16)¶
Everything drafted by the research routine or a Claude session and published under the company name carries a small disclosure. On the website's Engineering Notes it is the last item in the meta row under the title, on every article past and future (template src/pages/notes/[...slug].astro, strings notes.aiNote in both dictionaries):
- EN: Drafted with AI assistance, reviewed and edited by our engineer.
- ES: Redactado con ayuda de IA, revisado y editado por nuestro ingeniero.
Rules: small and muted, never hidden, never in the body text; the same sentence on every surface (site notes, the notebook, social posts when a platform gives room). Text written entirely by a person carries nothing.
Never publish¶
No pricing (until decided), no standards claims that have not been verified (IPC, J-STD, ISO), no client names, no equipment brands or model numbers, no board counts or capacity numbers, no stock photography beyond what is already in use.
Layout rules (carried from the site)¶
One idea per screen · generous whitespace (py-24 to py-40) · no card grids · dividers are space, not lines · pill button for the primary action, "text ›" for the secondary · never more than two actions on a screen · images full-bleed or large with 2rem radius.
Applications¶
| Piece | Status |
|---|---|
| Website | live, embeddedera.com |
| Business cards | draft 2026-10-16; Yara picked 1, 5, 6 of the 10 ideas (2026-10-23); final pick Angel's : ~/design/business-cards/, logo v2, Inter + JetBrains Mono. Front: mark + name + title + wordmark; back: wordmark, tagline, hello@, phone, web, embeddedera.com/book (was cal.com/embeddedera), QR to /quote (decode-tested) |
| Flyer / brochure | (to do) one sheet: services by family, capability specs, lead time, QR |
| Trade show | (to do) banner, table cover, monitor loop of the shoot videos, sample boards |
| Swag | (to do) pens, stickers, PCB coasters/keychains made in house |
| Email signature | Angel · EmbeddedEra LLC · Raleigh, NC · hello@embeddedera.com · embeddedera.com |
Internal pages — theme tokens (2026-09-12)¶
Dark (default): bg #0b0d10, surface #14181d, border #232a32, text #e6e9ee, muted #9aa3ad, copper #c8813f, copper-hover #e09a57.
Light: bg #f6f7f9, surface #ffffff, border #dfe3e8, text #15181c, muted #5d6670, copper #a8682c, copper-hover #8f5522.
Toggle: Light / Dark / Auto, stored in localStorage as ee-theme; Auto = prefers-color-scheme.
In use on: home.embeddedera.com, sop.embeddedera.com (Material palette toggle), chat.embeddedera.com.