Brand book: Open Label

How to use this page

This page is written for people and for AI models that design or build anything for the brand. Follow it literally. Where a rule and your taste disagree, the rule wins.

• Read Colour, Typography, The Tag and Layout before you make anything. Then read the row for your format in Channel specs.
• Build from the tokens and the SVG files listed above. Do not rebuild them from memory.
• Never generate, redraw or alter Tomas's face. The portrait is always the real photo: use the cut-out files listed above, unchanged. If the portrait does not fit the format, use the Tag with the TK monogram or the marker.
• Before you deliver, run the checklist at the end of this page.

Essence

• Idea: a black-and-white world with one yellow tag, and Tomas's face stands on the tag. On content, a one-line label says how the piece was made.
• Why: Tomas puts AI agents to work and shows the numbers. The person leads, the system is visible. The label shape can move to physical products later without a rebrand.
• Personality: practical, direct, curious, honest about trade-offs. Confident, never hype.
• Feels like: a well-made field label or a product tag.
• Does not feel like: SaaS navy or purple, neon, robots, glowing brains, hazard tape, stationery, wine, surf school.

Colour

Contrast (WCAG): ink on paper 16.6, ink on yellow 12.0, graphite on paper 5.9, rule on ink 12.6.

• One yellow element per asset: the Tag, or the marker when there is no portrait. The only exception is the yellow thumbnail variant.
• Yellow is never text on paper (1.4:1). Only ink goes on yellow. Graphite on yellow fails (4.2:1).
• No other colours in templates. Charts use ink, graphite and rule, plus one yellow series.
• Colour appears only in documentary photos and in products.

Typography

One family: Archivo, variable weight and width, with Latin Extended for Czech. IBM Plex Mono only for real code.

Sizes are font size / line height in px.

• Never shrink type to make copy fit. Rewrite the copy shorter.
• Label line: one per asset, at most 45 characters, a 2 px ink rule under it, dropped below 400 px width. It belongs on content only (carousels, articles, newsletter, video). Never on ads and never in the web hero.
• The label line states real facts only. "Checked by Tomas" appears only when he checked the piece. Run numbers are never invented. Example: NO. 047 · MADE BY AGENTS · CHECKED BY TOMAS.

Name, wordmark, monogram

• Wordmark: "Tomas Kadlec" in Archivo 800, width 110, sentence case, ink (or paper on ink). No symbol attached.
• Handle and URL: tomakadlec, lowercase, in label style or body text: tomakadlec.com, @tomakadlec.
• Monogram: "TK", Archivo 900, ink, in the bottom-right of a small yellow Tag (tag-tk.svg). For the favicon, ad logos, watermarks and small social uses. Never inside a frame of its own.

The Tag

Agents draft. I check every post.

Two versions of the Tag. Use the first one whenever you can.

• Shape: a 5:6 rectangle with the top-left corner cut at 45°. SVG viewBox="0 0 100 120", path M22 0H100V120H0V22Z. No hole, no rounded corners, no rotation, no shadow, no texture.
• Position: always flush to the bottom-right corner of the canvas, ignoring margins.
• Sizes (width as a share of the format's short side): S 16 % (TK monogram only, no photo), M 40 % (posts, ads, web), L 60 % (thumbnails).
• Colour: yellow on paper and on ink. An ink Tag on the yellow thumbnail variant.
• Portrait on the Tag: portrait-tag.png, width 95 % of the Tag, centred, standing on the Tag's bottom edge. The head rises above the Tag by 13 % of the Tag width. Do not crop, recolour, mirror or retouch it.
• Keep-out: no text within 24 px (at 1080 px base) of the Tag or the head.
• Never: prices, "sale", numbers or words inside the Tag (it must not read as a discount label). Never two Tags.

Marker fallback. For assets without a portrait, such as inner carousel slides and quote cards: a yellow rectangle behind ONE phrase of 1 to 3 words on one line. Height 1.06em, inset 0.12em left and right, ink text, square corners. An asset with a marker has no Tag.

Photography

• Portrait: real photos of Tomas only, as black-and-white cut-outs with a transparent background, from mid-chest up. Never an AI-generated, redrawn or retouched face. The current set is one front pose; the files are listed at the top of this page.
• In templates: always the black-and-white cut-out on the Tag.
• Documentary photos (about page, articles, video, kite, climbing, travel, desk): natural colour, daylight, uncropped, honest skin. Used full-bleed or in a square-cornered frame. Never inside the Tag.
• Avatar, all platforms: black-and-white cut-out on flat yellow #FFC928, head and shoulders, eyes at about 40 % height, no ring, no text, checked at 32 px.
• Without a suitable cut-out: use the Tag with the TK monogram, or the marker fallback.

Illustration and AI images

• Ink only: bold flat shapes on paper. Yellow is added in the layout by the Tag or the marker, never by the image model.
• Real screenshots of real work as evidence. Diagrams and data are drawn as SVG or HTML, not generated.
• Prompt block for image models:

Simple editorial illustration of [ONE OBJECT RELEVANT TO THE STORY]. Flat ink #141414 shapes on plain warm paper #F5F3EC, bold contours, at most five major shapes, generous negative space, subject centred with 40% empty space around it. At 1080 px output no line thinner than 12 px; readable at 150 px wide. Ink and paper only. No yellow, no other colours, no people, faces, text, letters, logos, gradients, glow, shadows, 3D, robots, brains or circuitry.

Layout

• Spacing scale (px at 1080 base): 8, 16, 24, 32, 48, 64, 96, 128.
• Social, 1080 base: 6 columns, 64 px margins, 24 px gutters.
• Thumbnail 1280×720: 12 columns, margins 64 px at the sides and 48 px top and bottom.
• 300×250: 16 px margins, 12 px gap.
• Web: 12 columns, max width 1200 px, 24 px gutters. Mobile: 24 px padding.
• Reading order on every asset: label line top-left, headline, body, name bottom-left, Tag bottom-right.
• Square corners everywhere. The Tag's cut is the only angle. No gradients, no drop shadows, no glass, no grain.

Variants

What I tested this week

Short headline in his voice

Tomas Kadlec

Tomas Kadlec

One headline, one body line

Book a call

Three or four words

Buttons are neutral. Light: ink button, paper text. Dark: paper button, ink text. Links are underlined, in ink.

Channel specs

Web

• Tokens from tokens.css. Body 18-20 px Archivo 400 on paper, line length at most 68 characters.
• Hero: wordmark and navigation, headline (no label line), one body line, ink primary button and outlined secondary button, Tag M with portrait flush to the bottom-right of the hero block.
• Cards: paper, 1 px rule border, square.
• Focus ring: 3 px ink outline, offset 2 px.
• Dark sections: ink background, paper text.

Motion

• Cuts, not effects.
• The Tag slides in from the right edge (200 ms, ease-out) once per video, then stays still.
• The marker wipes in left to right (150 ms).
• Captions appear per phrase. No bouncing words, no emoji.

Do and don't

Do:

• one yellow per asset
• the face on the Tag
• short headlines in Tomas's voice
• real numbers
• square corners
• rewrite instead of shrinking

Don't:

• navy, purple, neon, gradients, glow, robots, brains
• yellow text on paper
• two Tags, or a Tag and a marker together
• prices or "sale" in the Tag
• AI-generated faces
• invented run numbers
• a label line in ads or in the web hero
• a ring around the avatar

Checklist before delivery

• Only paper, ink, yellow, rule and graphite are used, with the exact HEX values.
• There is exactly one yellow element: the Tag or the marker.
• The Tag is flush to the bottom-right corner, not rotated, with nothing written inside it.
• All type is Archivo. The headline is 800 at width 110, in sentence case.
• Nothing was shrunk to fit. No text sits within the Tag's keep-out area.
• All corners are square. There is no gradient, shadow, glow or texture.
• The portrait is the real black-and-white cut-out. No face was generated or changed.
• Every number and every claim in the label line is true.
• Contrast holds: only ink on yellow, no yellow text.
• The asset matches its row in Channel specs: size, variant, Tag size, safe areas.