Brand
Book.
The rules of the house. Version 3.0 — EST. 1987 · CHITRAL. Apply them with restraint; break them never.
§01 — The Emblem
Ridge, comb, bee.
The seal reads top to bottom: the Hindu Kush ridgeline inside a single honeycomb hexagon, one bee above the ridge, and the founding ring of text. It is drawn once and reused at every scale — favicon, cap seal, watermark, divider, footer lockup.
- — Ridgelines: the place
- — Hexagon: the comb
- — Bee: the worker
- — Ring text: the covenant
Ring text is dropped below 64px. Below 24px the mark is the hexagon-and-ridge alone.
§02 — Clear Space
Room to breathe.
Clear space equals one hexagon height (x) on all sides. Nothing enters it — no type, no imagery, no page edge. The seal is a stamp, and stamps need room to land.
The emblem never sits on busy photography. On imagery, it knocks out to amber on a darkened field, or bronze on beeswax.
§03 — Palette
Earth, not glitter.
Metallic Gold
#D4A843
Primary brand metal — gold foil accents, seals, emblems, key words. The Royal VIP cue; used with restraint.
Gold Deep
#B08A2E
Hover states, seal shadows, small label rules, foil shadow.
Dark Comb Bronze
#4E371A
Label text on light grounds, wax-seal body, fine linework.
Deep Pine
#24382C
Dark sections, footer, nighttime mountain.
Pine Night
#182620
Deepest background. Almost black, still green.
Black Tie
#0E0D0B
True black-tie sections behind gold serif headlines.
Glacier Stone
#9AA5A0
Secondary text on dark, contour lines, dividers.
Stone Light
#D8D2C6
Borders, hairlines, tag stock.
Beeswax
#F4EEE1
Primary light ground. Never pure white.
Ink Black
#141210
Body copy on light grounds.
The gold is the exception that rules the house: metallic gold foil is reserved for labels, lids and black-tie headline moments. Forbidden: gradients into neon, pure #FFFFFF backgrounds, pure #000000 text.
§04 — Typography
Three voices.
Display — Fraunces
The mountain decides.
High-contrast editorial serif. Headlines, label names, moments of voice. Weights 340–560, SOFT axis low, never faux-bolded.
AaBbCcDdEe 0123456789 — žēṭūn
UI — Inter
Raw honey from the roof of Pakistan. Sealed under wax, numbered by hand.
Quiet grotesk for body copy, labels, captions and navigation. Uppercase labels track at 0.22em. Never above 600 weight.
AaBbCcDdEe 0123456789 · RAW · UNHEATED
Ornament — Noto Nastaliq Urdu
شمالی شہد — پہاڑ فیصلہ کرتا ہے
Sparing, sacred use: neck bands, seal calligraphy, one moment per surface. Never for body copy, never translated text set smaller than 18px.
زیتون ببول سناف تھمبری
Type scale
Display / 72–112
Headline / 40–56
Subhead / 24–32
Body / 16 — Raw, unheated, single-origin.
Small / 14 — Batch NH-26-ZT-041 rests nine days before sealing.
Label / 11 · tracked 0.22em
§05 — Label Templates
The anatomy.
Zaytoon
Olea cuspidata — wild olive
Drosh Valley · 2,850 m
NH-26-ZT-041
hand numbered
Front — 62 × 84 mm
Origin & Batch
- Valley
- Drosh Valley
- Altitude
- 2,850 m
- Bloom
- Late April — early June
- Batch
- NH-26-ZT-041
- Grid
- 35.85°N 71.78°E
Tasting notes
black fig · olive leaf · warm tobacco · long pepper finish
Never heated above 38°C. Crystallisation is proof, not flaw.
NH-26-ZT-041
hand numbered
Back — 62 × 84 mm
- 01Stock: 90 gsm unbleached kraft, letterpress where possible, one colour plus the variety chip.
- 02The emblem prints in Dark Comb Bronze on kraft; the chip is the only spot colour.
- 03Batch numbers are rubber-stamped by hand — misregistration within 2 mm is acceptable and desired.
- 04Neck band repeats the variety in Nastaliq. Never translate the variety name on the front.
- 05The seal on the cap is beeswax from the same harvest. Each is imperfect identically.
- 06Nothing else. If a label needs a sixth element, remove two.
Variety chips
§06 — Photography
Shoot where it's made.
- Light. Natural only. Golden hour or overcast; never flash, never studio strobes.
- Ground. Rock, snow, pine, walnut, slate, kraft. No marble, no white sweep.
- Grain. Visible film grain is required. Sharpness is optional; honesty is not.
- Hands. Working hands, gloves, weather. No manicures near the comb.
- Colour. Warm, low saturation. Amber reads as amber; greens stay deep.
§07 — Motifs
Codes of the house.
Hexagon grid
Fields, masks and dividers. Always at low opacity, never the subject.
Contour lines
Chitral valley topography. Backgrounds, footers, the undersides of things.
Wax seal
Closures and certificates. Pressed, never printed.
Bee · ridge · cell
The three marks of the seal, usable alone at small sizes.
35.8525° N · 71.7864° E · 2,850–3,400 m · raw · unheated · single-origin