Brand & Identity Guidelines
The identity system of this archive — what the mark means, how it is built, and the rules that keep it whole.
The Governing Idea
This is not an author’s portfolio. It is a Marathi literary volume you open, and a museum you walk through. Every decision below serves those two metaphors.
The promise
Fifty-three books and thirty-five honours, presented with the care a library gives a rare volume — never the care a shop gives a product.
The voice
One page, one language. Marathi is not a translation of this site — it is the language the work was made in — and English is not a label bolted onto it. Each is complete on its own; neither borrows the other’s headlines.
The restraint
Nothing here may look like software. No gradient buttons, no glassmorphism, no stock iconography, no card-grid dumps. Four materials only: white paper, ink, wood, and gold — with kumkum as the single accent.
The Mark
One glyph carries the whole idea: a headline, a dot, and an open volume hanging from the line.
- The bindi The kumkum dot that opens a Marathi page and closes a Marathi sentence. It is the site’s smallest unit and its signature — it appears alone as a section ornament.
- The shirorekha The headline every Devanagari letter hangs from. It makes the mark legible as writing before it is legible as a picture.
- The open volume Two strokes descending from the line and meeting at a point — a book laid open, and the leaf of a palm-leaf manuscript.
- The gold leaves Three hairlines of haldi: the two page edges and the gutter. They are the only decoration the mark is allowed, and they drop away below 24 px.
Clear space
Keep clear on all four sides a margin equal to the diameter of the bindi — one eighth of the mark’s height. Nothing enters that margin: no type, no rule, no photograph edge.
Minimum sizes
Never place the full mark below 24 px on screen or 8 mm in print. Below that, use the favicon, in which the gold hairlines are already removed.
The mark on its four grounds
On kumkum, on a photograph or in a single-colour print, use the one-colour mark and let it take the colour of the type around it. Never place the two-colour mark on a photograph.
Misuse
The mark is a piece of writing. These five things stop it being one.
✕Do not stretch or condense. The mark scales only in proportion.
✕Do not rotate. The shirorekha is a horizon; tilting it makes it decoration.
✕Do not add drop shadows, bevels or glows. The mark is printed, not lit.
✕Do not recolour. Kumkum and haldi, or one colour — nothing else.
✕Do not place it on a busy ground. Give it white, or give it wood.
✓ Correct: original proportions, original colours, quiet ground, clear space respected.
Wordmark & Lockups
शब्दश्रुती — “the word, heard.” The Devanagari always leads; the Latin name sits beneath it as a letter-spaced italic, the way a bilingual title page is set.
Stacked · first choice
Title pages, covers, certificates, the seal on a colophon, social cards.
Horizontal · for chrome
The site header, letterheads, e-mail signatures — anywhere height is scarce.
Mark alone
Only where the name is already present or the space is smaller than 24 px: favicons, app icons, watermarks.
Rules for the lockup
- Never re-typeset the wordmark in another face. शब्दश्रुती is Tiro Devanagari Marathi; the Latin line is Fraunces italic at 0.22 em tracking.
- Never translate the wordmark. शब्दश्रुती stays in Devanagari on the English site — it is a name, not a word.
- Never set the author’s name larger than the wordmark in the lockup, and never separate the two by more than the mark’s width.
- For print, outline the type in the supplied SVG lockups — they carry live text so the web can use the real fonts.
Colour
A white sheet, four dilutions of one ink, wood for structure, and a single accent. The page is white so that the books and the photographs carry the colour; the warmth is in the wood, not in the paper. Gold is a material, not a colour: it rules and ornaments, and never sets text on white.
Pairings that hold
- Ink on white for everything you read at length.
- Kumkum on white for links, buttons and the bindi.
- White on walnut for inverted chapters and the footer.
- Haldi-lit on wood when gold must carry a word.
Pairings that fail
- Haldi text on white — 3.2:1, too weak to read. Use it as a rule instead.
- Kumkum on walnut — the accent disappears into the ground.
- Two accents in one view. There is one accent, and it is kumkum.
- Colour as the only signal. Every state also carries a shape or a rule.
Typography
Four faces, each with one job. Nothing else may be introduced without changing this document first.
ग्रंथसंपदा · पुरस्कार · ०१२३४५६७८९
Every chapter title, every book title, every numeral set at display size. On paper it carries a one-pixel letterpress highlight. Never used below 1.1 rem.
साहित्य हेच माझे आयुष्य
The author speaking in her own hand: the signature, the envoi, marginalia. Never for interface text, never for more than two lines.
मराठी साहित्यातील स्त्री-स्वराचा शोध घेणारे लेखन.
Body copy, interface, forms — in both scripts. 300 for ledes, 400 for body, 500–600 for labels, 700 sparingly.
Chapter Four · Honours & Recognition
Folios, sub-labels, dates, captions — the running head of the book. Always italic, always letter-spaced, never at body size.
The scale
| Role | Token | Size | Used for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hero | --t-hero | 2.6 – 5.75 rem | The title page only |
| H1 | --t-1 | 2.05 – 3.6 rem | One per page |
| H2 | --t-2 | 1.7 – 2.6 rem | Chapter openings |
| H3 | --t-3 | 1.28 – 1.68 rem | Shelves, columns, records |
| Lede | --t-lede | 1.12 – 1.32 rem | The standfirst under a rule |
| Body | --t-body | 1.06 – 1.14 rem / 1.78 | Everything read at length; measure capped at 66ch |
| Caption | --t-xs | 0.795 rem | Folios, captions, chips |
.folio
Chapter Two · The Library
Latin italic, letter-spaced caps. The running head — where you are in the book.
.hand
श्रुतीश्री वडगबाळकर
Kalam. The author’s own voice — signatures and the envoi, nothing else.
.lede
Light, wide, and never more than three lines.
The standfirst. It follows the gold rule and precedes the content.
Ornament & Components
Three ornaments carry the whole system. Everything else is type and space.
The bindi
Opens a column heading, closes an essay, sits inside the gold rule. One per heading, never two.
The gold rule
Two hairlines parted by a bindi. It separates a title from what it introduces — never used as a decorative divider between paragraphs.
Buttons
Solid Ghost Gold
One solid button per view — it is the single most important action. Gold appears only on wood grounds.
Motion
- Scroll reveal: a 14 px rise over 620 ms, staggered 70 ms between siblings only — never across the page.
- Book covers tilt to −27°; photographs scale 1.045 over 1.1 s. Nothing parallaxes, nothing autoplays, nothing loops.
- All of it collapses under prefers-reduced-motion. That is a requirement, not a courtesy.
The Two Languages
The site exists whole in Marathi and whole in English. These are the rules that keep the two from drifting apart.
Parity
Every translatable field exists twice in the database — summary_mr and summary_en, and so on for every record. A record entered in only one language still renders in both: the site falls back rather than showing a blank.
What never translates
- The wordmark शब्दश्रुती.
- Book titles: a book is named by the form it was published under. The English title sits beneath as a sub-label.
- Chapter titles are set in Devanagari in both modes, with the English name beneath. That is typographic, not linguistic.
Numerals
A Marathi page counts in ०१२३४५६७८९; an English page counts in 0123456789. Numbers are stored once, in Latin digits, and converted on the way out. A Marathi page that counted in Latin figures would read as a translation.
Marking the language
Every Devanagari string inside an English page carries lang="mr", and every Latin string inside a Marathi page carries lang="en". Screen readers change voice on it; browsers hyphenate on it.
Voice & Tone
The archive speaks the way a good curator writes wall text: plainly, with the facts in front, and out of the way of the work.
“Seven state-level awards in a single year.”
✓A fact, stated once, doing its own work.
“An absolutely legendary, award-winning masterpiece!”
✕Adjectives asking the reader to be impressed. Cut them.
“Send the programme details and availability will be shared.”
✓Says what happens next. No exclamation mark.
“Don’t miss out — subscribe now!!”
✕Urgency the archive has not earned and does not need.
Naming her, correctly
- प्रा. डॉ. सौ. श्रुतीश्री वडगबाळकरfull form, Marathi — use on formal citations
- Prof. Dr. Shrutishree Vadgabalkarfull form, English — first mention in any English text
- सुलभा म. भातंब्रेकरmaiden name — only where the biography calls for it
Never “Mrs Vadgabalkar” and never the first name alone. After the first mention, “Dr Vadgabalkar” or “the author”.
Applications
The same system, off the screen.
Book spine Kumkum ground, gold rules top and bottom, title in Tiro Devanagari reading bottom-to-top.
Letterhead Horizontal lockup at the head, one gold rule beneath it, address set small at the foot in Fraunces italic.
Social card 1.91:1 on walnut, stacked lockup centred, reversed mark. Never crop the mark to fill the frame.
The seal For colophons, certificates and citations — the mark inside a double gold ring, bindi at top and bottom. Print in gold foil or in one colour.
The Files
Vector originals. Use these; do not redraw the mark, and do not export a raster from a screenshot.
Fonts: Tiro Devanagari Marathi, Kalam, Mukta and Fraunces are all licensed under the SIL Open Font License and free to install and to embed. They are served here from Google Fonts.
Questions about use of the mark, or a case this document does not cover, go through the contact page.