Internal reference · brand identity study

The system behind
Meet Me Gently.

Not a colour-swatch dump — the reasoning. What the brand is for, who it counter-positions against, how the five paths work as one system, and the rules that keep the voice honest under pressure to sell. Every colour on this page is read live from brand_tokens_v5.json — edit the source of truth and this study changes with it.

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The idea

Connection, without pressure.

Meet Me Gently is a connection deck for people who already like each other and want a structured, low-stakes way to get closer — new couples finding their footing, long partnerships that have gone quiet, friends and family who want more than small talk. It is a box of prompts, but the product is not the prompts. The product is the feeling of sitting across from someone you care about with nothing asked of you that you haven't agreed to.

That feeling has one mechanical source: on every single card, in the same place, in the same words —

Four ways out, always available, never a big deal to use. That is the whole invention. Everything else — the paths, the colour system, the medallion, the die-cut card — exists to carry that one mechanic somewhere people will actually pick it up and use it.

Positioning

Who it's for

Couples early enough to still be building trust, who want a ritual instead of a talk they keep putting off.
Long partnerships where the conversation has gone quiet and neither person wants to be the one who "starts something".
Anyone who has been burned by a deck that pushed too hard, too fast, and wants proof the exit door is real before they sit down.
People who read "no pressure" as a feature request, not a marketing line — and who will test it by actually using PASS.

Who it's not for

Anyone looking for a licensed therapeutic tool, a diagnosis, or crisis support — we are explicitly none of those.
Groups that want a party icebreaker with a scoreboard and a loser.
Couples in active crisis who need a professional in the room, not a card box.
Anyone who wants to skip straight to After Dark without doing any of the work it's built on top of — that's not how the deck is structured, and we say so.

The counter-position

Category	Their default	Our stance
Party question games	Depth is a dare; hesitation reads as losing.	Depth is optional every single time. Passing is not a loss condition.
Forced-vulnerability decks	The prompt escalates whether you're ready or not.	You choose the pace; the deck has an exit built into its grammar, not buried in an instruction sheet.
Therapy cosplay	Clinical language borrowed for authority it hasn't earned.	Attachment-informed, plainly labelled — never framed as treatment, diagnosis, or a substitute for a professional.

The five paths as a system

Each path maps to one of Tony Robbins' Six Human Needs — used here as a structural diagnostic, not a name-drop. Colour, emotional job and voice all follow from which need the path is serving. Hex values below are read live from the tokens file.

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Colour

The full palette, with usage rules and live contrast math — not asserted, computed in the browser from the same hex values the swatches use.

Family	Front fill	Back panel	Text-on-cream	Accent tint	White-on-back panel	White-on-front fill
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Typography

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Headings & the prompt itself

Say the one tab still open in your head right now.

serif

Path label & descriptor

STEADY · THE OPEN TAB

sans

The consent line — never smaller, never quieter sans

Navigation, buttons, fine print

Free sampler — Editions & pricing — Policies

sans

Serif carries meaning. Headlines and the card prompt itself are set in the serif — it's the voice of the person asking the question.
Sans carries structure. Path labels, descriptors, the consent line, navigation and UI chrome are uppercase sans with wide tracking — it reads as system, not sentiment, so it never competes with the prompt for attention.
The consent line is never optional weight. It is always set at a minimum legible size, always in the path's accessible ink colour, never faded to "fine print" grey — it is a promise, not a footnote.
No distributed font files ship with the product — installed or system-fallback faces only, per the tokens note.

The mark

Under review — the owner has not given this mark final sign-off. It is wired into the live product as the working mark, not a settled decision.

Two ribbons — Steady navy, Open terracotta — tied through one another, with a crimson bead where they cross: two people, and the charged place they meet. Rendered directly from brand.mark_svg in the tokens file at every size below.

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Clear space

Keep clear space around the mark equal to the bead's diameter on every side, minimum. Nothing else — text, edges, other marks — enters that margin.

Misuse

The card as an object

This is not a mockup — it is the shared card component (shared/cards.css), rendered from a live sampler card at The Game Crafter proof reference, 2.75 × 4.75in. Customer production uses the selected provider's exact locked trim.

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Proof trim: 2.75 × 4.75in — the TGC-specific proof reference, with a 3.175mm bleed on every side. The selected provider template governs production dimensions.
Die-cut: Corners are true circular arcs, not a rounded-rectangle approximation — set in the CSS as a percentage radius so it scales correctly at any size.
The medallion: A single circular illustration per card, never repeated on the back — the round device is the front's alone, so the flip has something to reveal.
The consent line: PASS · PAUSE · SWAP · STOP prints on every card face, in the path's accessible ink colour, at a fixed minimum size — see Typography above.
The back: Purely typographic: the path name and the wordmark, no medallion. Category colour on the front face, deliberately deepened panel fill on the back where needed for contrast.

Voice and tone

Warm, specific, a little literary — never clinical, never cute. The voice asks; it does not perform.

	Do	Don't
Framing a prompt	Ask one concrete, answerable thing — a temperature, a memory, a single sentence.	Stack three questions into one card so passing feels like dodging all of them.
Talking about consent	State it plainly, every time, in the same four words — no softening, no apologising for it existing.	Bury the opt-out in an instruction booklet, or imply that using it means the game "isn't working".
Talking about the deck's purpose	Say what it is — a connection ritual, attachment-informed, built on real research we cite by name.	Call it therapy, treatment, or anything that implies a diagnosis or a clinical outcome.
Talking about After Dark	Frame it as what becomes possible once the first four paths are true — progression, earned.	Lead with it, discount it, or suggest a couple can skip to it first.
Talking about proof	Cite the real books and researchers behind the categories, plainly, with no implied endorsement.	Invent a testimonial, a statistic, or a founder story to make the case land faster.

The three rules that don't bend, even under pressure to sell

Never claims to be therapy, treatment, diagnosis, or crisis support — the line stays on every page it belongs on.
Consent language is never softened, shortened, or made to sound like a formality. PASS · PAUSE · SWAP · STOP, always visible, always real.
After Dark is a progression, never the entry point — nothing in hero imagery, ad creative, or copy suggests otherwise.