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Karkade Guidelines

Egyptian hibiscus skincare: one serum, steeped cold the way karkade is made in Cairo.

Introduction

Karkade’s home page: the stacked name KAR KA DE filled with crimson hibiscus ink, a bloom of ink drifting through it, beside “Hibiscus serum, steeped slow.” — The home page’s first screen. A drop of hibiscus falls into the name and steeps it crimson; the pointer drags the ink out of the letters.

Karkade is a skincare brand built on one Egyptian ritual. In Cairo, karkade is dried hibiscus steeped until the water turns crimson, drunk cold in summer and hot in winter. Karkade keeps the steep and leaves out the sugar: a light hibiscus serum, one step, morning or night.

The name is the logo. It is lettered the way a Cairo sign painter letters a shopfront: tall capitals cut with a reed pen, stacked KAR, KA, DE so it stands like a sign by a door. The seal is the same K, reversed out of a crimson disc, for caps, stickers and the favicon.

Karkade crimson on cream carries everything, with wine for depth. The brand should feel like a shop on a sunny Cairo street: warm, unhurried and specific, never pharaonic, never gold.

At a glance

Logo

Colours

Cream#F6ECE4
Crimson#7E0C22
Wine#3A0711

Type

Aa Instrument Sans
Aa Newsreader

Line

Hibiscus serum, steeped slow.

Brand kit

36 files · 2.1 MB

Download the zip

Wordmark scale

160 px
128 px
104 px
84 px
64 px

The stack is the logo: KAR, KA, DE, every line the same width. Use it alone wherever there is height, on the carton, the bottle, the sign. Add the seal above it for the shop wall and the front of the bag. Use the seal alone where the space is small or round: the cap, the sticker, the favicon, the profile picture. The stack needs 64 px of height; below that, the seal carries the brand. Never retype, restack or spread the letters into one line.

Signature

Crimson on cream is the signature: the carton, the label, the shop’s plaster wall. Use it on any warm light ground.

Cream on crimson for the bag, the hanging sign and anywhere the brand needs to carry across a street. On wine, the same cream artwork.

Three cuts

StackThe name in three lines of reed-pen capitals. The primary logo.

SealThe stack’s own K reversed out of a crimson disc. Caps, stickers, the favicon; it holds at 16 px.

Seal over stackThe seal centred above the stack, half its width across. For the shop wall and the front of the bag.

Small sizes

Stack, 64 px tall
Seal, 32 px
Seal, 16 px

Logo on your background

Ground

Use the dark artwork: 9.1:1 against this ground. Logos need at least 3:1 (WCAG 2, non-text contrast).

Please don’t

Don’t stretch or squeeze the stack. The capitals keep their tall reed-pen proportion.

Don’t tilt it. A sign hangs straight.

Don’t make it gold, or any other colour. Crimson, cream or wine.

Don’t set it on a red that swallows it. Check the ground with the tool above.

Don’t add shadows, embossing effects or glows on screen. It is painted lettering.

Don’t fade it. The steep is always full strength.

Core palette

Cream

Crimson

Wine

Sand

Shutter

Calyx

Crimson is the colour of karkade itself, and the logo’s only ink. Cream is its ground, Wine its deepest steep. Sand and Shutter come from the street the shop stands on: terrazzo and green wooden shutters. Calyx is the light coming through a glass. CMYK values are a plain device conversion for reference; print Crimson from a matched spot swatch.

Color proportions

Cream48%

Crimson24%

Wine12%

Sand9%

Shutter4%

Calyx3%

Cream carries most of every surface, Crimson the name and the headlines, Wine the text. Shutter appears once at most.

Readable combinations

AaCrimson on Cream9.1:1AAA
AaWine on Cream14.8:1AAA
AaCream on Crimson9.1:1AAA
AaCream on Wine14.8:1AAA
AaCrimson on Sand7.1:1AAA
AaCream on Shutter6.5:1AA
AaCalyx on Cream4.1:1AA Large

Calyx on Cream reaches only large-text contrast: keep it to tints and illustration, never words. Ratios are WCAG 2 contrast, measured on the sRGB values above: AAA from 7:1, AA from 4.5:1, AA Large from 3:1 (large or bold text only).

Check a pairing

Text

Ground

AaCream on Crimson

9.1:1AAA

Type system

Hibiscus serum, steeped slow.
Headlines, text and labels, as on the website: medium 500 at 22 px for the headline, regular 400 for text, capitals at 13 px with open spacing for buttons. Plain and warm, it lets the lettered name be the only voice with character. By Rodrigo Fuenzalida, SIL Open Font License 1.1, on Google Fonts; about 30 KB a weight as WOFF2 (Latin). This preview doesn’t load it yet, so the line above falls back to your system’s face.
Steeped cold, the way it is made in Cairo.
The journal, the ritual on the back of the carton and pull quotes, often in italic. By Production Type, SIL Open Font License 1.1, on Google Fonts; about 45 KB a style as WOFF2 (Latin). This preview doesn’t load it yet, so the line above falls back to your system’s face.

Click any specimen line to try your own words.

Type scale

Base16 px

Ratio

Major third 1.25

DisplayInstrument Sans · 500 · 48.8px · 3.052rem
Steeped slow.
Heading 1Instrument Sans · 500 · 39.1px · 2.441rem
Hibiscus serum, steeped slow.
Heading 2Instrument Sans · 500 · 25px · 1.563rem
Dried hibiscus, steeped cold the way karkade is made in Cairo.
Heading 3Instrument Sans · 500 · 20px · 1.25rem
One step · Morning or night
BodyInstrument Sans · 500 · 16px · 1rem
Karkade is hibiscus steeped until the water turns crimson. We keep the steep and leave out the sugar: a light serum, one step, morning or night.
CaptionInstrument Sans · 500 · 12.8px · 0.8rem
Egyptian hibiscus skincare · 30 ml

Tone of voice

Karkade speaks like the person behind the counter of a good Cairo shop: warm, unhurried and sure of what they make.

It describes the ritual and the ingredient plainly, and lets the colour do the persuading. It never promises miracles or results it hasn’t measured.

A ritual, not a regime

Karkade is one step, made the way a drink has been made for generations. The voice invites, explains how it’s made, and stops. Skin claims stay out unless they are tested.

Show how it’s made

Name the flower, the steep and the time it takes. Process is the proof.

Say	Avoid
Dried hibiscus, steeped cold for a night.	Clinically proven miracle serum!
We keep the steep and leave out the sugar.	Visibly younger skin in 7 days.

Warm, not exotic

Cairo is a real city, not a theme. No pharaohs, no mystique, no gold.

Say	Avoid
The way karkade is made in Cairo.	Unlock the ancient beauty secrets of Cleopatra.

Unhurried

Short sentences, no urgency. Nothing is ever running out.

Say	Avoid
One step, morning or night.	Hurry, only a few left!

Carton

The stack runs the height of the carton, as a sign runs the height of a door. Crimson on uncoated cream board; one quiet line names what is inside.

The seal over the stack sign-painted large in crimson on a cream plaster wall above a terrazzo counter with cartons, dropper bottles and a glass of cold karkade — The seal over the stack, painted by hand on the shop’s plaster. Brush marks show; the shutters stripe it with sun.

A hand holding an amber dropper bottle with a crimson bulb and a cream label printed with the KAR KA DE stack — Amber glass, a crimson bulb and a cream label: the stack wraps the bottle’s curve and needs nothing else.

Cream jar

An open cream ceramic jar of pink hibiscus cream beside its lid, the Karkade seal debossed and filled crimson on the lid

The seal where the space is round and small: debossed into the lid and filled with crimson, the K left in the lid’s own cream.

A crimson paper shopping bag printed with the cream KAR KA DE stack and closed with a round cream seal sticker, on a sunny Cairo pavement under jacaranda shade — Cream on crimson, so the bag carries down a street. The seal, in its light version, closes it.

A crimson enamel sign hanging from a bracket over a shopfront with green shutters, the stack hand-painted on it in cream — Where the stack comes from: a sign painter’s lettering on a hanging enamel sign, read top to bottom from down the street.

Pattern: the steep

Rows of discs on cream deepening from pale pink through crimson to wine, one disc carrying the seal’s K

The seal’s disc repeated, deepening from cream to crimson to wine the way water does as hibiscus steeps. One disc keeps its K. As a device, a single crimson disc closes a line like a full stop.