tehom/ developer / brand
tehom AI
Brand Guidelines · v1.4 · Active · May 2026
00What Tehom Is

Tehom builds the systems that turn the deep into form. Where intent meets infrastructure, where chaos meets order, where the work is spoken into being.

  • Substrate owner · holds the canonical standards, IDP, operating substrate
  • License grantor · grants consumption rights under written PLAs
  • Development partner · delivers full-stack bespoke applications under DSAs

Magician 60% · Sage 40% (locked, Mark & Pearson canonical two-archetype)

01Color System

Six tokens. Six is the maximum.

--tehom-deep#050A10
Primary background. The deep. The cosmic medium.
--tehom-light#FAF7F2
Primary foreground. The light. Marks, wordmarks, body text on dark.
--tehom-deep-elevated#1A2638
Surface elevation. Panels, cards, dividers.
--tehom-muted#8A8680
Tertiary text. Captions, metadata, timestamps.
--tehom-signal#C9A961
Gold. Meaning, emphasis, status, brand-presence moments. Sparingly.
--tehom-utility#3D4F66
Slate. Function. Links, hover, secondary buttons.
--tehom-error#B05B3B
Terracotta. Reserved exception. Error states only — never decorative.
02Brand Family
tehom
תְּהוֹם · the deep · Gen 1:2
Parent. Substrate, IP, entity, brand surface. Stealth-theology.
yehi
יְהִי · let there be · Gen 1:3a
Methodology sub-brand. Bet-driven execution cadence. Stealth-theology.
or
אוֹר · light · Gen 1:3b
Alignment-memory sub-brand. The canon. Theology-explicit.

Reserved: Tov · Yom · Above the brand layer: YHWH · Davar

03Family Architecture

YHWH is the Source the family serves — outside the system. Davar (the Word) is the canonical content. The Tehom brand exists precisely because the Name does not reduce. Three sub-brands serve, three calibrated postures.

Above the brand layer · reverent glyphs · permitted-theology only
יהוהYHWH
Exodus 3:14 · the I AM · the Source · outside the system
דָּבָרDAVAR
John 1:1 · the Word · canonical content · what Or reads
is served by · through Davar
The brand layer · parent · stealth-theology
tehomתְּהוֹםGenesis 1:2 · the deep · substrate · IP · entity · brand surface
mediates outward as · two sub-brands
yehiיְהִי
Gen 1:3a · let there be · methodology · stealth-theology
The speech-act that calls form out of the deep. Bet-driven execution cadence for agentic teams. Pronounced YEH-hee.
orאוֹר
Gen 1:3b · light · alignment memory · theology-explicit
The light that answered. Canon, virtue lattice, alignment scoring. Internal codename YHWH-OS. Pronounced ohr.
Reserved candidates · Tov (testing layer, future) · Yom (unassigned)
04Family Marks & Lockups

Three active members. Each carries the same geometric DNA — dot, threshold, arcs — and inherits the typographic system, the locked color tokens, and the breath animation.

tehom
תְּהוֹם
GEN 1:2 · the deep · parent · substrate
tehom mark dark
Mark · dark
tehom mark light
Mark · light
tehom horizontal lockup
Horizontal lockup
tehom stacked lockup
Stacked lockup
yehi
יְהִי
GEN 1:3a · let there be · methodology · stealth-theology
yehi mark dark
Mark · dark
yehi mark light
Mark · light
yehi horizontal lockup
Horizontal lockup
yehi stacked lockup
Stacked lockup
or
אוֹר
GEN 1:3b · light · alignment memory · theology-explicit
or mark dark
Mark · dark
or mark light
Mark · light
or horizontal lockup
Horizontal lockup
or stacked lockup
Stacked lockup
Tehom mark · geometry
  • Dot diameter: 1u · Gap above horizon: 1u
  • Horizon line: 8u · weight 0.1u
  • Arcs: 3 concentric · radii 1.5/2.25/3u · weight 0.1u
  • All measurements proportional. Yehi inverts the descent; Or mirrors Tehom vertically (arcs ascending).
Don'ts (all members)
  • · No glow, shadow, gradient, 3D effects
  • · No rotation, skew, distortion
  • · Three arcs is the count (Tehom & Or)
  • · Wordmark only in Fraunces Light, lowercase
  • · Hebrew script per § 09 Theology Surface Discipline
05Reverent Glyphs · Above the Brand Layer

Not sub-brand wordmarks. They name what the family serves, not what it is. Permitted on theology surfaces only — see § 09.

יהוה
YHWH
Exodus 3:14 · the I AM · the Source
  • · The Name. Not vocalized. Tetragrammaton.
  • · Hebrew יהוה is the canonical form.
  • · Latin YHWH (uppercase) is the operational form — code, repo names, internal codenames only.
  • · Internal codename: YHWH-OS (Or's runtime).
דָּבָר
DAVAR
John 1:1 · the Word · the λόγος
  • · The Word that was with God before any system existed.
  • · Pronounced dah-VAHR. With niqqud.
  • · Canonical content Or reads, never the layer that reads it.
  • · Distinct from the icon davar (in the icon set, propagating-utterance concept).

Permitted: foundation docs · about-page footer · business-card backs · internal codenames. Forbidden: marketing, product UI, sales surfaces, any sub-brand lockup.

06Typography
Fraunces Light
Display · wordmark · headlines · SIL Open Font License (free)
Optical size axis pinned at 144. Acceptable paid substitute: Tiempos Headline Light. Tiempos retired as primary in v1.3.
Inter Regular
Body · UI · captions · SIL OFL
Weights 400 / 500 / 600. Never 700+. The voice is restrained.
IBM Plex Mono
Code · terminal · technical · SIL OFL

The display serif carries gravity. The body sans carries clarity. The mono carries craft. Each typeface stays in its lane.

07Brand Personality · Archetype

Mark & Pearson canonical two-archetype structure · locked 2026-05-14 · grounds every voice decision

Magician60%

Dominant · the brand's center

Transformation, vision, "make dreams come true." Tehom's brand essence is literally transformation language — turn the deep into form. The mark itself depicts the moment of transformation: light hovering above a threshold, order propagating through depth. Magician is what the brand is for.

Verbs Magician supplies

build · transform · turn · propagate · unlock · reimagine · vision · possibility · breakthrough · alchemy

Customer feelings to evoke

hope · vision · willingness · intrigue · "this brand sees something I haven't yet"

Shadow Magician = pure incantation, hype unbacked by substance. The Sage influencer is what keeps the Magician honest.

Sage40%

Influencer · the calibrating restraint

Truth, depth, "show the work." The locked voice attributes — restrained, grounded, lucid, patient, reverent — are Sage canon. Higher than a typical Magician-led brand carries (usually 30%) because Tehom's operating discipline is heavier-weighted Sage than the dominant alone allows.

Qualifiers Sage supplies

research · evidence · framework · principle · considered · rigorous · learn · understand · depth · clarity

Customer feelings to evoke

respected · well-informed · confident · "this brand thought before it sold"

Shadow Sage = ivory-tower hedging, won't commit to a recommendation. The Magician dominant is what makes Sage shippable.

Together · the synthesis

The Magician supplies the verbs; the Sage supplies the qualifiers. Together they produce copy that promises something specific that the brand has actually done the work to deliver. Tehom builds, Tehom understands what it builds, Tehom can explain both. Avoid pure incantation (Magician shadow); avoid ivory-tower hedging (Sage shadow). The two-archetype lock is canonical Mark & Pearson — no accent archetype, no third member. Or carries the same mix; Or tilts slightly more Sage on alignment-anchoring copy but remains in the family.

Reference brands · Magician/Sage family
  • Apple · modern era · Magician-dominant
  • DeepMind · Sage-leaning sister
  • Anthropic · mirror · Sage-dominant
  • Stripe · mirror · Sage-leaning
  • Wolfram Research · Sage with Magician edge
  • Character refs · Gandalf · Doctor Strange · Dumbledore · Morpheus
Why not the obvious alternatives
  • · Not Hero/Outlaw · "relentless / disruptive" is locked-out vocabulary
  • · Not Sage-dominant · essence verb is builds, not just understands
  • · Not Magician/Creator · Tehom is transformation, not craft for craft's sake
  • · Not Ruler-influenced · the structural authority is not yet earned

Full archetype profile · brand/persona/tehom-archetype-profile.md · customer-side mixes for H&J Petroleum (Ruler 70 / Magician 30) and PetroSuites (Hero 85 / Caregiver 15) live there.

08Voice & Tone
Attributes
  • Restrained. Confidence as quietness.
  • Grounded. Concrete particulars.
  • Lucid. Plain language carrying depth.
  • Patient. Nowhere to be in a hurry.
  • Reverent. Toward the work.
Anti-patterns
  • · Startup-warrior vocabulary
  • · Cute, quippy, relatable
  • · Jargon-as-credentialing
  • · Effusive (no emoji)
  • · Religious in surface posture (Tehom · Yehi)
  • · AI-marketing-dust ("AI-powered")
Do · Don't
build · transform · turn · propagate · substrate · threshold · considered · rigorous · named · documented · spoken-into-being
disrupt · relentless · hustle · AI-powered · unleash · supercharge · revolutionary · game-changer · easy
09Naming Conventions

How the names are written across surfaces

In prose
  • Sentence case · Tehom, Yehi, Or
  • Full form (first introduction) · Tehom AI
  • Sub-brand first-introduction · Yehi by Tehom, Or by Tehom
  • Short form thereafter · Tehom
  • Never TehomAI · never tehom.ai in prose
As mark
  • Wordmark · always lowercase
  • Always Fraunces Light · opsz 144 · weight 300
  • Never bold, italic, stretched, or substituted
Pronunciation
  • teh-HOHM · Sephardic / modern Hebrew · two syllables
  • YEH-hee · two syllables, soft h
  • ohr · one syllable, long o, soft r
  • dah-VAHR · two syllables · Davar (reverent glyph)
.meta eyebrows

Section labels use MONO UPPERCASE TRACKED — IBM Plex Mono, 9–10px, letter-spacing 0.2em. Used for section numbers (00, 01…), surface labels (THESIS, STACK, WORK), status badges. Never for sentences.

10Spacing

Base 64px · 1.5× progression

space-quarter16px
space-half32px
space-three-quarter48px
space-base64px
space-and-a-half96px
space-double128px
11Motion · The Breath

Quiet easing · short durations · one load-bearing animation

the breath · live

The dot pulses on a 4-second cycle, opacity 1.0 → 0.82 → 1.0. Subtle by design — confidence as quietness. If the badge above reads motion enabled, the animation is running per spec.

--motion-instant120ms
--motion-quick160ms
--motion-settle240ms
--easecubic-bezier(.4, 0, .2, 1)

No springs, no bounces, no overshoot. No fade-in-on-scroll, no parallax, no scroll-jacking. Respect prefers-reduced-motion.

12Surface Chrome

Solid backgrounds · hairline separation · sharp corners · no shadows

Backgrounds
  • · Always solid · default --tehom-deep
  • · No gradients (brand does not perform)
  • · No photographic backgrounds
  • · No repeating patterns or textures
  • · No hand-drawn illustrations
Borders · hairlines
  • · 1px hairline strokes everywhere
  • --hairline: rgba(250,247,242,0.12)
  • · Sharp corners · border-radius: 0
  • · No drop shadows, no inner shadows, no glows
Hover · press · focus
  • · Link hover: underline slate → light (160ms quiet ease)
  • · Nav text hover: opacity 72% → 100%
  • · Button hover (ghost): hairline → full --tehom-light border
  • · Button hover (signal): gold lightens #C9A961 → #d6b873
  • · Press: brief opacity dip (~0.9). No shrink. No scale.
  • · Focus (standard): slate ring
  • · Focus (critical): gold ring
Transparency
  • · No backdrop-blur (nav is solid deep)
  • · Body copy at 78% opacity
  • · Supporting text at 66%, captions at muted token
13Iconography · Spec + the Family
Spec
  • · 24×24 viewBox · stroke-width 1.0 hairline · round caps + joins · currentColor
  • · Fills: none · only the dot motif (presence/focus/status)
  • · Family vocabulary: circles, horizons, concentric arcs, radial propagation, dot grids, frame brackets
  • · Dashed strokes = act-in-motion (yehi, orchestration, faith bridge)
  • · Solid strokes = stable artifacts
Family principles
  • · Must look like it belongs beside the master mark — sibling test before lock
  • · No emoji, no unicode glyphs as icons — every needed glyph has an explicit SVG
  • · The davar icon (concept of propagating utterance) is distinct from the Davar reverent glyph
  • · 60 icons · v1.4 inventory · synced from brand/tehom-brand-assets/icons/

The substrate group breaks into seven subfamilies the v1.4 spec names — Genesis-1 creation arc, Or alignment, cardinal virtues, biblical-graph, stewardship/vocation, Tehom operational, Yehi methodology.

Status · State4
active
complete
error
idle
Navigation · Frame6
arrow-down
arrow-left
arrow-right
arrow-up
close
menu
Genesis-1 creation arc8
davar
firmament
hover
naming
substrate
threshold
tov
yehi
Or · alignment memory7
alignment-score
body
canon
life
ritual
virtue
void
Cardinal virtues4
beauty
justice
order
truth
Biblical-graph layer3
domain
exemplar
faith
Stewardship · vocation7
breath
calling
imago-dei
sabbath
stewardship
vision
wisdom
Tehom · operational7
audit
cycle
evaluation
governance
memory
orchestration
runtime
Yehi · methodology8
agreement
bet
blocker
cool-down
goal
harvest
spike
tenant
Content · Tool6
agent
code
doc
link-external
search
terminal
14Application Examples

How the system is applied. Calibrated examples at the locked tokens — not mockups, working renders.

Business card · front
tehom
Matt Hood
founder
matthew.g.hood@gmail.com
Business card · back
תְּהוֹם
teh·hōm
Website hero · tehom.ai
tehom
Thesis · Stack · Principles · Work · Origin
AGENTIC AI INFRASTRUCTURE
Form from the deep.
Tehom builds the systems that turn the deep into form. Where intent meets infrastructure, where chaos meets order, where the work is spoken into being.
Begin a conversation →
App icon · 22% radius
Agent status indicators
idle
active
error
complete

The active dot is the brand's load-bearing presence moment. Gold pulses on the 4-second breath. The only place the brand performs is when the agent is thinking.

Code block
// substrate · runtime · evaluation
import { runYehi } from "@tehom/yehi";

const cycle = await runYehi({
  bets: ["bet-650"],
  proof: "deterministic",
});
// → cycle.complete === true
15Theology Surface Discipline · v1.4

Three calibrated postures. Tehom & Yehi sell — theology covert. Or names what it serves — theology explicit. YHWH & Davar are above the brand layer.

tehom · yehistealth
Permitted on
  • · Origin docs, founding charter
  • · Internal references, architecture notes
  • · About-page footer (existing תְּהוֹם treatment)
  • · Business-card backs
Forbidden on
  • · Marketing copy, paid acquisition
  • · Tehom/Yehi product UI
  • · Goal docs, status dashboards
  • · Anywhere selling rather than describing
orexplicit
Permitted on
  • · Alignment surfaces, canon views, virtue lattices, alignment reports
  • · Bible chapter references inline with virtues (Phil 4:5, Prov 4:18…)
  • · Hebrew transliterations: tov, or, davar
  • · The internal codename YHWH-OS as operational reference
  • · Or marketing copy when functionally about the alignment layer
Why

The alignment-memory layer's function is to anchor work to the canonical Source. Or names what it serves; the stealth posture would obscure the function.

יהוה · דָּבָרreverent
Permitted on
  • · Foundation documents (yhwh-foundation.md)
  • · About-page footer
  • · Business-card backs
  • · Internal codenames (YHWH-OS only)
Forbidden everywhere else
  • · Never as wordmarks
  • · Never on marketing or product UI in any form
  • · Never in a sub-brand lockup
  • · The codename appearing on Or surfaces is operational reference, not a reverent-glyph rendering