Assert, then evidence
Lead with the claim. Support it immediately. A reader should be able to disagree with a specific sentence — that is the point.
Brand guide · v0.1
Cognizant Capital
One idea, carried consistently: nearly all the value is past the horizon. The name says it, the mark draws it, the writing argues it, and the design gets out of its way.
01 The name
"Cognizant Capital" — interim
Cognizant Capital is the working name, adopted with the purchase of
cognizant-capital.com. It is explicitly interim: "Cognizant" is the name
of a major listed IT-services company (Cognizant Technology Solutions, which also
runs Cognizant Ventures), and a "Cognizant Capital" investor group already operates
in India. Do not spend on trademarks, signage or swag under this name.
The firm's thesis language predates the name and survives it: the site was designed around the terminal-value argument — almost all of a frontier company's worth sits beyond the explicit forecast period — and that argument, the tagline and the mark all stay regardless of what the firm is ultimately called.
Leading candidates for the permanent name (conflict-checked and with domains
open as of Aug 2026): The Buildout, Offtake Partners, Static Fire, Millwright,
Tapeout. See README.md for the full diligence table.
Usage
- Written Cognizant Capital in running text. Never "CognizantCapital", never "CogCap".
- In the wordmark only, set as letterspaced small caps: Cognizant Capital
- Legal entity name is to be confirmed with counsel — given the conflicts above, the trading name and the registered entity may need to differ.
02 The mark
A value curve crossing the forecast horizon
Three elements
A baseline; a dashed vertical rule at the forecast horizon; a value curve that stays flat before it and accelerates after it. The area to the right of the rule is the terminal — the shaded region is the firm's entire argument.
03 Palette
Paper, ink, and one oxide.
A warm off-white rather than pure white — it reads as a printed document, not a web app. Exactly one accent, used only for emphasis and never for decoration.
The accent is a burnt iron-oxide red — rocket exhaust and Mars regolith without being literal about either. It appears on links, section numerals, the dashed horizon and nothing else. If a page has more than about two per cent oxide by area, something has gone wrong.
Dark mode inverts to Void #0D0D0B with Paper ink #EDE9DF and
a lifted accent #D9714F for contrast. It is wired to
prefers-color-scheme; there is no manual toggle by design.
04 Typography
A serif for thinking, a mono for measuring.
Display / EB Garamond 600 · -2.6% tracking
Nearly all the value is past the horizon.
Lede / EB Garamond 400 · Ink 2
Frontier companies are hard to finance for a boring reason: there is almost nothing in the near-term cash flows.
Body / EB Garamond 400 · 1.62 leading · 66ch measure
Every discounted cash flow has two halves. The first is the explicit forecast, argued line by line. The second is a single figure standing in for everything that happens afterwards — usually arrived at in the last ten minutes before the deck is printed.
Eyebrow & data / JetBrains Mono 500 · uppercase · 14% tracking
01 — The problem · Phase 03 · 4–8 weeks
Rules
- Serif for everything a human reads as prose. Mono for anything that is a label, a number, or a measurement.
- Never mono for body copy. Never serif for a data label.
- Body measure caps at ~66 characters. Non-negotiable — it is most of why the site feels considered.
- Old-style figures on by default (
onum); they sit in the line properly. - Sentence case for headings. Title Case reads corporate.
05 Voice
Write like a memo, not like marketing.
Name the weakness
Say what we do not know and what we have not yet done. Credibility here comes from precision about limits, not from confidence.
Use concrete nouns
Depreciation schedules, option years, tape-outs, ground stations. Specificity is the proof of expertise.
Short declaratives for the important lines
"We decline everything else." The rhythm does the work that bold text would otherwise be asked to do.
No superlatives, no "leading"
No "world-class", "trusted partner", "unlock value", "bespoke solutions". Every one of these makes the firm smaller.
No exclamation, no hype punctuation
The typography is already serious. Adding energy on top reads as insecurity.
The one-liner
Cognizant Capital is a capital advisory firm for artificial intelligence and space companies. We build the investment case and run the raise.
The tagline
Nearly all the value is past the horizon.
06 Layout
Hairlines, not shadows.
- Structure is expressed with 1px rules and grid gaps. No drop shadows, no rounded corners, no gradients, no glass.
- Cards are cells in a hairline grid — the border belongs to the grid, not to the card.
- Section rhythm is one token (
--step), scaling 3.5rem → 7rem. - One inverted "void" block per page, at the end, carrying the call to action. Never two.
- Motion: a 12px rise and a fade, 600ms, once. Nothing loops, nothing parallaxes, nothing bounces.
- Charts are line-and-rule only, drawn in ink with the terminal region washed in oxide at ~11% opacity.