Hobby ExplorerSubscribe
Brand guidelines

One look for every Hobby Explorer page, video and post

Use these rules for the website, thumbnails, end screens, social posts, merch and anything a partner makes with us.

The name

Do

Hobby Explorer

Two words, capital H and capital E, everywhere: in copy, titles, alt text and code comments.

Don’t

HOBBY EXPLORER · hobbyexplorer · Hobby explorer

Never all caps, never one word in prose, never a lowercase E. The domain hobbyexplorer.com is the only exception.

A wireless-mic body with soft corners and slightly bowed sides, a white H inside, and a green recording light in the top-left corner. The geometry is fixed: don’t redraw, stretch, rotate, outline or recolor it beyond the variants below.

Primary Ink body, white H, Signal dot. Use on white and light backgrounds.
On dark White body, ink H, Signal dot. Use on Ink, video end screens and thumbnails.
Hobby Explorer
Lockup Mark plus the wordmark in Jost Bold, 10px gap at 44px mark size.
Small sizes 64px, 32px, and 16px without the dot (favicons).
Logo SVGOn-dark SVGPNG 512px
Logo SVG geometry (viewBox 0 0 64 64)
<path d="M32 3C48 3 56.5 5 58.3 13.5C60 22 60 42 58.3 50.5C56.5 59 48 61 32 61C16 61 7.5 59 5.7 50.5C4 42 4 22 5.7 13.5C7.5 5 16 3 32 3Z" fill="#12161A"/>
<path d="M22.5 19v26M41.5 19v26M22.5 32h19" stroke="#FFFFFF" stroke-width="6.5" stroke-linecap="round" fill="none"/>
<circle cx="14.5" cy="12" r="3.4" fill="#00FF66"/>

Colors

Ink and white do most of the work. Signal green is loud: buttons and dark backgrounds only, never text on white (it fails contrast). For green text on white, use Deep green.

  • Ink#12161Avar(--ink)Buttons, logo, dark sections
  • Text#171D26var(--text)Headings and body copy
  • Slate#627084var(--slate)Secondary text, meta
  • Line#DADFE7var(--line)Borders and dividers
  • Mist#F0F2F5var(--mist)Panels, transcript background
  • Signal#00FF66var(--signal)Buttons and dark backgrounds only
  • Deep green#067A3Avar(--green)Green text and links on white
  • Mint#E9FBF0var(--mint)Tints and highlights

Typography

One typeface: Jost, from Google Fonts, for everything. Headlines are Black (900) with tight tracking; body text is Regular (400) at 18–19px with 1.5–1.6 line height.

Traditional, hybrid or self-publishing?

Podcast · Books & Publishing

Soundarya Balasubramani explains the whole path from idea to bookstore shelf.

  • Jost 400Body text
  • Jost 600Navigation, labels
  • Jost 700Wordmark, buttons
  • Jost 800Card titles, eyebrows
  • Jost 900Headlines

Buttons and shapes

Buttons are rounded (12px corners, or a full pill for the main call to action). Cards and media use 16px corners.

SubscribeSubscribeWatch on YouTube
Signal on InkSignal text is fine on dark

Writing for the site

  • Summaries, takeaways and chapters come only from what was said in the video.
  • Transcripts are edited for readability (filler words removed, names spelled right), never rewritten.
  • Sentence case for headlines. Plain words. No hype.