Twenty-five start.
One stays.

Every piece of the identity is twenty-five of something, and one of them stays. The one is always the thirteenth, in the middle, and it is drawn as a runner.

The logo is the one who stays: the runner. The other twenty-four live in the field, a row of bars where tall means still here and short means stopped. During the race it runs as a live scoreboard, and it always ends on the runner. Nobody is beaten in a backyard. Twenty-four people decide to stop, and the field records it.

Making something new? Ask two questions. Where are the twenty-five? Which one stays?

The logoThe runner and the name. Site, posters, shirts, bibs.

The runnerWhere the name won't fit: favicon, avatar, sticker.

One colourFlyers, stamps, anything printed in one colour.

One colourSmall print.

• Construction. The name is 0.6 of the runner's height and stands on the runner's baseline, 0.27 of that height to its right. In the header the runner is 44 px tall, 36 px on phones.
• Clear space. Half the runner's height on every side.
• Never stack the name under the runner, and never set it in anything but Mona Sans narrow 800.
• The runner is red on dark and black in one-colour print. Never chalk, never another colour.
• One runner, this runner. No other figures, shoes or flames anywhere in the identity.
• Keep it off busy photos. Put it on night, or darken the photo until it reads as night.

The field

The bars are not part of the logo. They are the field: twenty-four who stopped and the runner who stayed. Use them where they are live, in the field animation on the site, the scoreboard and the hourly posts.

On nightStopped bars in dim.

On photographsStopped bars in ash.

• Construction. 24 bars, 4 wide on an 8 pitch, 20 high. The runner stands 48 high in the thirteenth place, one bar-width clear either side.
• Never as the logo, and never beside the name.
• Never move the one. It is always the thirteenth. A row with the runner at the end would describe a different race.
• Never use red for the twenty-four. Red belongs to the one alone.

During the race, the row is live. Every hourly post carries the field as it stands.

Night does most of the work. Red is for the one: the runner, the whistle marks, the button that asks you to come.

Night 70Chalk 22Ash 6 · Signal 2

• Surface #141414 for tiles and panels on night. Dim #4A4740 for short bars only, never text.
• Ash on night is 6.6:1 and white on signal is 4.8:1. Both pass for body text.

Ten sizes cover every line on both pages. Mona Sans at three widths for meaning, Azeret Mono for what a stopwatch shows.

• Sentence case, always. The name is the only thing in title case.
• Never all caps, never letter-spaced labels.
• Four weights: 400, 500, 600, 800. Three widths: narrow 75, compact 85, normal 100.
• No mono for decoration. If a stopwatch wouldn't show it, it's sans.

One 4-pixel scale. Every margin, padding and gap on both pages is one of these eight steps.

• Sections get 64 to 112 px top and bottom, scaling with the screen.
• Edges keep a 16 to 40 px gutter and centre a 1360 px content width on big screens.
• Three breakpoints: 720 px for two columns, 1000 px for section frames and the nav, 1280 px for two-column lists.
• A section is a frame: heading on the left in at least 240 px, content on the right, from 1000 px.
• No radius, no shadows, no borders except 1 px hairlines between sections.
• Mosaics use a 4 px gap and no outer margin. Photo scenes run full bleed.

Things move only when the race's state changes. Every animation plays once, and with reduced motion it shows its end state immediately.

Try it

• Focus is a 2 px signal outline, 3 px outside. On the red button it turns chalk. Tab through the examples to see it.
• Every target is at least 44 by 44 px. Buttons are 48 px tall.
• No scroll-triggered fades on text, no parallax, nothing that loops.
• The full list of animations is four: hero lines, the clock arc, the field, the loop.

Write like the race director at 3am. Calm, short, a bit dry. Nobody needs hyping at hour twenty.

1. Say the fact.Numbers, times, places. "Late by a second is a stop" beats any slogan.
2. Say less.One idea per sentence. If a sentence changes nothing, cut it.
3. Talk about staying, not winning.The race is a decision made every hour. Write about coming back, not about beating anyone.
4. You and we.The runner is you. The organizers are we. Never "the team", never "athletes".
5. Keep it dry.Humour is welcome when it is true, like "same distance, fewer roots". Tough-guy talk never is.

Hourly post

Yard 14. Six still here. Rain from 03:00.

Someone stops

Bib 7 stopped at yard 11. Owes one hour on the clock.

Invite reply

There's room. Saturday, 09:00, the corral in the Schollebos.

The end

Yard 21. One left. It ended at 06:00.

Shoot the real thing, late, mostly in the dark. The best pictures happen between yards, at the corral.

Grade: desaturate to almost black and white, warm the shadows slightly, crush the blacks, keep the grain. Go darker behind instruments and statements. These are placeholder photos from Wikimedia Commons, treated with that grade.

1. The corral table at 03:00. Half-eaten food, a headlamp still on.
2. Feet at the line with eight seconds on the clock.
3. The sheet on the clipboard, half the names struck out.
4. One headlamp on the path, shot from far behind.
5. Someone sitting down for good, shoes off.
6. The clock at 59:52.
7. The Schollebos at first light, second sunrise.
8. The last runner alone at the start of a yard.

• Skip finish-line shots, since there isn't a finish line.
• No medals, no podiums, no drone heroes, no stock runners.