The system of record for who is a member, right now.

The Union Hub is digital membership infrastructure for organized labour. We replace the printed union card with a verifiable digital credential that updates in real time. A member's status is current. A rep's verification is fast. A union's roster is sovereign.

We are not an app. We are not a CRM. We are not a marketing platform. We are the layer that answers one question correctly: is this person a member in good standing today?

Paper says you were a member. Not that you are.

A printed card is accurate the day it leaves the printer. Then dues lapse. Members move locals. Members leave. The card says nothing about any of it. In a vote, a strike, a contract negotiation, a workplace dispute — yesterday's paper card is the wrong answer to today's question.

Every brand decision in this book is made to keep the answer to that question current, fast, and trusted by the people on both sides of it.

We turn the union card from a printed artifact into a live credential.

For unions and the members and reps who serve them, The Union Hub is a membership verification system that replaces the paper card with a credential that is verifiable in seconds, scoped to the rep doing the verifying, and current as of right now. Unlike apps that ask members to download, sign in, and remember a password, The Union Hub takes one tap, no install, no account, no friction.

What we are not.

One promise. Three audiences.

Union Admin

Runs the local. Cares about the roster being clean and exportable. Will not tolerate friction with the member base. Uploads a CSV. Updates statuses. Done.

Member

Carries a phone. Doesn't want another app. Got a text once with a link. The card lives there. Works at a vote, a rally, a job site. That is the entire interaction.

Union Rep

Standing at a door. Has 90 seconds per person. Needs a yes or no. Opens the phone camera. Scans. Reads the screen. Moves on.

Executive Board

Won't use the product day-to-day. Will sign the contract. Reads in numbers and risk. Cares about data sovereignty, audit trails, and the answer to where does the data live.

How we always sound.

How we never sound.

Marketing Site

Confident, plain, slightly opinionated. The brand has a position. State it once, clearly.

Member Onboarding

Warm. Calm. Functional. "Here's your card. Save the link. That's it."

Verify UI (Rep)

Almost wordless. A status word, a date, a member name. The interface does the speaking.

Errors

Specific and instructive. Tell the user what failed and what to do. Never apologise abstractly.

Executive / Board

Sober and precise. Less voice, more substance. Use full sentences. Cite data sovereignty and audit trails.

Words that should appear consistently across the brand. They are how a member, a rep, and an admin recognise the same product across surfaces.

If a word in this list appears in a draft, replace it before the draft leaves the room.

revolutionize · leverage · empower · seamless · robust · cutting-edge · next-gen · ecosystem · solution · journey · unlock · synergy · disruption · transformative · world-class · best-in-class · holistic · enterprise-grade · turnkey · learn more · click here · sign up · users

Two paths. One mark. Drawn once.

The Union Hub mark is a custom geometric form, drawn in solid Forest Green on Off White. Two paths, in one weight, with no outline, no inner detail, and no decoration. The contour does the work. It is built to read at favicon size and on a black-and-white photocopy at the back of a union hall.

The mark always appears as a single fill — never as a stroke, never split into separately coloured pieces, never with a gradient.

Three approved lockups. The horizontal lockup is the default at all sizes above 32px. The mark-only is for favicons, app icons, social avatars, and any context under 32px. The stacked lockup is for square crops only — never use stacked when horizontal will fit.

Forest on Off White (default) · Active on Deep Forest · Off White on Forest · Forest on Mint.

Clear Space

Equal to one full mark height on every side. No copy, no rule, no other mark inside that boundary.

Minimum Size

Mark — 20px digital, 0.3" print. Horizontal lockup — 120px digital, 1" print. The contour holds detail down to 20px and softens below it.

Don't

Don't recolour individual paths. Don't outline the mark. Don't shadow, gradient, rotate, or stretch it. Don't enclose it in a box. Don't pair it with another mark inside the clear-space boundary.

Files

SVG is canonical — logo.svg at the brand root, viewBox 552.18 × 532.22. PNG @1x/2x/3x for raster. EPS for print vendors who insist.

Two greens. Two jobs. No gradients.

Forest Green is the brand. Active Green is the verified state. Those are different things and the colour system enforces the difference. Mint Tint exists for soft surfaces. Deep Forest exists for dark surfaces. Alert Red exists for one specific moment — a failed verification — and otherwise stays out of the work entirely.

There are no gradients in this system. Anywhere. A gradient is a hedge between two answers, and this brand answers in one.

The page is mostly Off White. Forest Green is the anchor. Active Green appears only on verified states. Alert Red is < 1% — a flicker, never a field.

• Off White 60%
• Forest 18%
• Deep Forest 10%
• Active 6%
• Mint 5%
• Alert <1%

Two greens together fail the contrast test. Alert Red touches a calm surface only — never a brand surface. Mid Gray is for type, not for fields.

Body text

Near Black on Off White — contrast 16.4:1 (AAA).

Brand on light

Forest on Off White — contrast 5.7:1 (AA Large & AA Body).

Verified state

Active Green on Mint — passes for icon & large display only. Body copy in verified contexts uses Deep Forest.

Alert state

Alert Red on Off White — contrast 4.6:1 (AA Body). Always paired with the X icon and a status word — colour is never the only signal.

A serif that declares. A sans that doesn't shout.

Playfair Display — high-contrast, classic, slightly editorial — does the declaring. DM Sans at weight 300 — light, geometric, unbothered — does the rest. Body copy at light weight is unusual on purpose. It signals an interface that is calm, not selling, and that trusts the reader to read.

Italic

Reserved for one or two emphasised words inside a Playfair display line. Never an entire sentence. Never inside body copy.

Weight

Body never above 400. If you need more weight, use a 500 inline strong — once per paragraph, maximum.

Tracking

Display is negative (−0.01 to −0.02em). Body is 0. Eyebrow is positive (0.14–0.20em).

All caps

Only for eyebrows in DM Mono. Never for headlines.

One scale, used everywhere. Pick a value from the scale or argue for a new one in writing.

Columns

12-column responsive grid. 80px max gutter on desktop, 24px on mobile.

Container

1200px max width. Margins 80px desktop, 24px mobile.

Section padding

96–128px vertical. A section without breathing room is rejected.

The hairline is the elevation system.

Every container, card, input, and divider in this brand uses a single rule: 0.5px solid rgba(0,0,0,0.15) on light surfaces, or 0.5px solid rgba(245,244,241,0.18) on dark. There are no shadows. There is no glow. There is no drop blur. Depth is implied through hairlines and whitespace alone.

Buttons

4px. Square-ish. Reads as a button, not a badge.

Inputs

8px. Slightly softer to receive a hand.

Cards

12px. The signature container radius.

Pills

999px. Status only.

Avatars / images

Never round. Always 12px corner.

Every marketing section follows the same internal order. If a section needs to break this order, it is a different kind of section, with its own pattern.

If the page feels crowded, the page is crowded. The rule of thumb: a section header should have at least 64px of clear space above it, and the next block at least 32px below the lede. Add space before adding more copy.

Verified or Invalid. Nothing in between.

The verification system is intentionally binary. A maybe is a failure. An "expired but recently active" is a failure. The product reduces a complicated answer to one of two outcomes, every time.

Used inline, in dashboards, and on the member card.

Colour

Always Near Black on Off White. No brand-coloured QR codes — they fail at low-light scans.

Quiet zone

Full default quiet zone. No logo overlay inside the QR — it lowers scan reliability and gains nothing.

Lockup

If the QR appears on the marketing site, the brand mark sits beside it, not inside it.

Stroke

1.5px, rounded caps disabled (square caps), miter joins.

Fill

Strokes only — except for the two status icons, which are filled circles.

Grid

24×24 base, 16×16 dense.

Colour

Forest on light, Off White on dark. Never coloured by category.

The card is the brand.

This is what a member sees on their phone. It is what a rep sees when scanning. It is the most-used surface of the entire product. Treat it accordingly.

Primary

"Get early access" · "Verify member" · "Start the pilot" — verb plus outcome.

Ghost

"See how it works" · "Read the brief" — invitations, not orders.

Banned

Learn more · Click here · Sign up · Submit · Get started

Short labels. No required-field asterisks. Helper text under the field, not above. The form is short on purpose.

Success

Verified. Active member since 2019.

Error

Not in roster. Last sync was 4 minutes ago. Ask the local to refresh.

Empty

No members yet. Upload a CSV to get started.

SMS

Your Union Hub card is ready. One link, no app: uh.link/m/abc123

Email subject

"Your card is ready." — five words, no exclamation, no emoji.

The on-prem ask. Goes on the union hall wall, in member newsletters, on a clipboard at orientation.

Brand owner

The Union Hub Founding Team. Until a brand lead is hired, all visual and verbal exceptions route through the founder.

Source of truth

This document, version-controlled in the project repository at /brand.

Last review

2026 · v1.0

Mandatory

New product surface (e.g. a rep-side tool, an admin dashboard). New audience (e.g. employers, regulators). New geography. Major policy change (privacy, data residency).

Optional

New campaign, new typeface request, new colour proposal. The default answer to all three is no — write a one-page argument first.

1. Co-branding rules with locals. When does a CUPE 416 card show The Union Hub mark, and at what scale?
2. Internationalisation. Type stack and tone shifts for French Canada and Spanish.
3. Accessibility audit beyond colour. Screen-reader script for the card and the verify screen.
4. Print collateral kit. A finished, mailable poster + cheat-sheet card for reps.
5. Crisis comms voice. A short appendix for the day a roster sync fails publicly.