Shared visual identity for nrds, yrso, and monmonmon. Click any swatch or code to copy.
Design Philosophy
Information security is stressful enough. Our products should never add to that stress. The core principle across everything we build is calm - interfaces that lower the heart rate, not raise it.
We take this idea from two traditions. From the Japanese concept of ma (間) - the deliberate use of empty space not as absence, but as presence. A pause in music is still music. A margin around a paragraph is still part of the design. Space gives the eye somewhere to rest and the mind room to think. From Bauhaus functionalism - the conviction that every element must earn its place. If a button, a color, a line of text doesn't serve the person using it, it shouldn't exist.
Calm in Practice
Calm is not passive. It's a decision to show people only what they need, when they need it. Our products should feel like a conversation with someone competent and unhurried - not a control room with every alarm lit up.
This means: one action per screen where possible. Progressive disclosure over upfront complexity. Status communicated through color and tone, not exclamation marks. Error states that explain what happened and what to do next, not just what went wrong. Dashboards that surface the single thing that matters right now, rather than every metric that could theoretically matter.
Compliance doesn't need to look like a threat dashboard. Device security doesn't need to feel like surveillance. When someone opens yrso or monmonmon, the first feeling should be I'm in control - not I'm behind.
Visual Identity
The palette draws from Japanese botanical ingredients - mochi, matcha, yuzu, azuki - warm, muted tones that feel more like a well-made notebook than enterprise software. A cream ground, ink-dark type, and color used sparingly: to signal status, to guide attention, never for decoration.
All three brands share the same typographic system, color palette, and design principles. Each product has its own squircle mark - a single letter on a deep plum field - that identifies it within the family while keeping them visually connected.
The governing company. nrds helps SaaS organisations get their information security in order - from first principles to full management system optimization. Consulting, implementation, and the products below all ship under this umbrella.
yrso
stop using spreadsheets for compliance
Compliance management platform for SaaS companies. yrso turns ISO 27001, SOC 2, and GDPR obligations into manageable workflows - task management with deadline tracking, framework orchestration across multiple standards, and incident/case management for continuous improvement. One command center instead of scattered spreadsheets.
monmonmon
know your devices are secure. nothing more.
Privacy-first device security monitoring. monmonmon performs read-only compliance checks - encryption, firewall, malware protection - without controlling devices or tracking users. No wiping, no software installation, no location or browsing data. Open-source agent, EU-hosted (Netherlands / France), GDPR-native. €1 per active device per month.
Overview
Three typefaces, each with a clear job. Outfit for display and headings - geometric, sturdy, with a quiet friendliness that keeps things approachable. DM Sans for body text - humanist proportions, readable at any size, comfortable over long stretches. System monospace for code, data, and terminal output - whatever the user's machine already trusts. No custom mono font to load, no fighting the OS.
The combination is functional without being cold, modern without being trendy. Typography carries the interface; decoration stays out of the way. When in doubt, let the type breathe - generous line-height, restrained sizes, and enough negative space to let each word land.
Outfit - Display
Outfit is a geometric sans-serif from the Google Fonts library. We use it for headings, navigation labels, section titles, and anywhere text needs to signal structure rather than be read in long form. Its rounded terminals give it warmth without sacrificing clarity.
Weights in use
400 Regular
Aa Bb Cc 123
500 Medium
Aa Bb Cc 123
600 SemiBold
Aa Bb Cc 123
700 Bold
Aa Bb Cc 123
Scale
2rem / 700
Brand Guidelines
1.5rem / 700
Product Name
1.25rem / 500
Section Heading
DM Sans - Body
DM Sans is a low-contrast geometric sans-serif designed for comfortable reading at small sizes. We use it for body copy, descriptions, interface text, and anything meant to be read rather than scanned. Its humanist proportions keep long passages from feeling mechanical.
Weights in use
400 Regular
Aa Bb Cc 123
500 Medium
Aa Bb Cc 123
600 SemiBold
Aa Bb Cc 123
Reading sample
nrds helps SaaS organisations get their information security in order. We believe compliance doesn't need to feel like a burden - it should feel like clarity. Our tools are designed to be read, understood, and acted on without a manual.
Scale
1.05rem / 400
Body text - long-form content, descriptions, design philosophy.
0.95rem / 400
Secondary body - product descriptions, card content.
0.92rem / 400
Color stories - contextual prose, smaller running text.
0.85rem / 600
Color name - labels, metadata, card titles.
0.75rem / 400
Button text - small interactive labels.
System Mono - Code & Data
We don't ship a custom monospace font. Code, hex values, terminal output, and technical metadata all render in the system monospace stack: ui-monospace, SF Mono, SFMono-Regular, Menlo, monospace. This keeps load times fast, respects the user's environment, and ensures code always looks like code.
Sample
$ curl -s api.monmonmon.app/status
{
"encryption": true,
"firewall": true,
"status": "compliant"
}
Sizes in use
0.8rem
Hex values, terminal labels, class names
0.75rem
Terminal hex references, secondary code
0.65rem
Keyboard hints, usage specs, metadata
Usage examples
Page title
nrds Brand Guidelines
Outfit 700 · 2rem · Ink #1a1a2e
Section heading
Mochi
Outfit 500 · 1.25rem · Ink Muted · uppercase
Body paragraph
Security software doesn't have to look like a threat dashboard.
DM Sans 400 · 1.05rem / 1.8 · Ink Soft
Accent emphasis
calm, confident, and deliberately understated
DM Sans 500 · 1.05rem · Mochi #d4577a
Color hex value
#d4577a
System Mono · 0.8rem · Ink Muted
Keyboard shortcut
C
System Mono · 0.65rem · Ink Muted · pill bg
Plum
Named after the ume - the Japanese plum blossom that flowers in late winter, before anything else dares to. In Japanese culture it stands for resilience and quiet endurance. Plum is the darkest color in our palette, almost black but with a living warmth that pure black never has. It's the field our logo marks sit on - the foundation that everything else grows from. When you see plum, you're looking at the identity itself: something that was here before you arrived and will be here after.
Ink
The color of sumi - the carbon ink used in Japanese calligraphy. Not black, but a deep blue-charcoal with just enough warmth to feel human. Ink is our primary text color and the backbone of every interface. Calligraphy ink rewards precision and intention; each stroke is deliberate. That's how we think about the words and interfaces we put in front of people: say what you mean, then stop.
Mochi
Mochi is pounded rice cake - soft, slightly chewy, deceptively simple to look at but surprisingly involved to make well. The pink comes from sakura mochi, wrapped in a pickled cherry blossom leaf. It's our primary accent color: the warmth in what could otherwise be a cold, technical product. Security software doesn't have to look like a threat dashboard. Mochi says we take the work seriously without taking ourselves too seriously. The loud variant is our original brand pink - full volume, no apologies - reserved for moments that need to grab attention and hold it.
Matcha
Matcha is stone-ground green tea - the centerpiece of the tea ceremony, where every gesture has purpose. The color is vegetal, alive, and calming. In our products, matcha means things are healthy: checks passing, systems compliant, status green. The deep variant doubles as our success color. Matcha reminds us that security isn't a crisis to manage - it's a practice to maintain, one deliberate step at a time, like whisking tea.
Yuzu
Yuzu is a Japanese citrus - intensely aromatic, tart, impossible to ignore when you encounter it. The color is a warm, honeyed gold. We use it for things that need attention without alarm: warnings, highlights, deadlines approaching, boolean values in terminal output. Yuzu is the gentle tap on the shoulder before matcha deep or azuki need to raise their voice. It says look here without saying panic.
Azuki
Azuki is the red bean at the heart of Japanese sweets - earthy, grounding, a little bitter before the sweetness comes through. The color is a deep wine that sits between brown and crimson. We reach for azuki when something is serious: critical findings, destructive actions, things that deserve a moment of pause. It carries weight without being aggressive. Where mochi is warmth and matcha is health, azuki is gravity - the color that says this matters, pay attention.
Backgrounds
Status & Semantic
Success (Matcha Deep)
#4a7a59
White Opacity Variants (on dark)
White / 90%
rgba(255,255,255,0.9)
White / 85%
rgba(255,255,255,0.85)
White / 80%
rgba(255,255,255,0.8)
White / 75%
rgba(255,255,255,0.75)
White / 60%
rgba(255,255,255,0.6)
White / 50%
rgba(255,255,255,0.5)
White / 40%
rgba(255,255,255,0.4)
White / 35%
rgba(255,255,255,0.35)
White / 30%
rgba(255,255,255,0.3)
Mochi Opacity Variants
Mochi / 25%
rgba(212,87,122,0.25)
Mochi / 20%
rgba(212,87,122,0.2)
Mochi / 15%
rgba(212,87,122,0.15)
Mochi / 10%
rgba(212,87,122,0.1)
Mochi / 8%
rgba(212,87,122,0.08)
Terminal Syntax Colors
