Imagery Principles
No general imagery/photography/illustration standard exists for SOLMAMY beyond one real, sourced anchor: when the mascot appears in an image, that image should match her own established render style. Beyond that one point, this chapter states honestly what’s missing rather than inventing a style to fill the gap.
The one real visual anchor this chapter has: semi-realistic, polished, detailed treatment — not a flat cartoon, not a hand-drawn sketch. This image clearly demonstrates that part of the rule; it does not clearly show the specific top-left-45° lighting direction also stated in the Rule above (a directional-shadow example would demonstrate that half better — this is honestly the best currently-available asset, not a perfect one). Any future non-mascot imagery matching the mascot’s own style should match the render-style treatment shown here. (Same asset logo.md cites for a different purpose — reused, not duplicated as a new file — per this project’s citation discipline.)
(Unlike Typography, which offers a labeled, explicitly-speculative starting framework alongside its own real gap, this chapter doesn’t. This is the author’s own editorial judgment, not a sourced methodological rule: a photographic/illustration style felt more identity-defining and easier to mistake for a real decision than a near-universal type hierarchy skeleton — but that’s a risk assessment, not a fact, and a future pass could reasonably decide to offer a disclosed placeholder here too.)
Source inventory — what actually exists today
Section titled “Source inventory — what actually exists today”| Source | Status | What it can prove | What it cannot prove |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mascot’s own render style (Mascot Book — Visual Identity) | Stated as fixed, sourced fact — the chapter’s own opening line calls her visual identity “a closed system… Nothing here is a style suggestion” (quoted verbatim). The word “CANON” itself doesn’t appear in that chapter (checked directly, whole-file search); this is a real, strong rule, just not a literally CANON-tagged one | House lighting (single source, top-left, ~45°), semi-realistic/polished treatment, never flat-cartoon or hand-drawn — real, checkable rules; the polished/semi-realistic half is now shown, not just described (see image above) — the lighting-direction half is still text-only, no image currently demonstrates it clearly | Anything about imagery that doesn’t feature the mascot (backgrounds alone, product shots, non-mascot photography) |
| The 67 production images | Mascot Book’s own working examples, not canonical — 16 embedded (ILLUSTRATION); of the other 51: ~19 REFERENCE (plausible direct matches to a named pose/expression-library entry, the tier closest to usable), ~14 EXPLORATORY (uncatalogued, unmatched), 6 DUPLICATE/UNSELECTED (owner pick pending), ~12 NOT USED | The 16 embedded images: real, viewed Mascot Book examples. The 51 others: mostly filename/production-prompt-text plausibility only, not re-viewed as images | Not usable as a general Brand-imagery reference set — none is approved, and none was produced to establish a photography/illustration standard; using one here would misrepresent a Mascot Book working asset as Brand canon |
| Benchmark research (Solana/EigenLayer/Dropbox/Linear/Klim) | Checked directly against the existing brief | Real lessons for logo, color, and typography (already applied in those chapters) | This project’s own internal Brand Book standard document already states plainly that none of these 5 references is illustration-heavy enough to source imagery/photography rules from — a genuine, previously-disclosed research gap, not a new one found here, and not filled by inventing a rule in its place |
| External non-mascot brand photography/illustration | None found | — | No source exists at all for this question |
When to use the mascot in imagery, and when not to
Section titled “When to use the mascot in imagery, and when not to”This isn’t a new rule — it’s Mascot Book’s own usage guidance, cited here because it directly answers what an imagery decision needs to know before choosing a subject. (Quick context for two terms used below: R1/R2 are Mascot Book’s names for her approved costume variants — R1 is her default suit, R2 an approved secondary variant, both defined in full in Mascot Book — Costume & Design System. SOLMAMY and SOLMEME are two separate entities, not the same brand under two names — Sol Mamy is the mascot character herself; SOLMEME is a related but distinct project — see Mascot Book, Brand/Mark Relationship.)
Use the mascot when: depicting her in her approved costume (R1, or approved secondary R2) for any first-party SOLMAMY/SOLMEME context, alongside her signature prop — the Lunar Vault Module, a substantial unit (not a handheld item, per Mascot Book — Costume & Design System), shown “at whatever state matches the relevant rank context” (the one clause below in quotes is verbatim; the rest is this chapter’s paraphrase of the same source). Mascot Book’s currently-canonical channel list is Discord/Twitter/Telegram specifically — other channels (community site, video) are separately governed by Media/Game/Talking-Head Books, not excluded from mascot use, just not this chapter’s scope. (Source: Mascot Book — Usage, Allowed usage / By channel.)
Do not use the mascot for — the full source list, not a shortened excerpt: political, adult, or controversial content; distorted or unattractive renderings; implying financial-gain promises; advertising scam projects; hate speech, harassment, or discrimination; altering the base design without approval; any altered version of her fixed identity invariants (mask, ears, tail, or silhouette proportions); a sealed dome-visor helmet in place of her canonical open-face helmet; reintroducing the retired treasure-chest prop (superseded by the Lunar Vault Module — the single most directly imagery-relevant prohibition on this list); designing an alternative logo/wordmark instead of her mark; or inventing/reclassifying family members, ship name, accident cause, or other Story & Universe canon facts. (Source: Mascot Book — Usage, Prohibited usage / Additional prohibited usage — cited in full, not re-derived. This project’s own standard notes this source list is still fairly general and has not yet been sharpened to name concrete contexts per prohibition — cited here as the real, current text, not as a finished, maximally specific rule set.)
What’s genuinely not yet determined
Section titled “What’s genuinely not yet determined”- General photography/illustration style for imagery that doesn’t feature the mascot (backgrounds, abstract brand imagery, product-style shots) — no source exists, and per this project’s own standard, the current benchmark set doesn’t cover this category either.
- Composition, crop, and framing conventions beyond what a specific mascot image already happens to show.
- Mood/tone guidance for imagery independent of the mascot’s own documented personality.
- Do not invent a photography or illustration style to fill this gap.
- Do not promote any of the 67 production images to Brand-canonical status — they remain Mascot Book’s own working examples, citable, never re-owned here.
- Do not treat “no rule exists yet” as license to use any arbitrary imagery — the mascot-usage prohibitions above still apply to any image that includes her, regardless of this chapter’s broader gap.
What would close this chapter
Section titled “What would close this chapter”A real, sourced imagery-style decision — either an owner-provided direction or a benchmark pass that specifically finds illustration-heavy professional references (the current 5-reference Brand benchmark set doesn’t include one) — covering photography, illustration, and composition treatment for non-mascot brand imagery.
Iconography
Section titled “Iconography”Imagery, Iconography, and Graphic Devices are one governed section, one file — this is that section’s Iconography part.
No standalone icon system is designed for SOLMAMY’s (Sol Mamy’s) own brand beyond two real, already-classified assets: the Status Crest (Mascot’s own costume mark) and the two live favicon assets. Both are cited here, not re-derived. A real, sourced, CANONICAL-tagged icon system does exist elsewhere in this project — for the separate SOLMEME site/product (Lucide icon library, badge-on-gradient treatment) — see the disclosed-exclusion row below; it is not silently omitted, and it is not adopted here either, per this project’s standing SOLMAMY≠SOLMEME scope boundary (same treatment Typography gives tokens.json).
Source inventory — what actually exists today
Section titled “Source inventory — what actually exists today”| Source | Status | What it establishes |
|---|---|---|
| Status Crest (Mascot Book — Visual Identity, Status Crest) | CANON — three stacked chevrons, apex pointing up, evenly spaced and identical in size, all lit with a blue-to-cyan/indigo gradient glow, carried at eight fixed costume locations (helmet forehead, chest, shoulder patch, belt buckle, connector’s metal clip, both boots, and the rear helmet above its own wordmark instance — corrected 2026-09-03, twice: count raised from seven to eight, then restated as the real unified count rather than an additive framing; color word corrected to match Mascot Book’s exact wording). Full design history: Story & Universe Book’s Lunaris Insignia System §7c | Sol Mamy’s own real icon/symbol — owned and fully documented by Mascot Book; cited here, not duplicated |
Two live favicon assets (digital-surfaces.md §Resolved) |
Already resolved elsewhere in this project — the main-site favicon (gold outline, chat-bubble prop) is owner-directed CANONICAL and stays current; the docs-site favicon (purple glow, holding a book) is legacy/unauthorized and off-canon-color | The only existing standalone (non-mascot-figure) icon-alone applications currently live in this project |
community.solme.me/docs/ — the real docs subdomain (240 real content files, Starlight-based) |
Icon mentions found (icon="open-book", icon="magnifier", etc.) are Starlight’s own built-in navigation-card icon component, a documentation-framework UI convention — not SOLMAMY-brand iconography content. A real favicon set does exist and is live, consistent with Digital Surfaces’ existing docs-site-favicon citation |
No SOLMAMY-brand iconography content exists in the real docs subdomain either |
| SOLMEME site’s own real icon system | Real and sourced: every icon on live solme.me pages carries class="lucide lucide-<name>" — confirms Lucide (open-source icon library) as the site’s icon set, always paired with a colored gradient badge for feature/card icons; bare/unbadged icons reserved for header utility row and footer social links. This describes solme.me’s own site UI, not Sol Mamy’s mascot brand |
Real evidence, disclosed here rather than silently omitted — but out of this book’s scope per the standing SOLMAMY≠SOLMEME boundary (same treatment Typography gives tokens.json); not adopted as a SOLMAMY rule without an owner decision |
| Benchmark audit — Solana/Dropbox/Linear/Discord, Brand’s established 5-reference set | Real, sourced findings, not new research | Solana: no dedicated iconography section on the specific reference page audited — the source itself notes this “reference is intentionally partial, not a complete brand book,” not a claim about Solana’s overall brand system. Dropbox: a real, dedicated Iconography page exists in its 8-section taxonomy — confirms this chapter shape is a legitimate professional pattern, not an invented one. Linear: a real per-form when-to-use rule — the icon form is scoped, verbatim: “When referring to Linear as a company, such as on social media, or where a ‘chip’ design is required.” Discord: a real context precondition for icon-alone use (“Use these only when the Discord brand is clearly visible or has been well established elsewhere”) |
Real visual example
Section titled “Real visual example”
Same asset Mascot Book’s Visual Identity chapter uses for this exact purpose — cited here, not duplicated as a new Brand-owned file. Shows the Status Crest in its real costume context; it does not show the Crest isolated or enlarged as a standalone icon graphic, because no such isolated-icon rendering currently exists as an asset — that gap is stated below, not filled with a cropped/edited version made for this chapter.
When can an icon stand alone, without the full mascot figure?
Section titled “When can an icon stand alone, without the full mascot figure?”This is the real question iconography raises that the main Imagery Rule above doesn’t answer — the Status Crest and the two favicons are the only contexts where a small graphic currently stands in for the mascot. Two applicable pieces of benchmark evidence point the same direction, but neither has been formally adopted as a SOLMAMY rule:
- Discord’s icon-alone precondition — an icon-only mark is used only where the full brand is already established nearby, not as an unconditional substitute for the full mark.
- Linear’s when-to-use pattern — a real brand states, in one line, exactly which contexts get the icon-alone form versus the full form.
Applied descriptively (not asserted as a new rule) to what’s already resolved: the two favicons already fit this pattern — a browser tab sits next to the page’s own already-loaded branding, a narrow, established context, consistent with though not derived from the Discord/Linear evidence. This is an observation about consistency, not a new SOLMAMY rule — no owner decision has adopted a formal “when icon-alone use is permitted” statement, and none is proposed here.
What’s genuinely not yet determined
Section titled “What’s genuinely not yet determined”- Whether the Status Crest is ever meant to function as a standalone icon (e.g., a small UI badge or app icon) independent of the mascot’s full figure — a narrower, distinct question from whether the Crest counts as part of “the mark” (see Logo & Mark), and both stay open.
- Whether any broader icon set (beyond the Status Crest and the two favicons) is planned at all for SOLMAMY specifically — no source establishes this either way. (The Lucide/badge system found for the separate SOLMEME site is real, but a different entity’s system, not evidence of a SOLMAMY plan.)
- A formal, owner-adopted “when the icon-alone form applies” rule for SOLMAMY specifically — the Discord/Linear evidence above is a real industry pattern worth knowing, not yet an approved SOLMAMY rule.
- Do not treat the Status Crest as free-standing brand iconography beyond what Mascot Book already documents — it is a costume mark, cited here, not re-owned by Brand Book.
- Do not invent an icon set, icon grid, or icon-usage rule to fill this section — the real gap stays open.
- Do not adopt the SOLMEME site’s Lucide/badge icon system for SOLMAMY — it’s a different entity’s real, sourced system (see Source inventory above), not evidence of a SOLMAMY choice. Same boundary already enforced for color and typography.
- Do not promote the legacy docs-site favicon (purple glow, book) to canonical status here — it stays legacy/off-canon-color per
digital-surfaces.md’s own existing resolution; this chapter doesn’t re-decide it.
What would close this chapter
Section titled “What would close this chapter”An owner-approved, SOLMAMY-specific “when the icon-alone form applies” rule — informed by, but not copied from, the Discord/Linear benchmark pattern above — plus a decision on whether the Status Crest is ever meant to be used as a standalone icon independent of the mascot figure.
Graphic Devices
Section titled “Graphic Devices”STATUS: OPEN for SOLMAMY specifically — not because no source exists anywhere, but because the real source that exists belongs to a different entity. A real, sourced graphic-devices system exists for the SOLMEME site: glass-panel surfaces, gradient/glow treatments keyed to its own UI component colors, and a table pattern, confirmed CANONICAL from live solme.me HTML/CSS. Two entries carry an explicit hedge in that source itself, not glossed over here: its largest radius token is “token-confirmed but not yet observed in live use,” and only the chart legend-row convention is canonical — the donut-chart type itself is page-specific, not a confirmed repeating pattern. This is real evidence, disclosed here rather than treated as absent — but it describes solme.me’s own site UI (a separate entity from Sol Mamy, per this project’s SOLMAMY≠SOLMEME distinction), not a Sol Mamy brand decision. No graphic-devices content for SOLMAMY specifically (patterns, textures, dividers, background treatments, decorative motifs tied to Sol Mamy’s own brand, distinct from the SOLMEME site’s UI system) has been found. Not filled here; no SOLMAMY-specific content is invented, and the SOLMEME-site system is not adopted without an owner decision to cross that boundary — same treatment as the Lucide icon system above.
Part of the SOLMEME Brand Documentation System. Content status (Canonical/Proposed/Open/etc.) is this book’s own axis; ownership/rights are separate — see OWNERSHIP_AUTHORITY.md at the documentation system’s root.