Hermes — brand — Silent Mode

The name

In English the product is Hermes — after the Greek god of messengers, travellers, and crossings. In modern Greek the same name is Ermis (Ἑρμῆς). Both pronunciations are correct; written form is always Hermes outside Greek contexts.

The keyboard shortcut inside Theseus is Ctrl+Shift+E — E for Ermis, and off the collision path with Chrome's own Ctrl+Shift+M ("switch profile").

Not Hermès. The French fashion house owns the mental model for the word with the grave accent and the orange. We spell it Hermes (no accent) and we do not use that orange. If a visitor confuses the two, the mark alone should set them straight.

The mark

A winged envelope. Reads as "messenger" at a glance, works monochrome, scales from 16 px (sidebar icon) to 160 px (hero) without legibility loss. SVG uses currentColor so it inherits whatever text colour it sits in.

16 px — simplified stroke variant

32 px — standard

64 px — on panel

on acid green

amber (unread badge)

⬇️ mark.svg (standard, 3 feathers per wing) ⬇️ mark-stroke.svg (16–20 px variant)

Do	Don't
Keep the envelope horizontal, wings symmetrical.	Rotate, mirror or detach the wings.
Let the mark inherit text colour (currentColor).	Hard-code a colour inside the SVG; it limits reuse.
Use the stroke variant below 24 px display size.	Scale the standard mark below 20 px — feathers merge.
Pair with the wordmark "Hermes" when context is unclear.	Pair with the Hermès logotype or any horsey mascot.

Palette

Hermes rides on Silent Mode's colour system — same acid green, same deep panels — so it never looks like a separate app glued on. One extra accent, warm amber, is reserved for Hermes-specific moments (unread badge, "winged sandals" nod). Not Hermès orange.

bg#0b0e14 — primary surface

panel#141a24 — cards, sidebar

acid#d6ff3d — primary action

amber#f4c430 — Hermes accent, unread

ink#e7eaf1 — body text

mut#8b98a9 — muted text

Hermès-collision check. Hermès corporate orange is #FF6D00-ish. Our amber is #f4c430: yellower hue, lower saturation. Side by side they are clearly different; on their own, the amber reads as warm highlight, not luxury-brand orange.

Voice

Blunt about limits. "Relays still see recipient and timing" is the tone, not "fully anonymous messaging". Say what the design does and does not solve.
No evangelism about Nostr. Nostr is the transport, not the product. Mention it where it matters (relays, pubkeys, NIP-17) and don't elsewhere.
"Message by name" is the one-line pitch. Everything else is supporting detail.
Lowercase for product nouns in body copy (hermes, messages panel). Capital Hermes for titles and the first mention per page.

Attribution + reuse

Mark + palette are MPL-2.0 along with the rest of the Hermes client source. Use for reviews, press, interoperability docs and the client's own chrome. Don't apply to products not actually Hermes (that includes forks with different protocols or trust models).