Mohammed Almer — Brand Guidelines

The Foundation

A personal brand built to feel like a film laboratory and a boutique studio at once — quiet, exact, and timeless enough to grow from one name into a production house.

Positioning

Mohammed Almer is a colorist and emerging cinematographer who treats image-making as craft. The brand sells taste and restraint — not effects. It reads as established and considered, so it works equally on a personal reel today and a studio masthead tomorrow.

What it should feel like

Porsche design logicPremium filmmaking tools Luxury photo booksFilm laboratoriesBoutique studio

Personality

ProfessionalCalmRefined IntelligentCreativeDetail-oriented Premium — without looking expensive

Guiding principle — restraint is the flex. One accent, one idea per surface, generous space. If something can be removed and the work still reads, remove it.

Logo System

An M+A monogram where the M and A share a baseline and a single horizontal bar — a quiet nod to a film frame's letterbox line. No camera icons, no reels. One mark, drawn once, working everywhere.

Primary — horizontal lockup · default for sites, headers, decks

Reverse — on carbon / over dark imagery

Secondary — stacked / centered

Monogram — avatars, app icon, stamp

Plate — framed seal for case studies

Social avatar — carbon

Social avatar — bone

Favicon / app tile — 16px ready

Clear space & minimum size

Keep clear space equal to the cap-height of the M on all sides. Minimum sizes: monogram 16px (favicon) / 9mm print; full lockup never below 150px wide. The mark is monoline by design so it holds at small sizes and in single-color print, embossing, and engraving.

Do

Use one color only — carbon, bone, or a single accent
Let it sit in space; protect the clear zone
Use the monogram alone once the wordmark is established

Don't

Add gradients, bevels, shadows or outlines
Recolor outside the palette or stretch the mark
Place over busy, low-contrast areas of a photo

Color System

Pulled from film negatives, Kodak warm tones, editorial paper-and-ink, and luxury automotive photography. The base does the work; one warm amber is the signature. Deliberately not navy, not gold, not corporate blue.

Primary — paper & ink

Bone #ECE5D8

Dominant background. The "paper" of the brand — warm, never pure white.

Carbon #17130F

Primary ink & dark surfaces. A warm near-black — softer and richer than #000.

Secondary — supports

Graphite #2B2722

Panels, dark UI, automotive depth.

Fog #A99E8C

Secondary text, captions, rules.

Sand #CBB89B

Tonal blocks, muted fills.

Accent — use sparingly

Ektar Amber #C06A38

The signature. Film-leader warmth. Links, ticks, one highlight.

Oxblood #6E332B

Vintage-cinema depth. Rare, for contrast.

Faded Sage #707A6E

Cool counterweight — the teal side of teal-and-orange.

Usage ratio

≈ 70% Bone · 18% Carbon · 8% neutral support · 4% Amber. The accent should feel like a held breath, not a shout.

Do

Let bone breathe — whitespace is part of the palette
Use amber on a single element per view
Pair carbon text on bone for editorial contrast

Don't

Introduce navy, gold, or saturated tech colors
Use multiple accents on one surface
Use pure white #FFFFFF or pure black #000000

Typography

Three voices: an editorial serif for emotion, a quiet grotesque for clarity, and a monospace for the film-lab metadata that gives the brand its technical edge. All free, all on Google Fonts.

Display — Fraunces

Headlines · Hero · Pull-quotes

Light, color & stillness

Why. Fraunces carries vintage character and high-contrast craftsmanship without feeling antique — its optical sizing gives big headlines a luxury-photo-book elegance. This is the brand's emotional register.

Primary — Hanken Grotesk

The work speaks before I do.

Body copy stays calm, neutral and highly legible across long paragraphs, captions and UI. Quiet confidence — it never competes with the imagery.

Why. Modern minimalism with a touch of warmth. Carries the wordmark, navigation, and all running text.

Technical — IBM Plex Mono

REC.709 → LOG-C
TC 01:14:22:09
EKTAR / 2383

Why. Labels, timecodes, LUT names, section numbers, captions. The "film laboratory" voice — used uppercase with wide tracking. Detail, not decoration.

Hierarchy

H1 / DISPLAY	Fraunces · 64–112 · -2%
H2	Fraunces · 32–52
H3 / LEAD	Hanken · 22–26 · 500
BODY	Hanken · 16–17 · 400
LABEL / META	Plex Mono · 11–13 · +0.3em

Where each lives

Website — Fraunces for hero & section titles; Hanken for everything readable; Plex Mono for nav, tags, footers.

Portfolio — Fraunces project titles; Plex Mono for credits/specs (camera, lens, LUT, role); Hanken for descriptions.

Social — Fraunces for one bold line per graphic; Plex Mono for handles & BEFORE/AFTER labels; Hanken for captions.

Moodboard Direction

The image world the brand lives in. Every photo, frame and grade should look like it came from the same roll of film.

Photography

Subject-first, editorial. Real people, real texture — skin, fabric, metal, dust. Negative space over clutter. Mid and close framing. The founder shot honestly: working, not posing.

Lighting

Soft directional key, deep controlled shadow, gentle falloff. Window light, practicals, low-key interiors. Highlights roll off — never clipped, never flat HDR.

Framing

Anamorphic instinct — 2.39:1 and 16:9 for motion, 4:5 and 1:1 for stills. Centered or rule-of-thirds with intent. Quiet, composed, architectural lines.

Texture

Paper stock, matte print, brushed metal, film edge markings, contact-sheet borders. Tactile and analog — the opposite of glossy digital.

Grain

Subtle fine grain on every export (≈ 35mm 200–500 ISO feel). Present but never noisy. It unifies digital footage and stills into one filmic surface.

Composition rhythm

Editorial pacing — one hero image, then breathing room. Let single frames hold the page like a luxury photo book spread.

Color-grading references

Kodak warm · skin-true highlights

Teal & orange · restrained

Bleach bypass · low saturation

Vintage sepia · archival

Night · cool shadow, warm key

Daylight pastel · editorial

Visual reference shelf — Porsche brand photography, Kinfolk & Cereal magazines, A24 title design, Kodak Portra/Ektar stocks, Roger Deakins low-key interiors, luxury watch & automotive macro. Build a private Pinterest/Milanote board from these and grade toward that shelf, not toward trends.

Portfolio Structure

A single-page, scroll-led site that behaves like a luxury monograph: image-first, sparse type, one idea per screen. Nine sections, wireframed below.

Hero

Full-bleed reel or single graded still. Fraunces name, mono role line, muted scroll cue. Silence over slogans.

About

Portrait of Mohammed + short first-person statement. Human, calm, credibility through restraint.

Services

Three columns — Color Grading · Cinematography · Content. Mono headers, one-line each. No pricing clutter.

Featured Work

Curated grid of best frames, generous gutters. Hover reveals title + role in mono. Quality over volume.

Before & After

Interactive slider (the §06 template). The signature proof section — let the grade sell itself.

Cinematography

Anamorphic stills + embedded clips. Per-project specs in mono (camera, lens, ratio, LUT).

Creative Process

Numbered steps (mono) — brief, look-dev, grade, deliver. Shows the craft behind the result.

Testimonials

One quote per screen, Fraunces italic, client + role in mono. Trust delivered quietly.

Contact

One line, one email, social row in mono. Monogram sign-off. End on calm, not a hard sell.

Build notes

Sticky minimal nav (mono). Slow, eased transitions — nothing bouncy. Lazy-load full-res frames. Dark (carbon) and light (bone) sections alternate to pace the scroll. Mobile keeps the same restraint: one image, one line.

Scalability → studio

When it becomes a company, "About Mohammed" becomes "Studio + Team", Services gains capability depth, and Featured Work splits by client. The monogram and system don't change — only the masthead label.

Brand Assets & Motion

The small parts that make everything feel made by the same hand.

Lower third — broadcast / interview

Icons

Monoline, 1.5px, square ends, single-color carbon. Thin and editorial — match the monogram's stroke logic. No filled or duotone icons.

Graphic elements

Contact-sheet corner ticks, frame numbers, thin index rules, registration marks. Borrowed from film negatives — used as accents, never wallpaper.

Watermark

Bone monogram at 15–25% opacity, bottom corner, with clear space. Optional mono tag MA · beside it. Never large, never centered.

Dividers & frames

Left — accent divider · Center — mono index divider · Right — corner frame (crop marks) for stills & case studies.

Motion & intro

Intro: the monogram draws on stroke-by-stroke (≈1.2s, eased), the crossbar lands last like a frame line, then the wordmark fades up. Hold on bone or carbon. End cards reverse it. Transitions: slow cross-dissolves and gentle film-grain fades — no slides, no zooms, no spin.

Lower thirds & titles

Name in Hanken Medium, role in Plex Mono, single amber tick as the only color. Animate in with a 12px rise + fade. Keep on screen ≥ 4s. Title cards use Fraunces centered on carbon with a thin top/bottom letterbox rule.

The Foundation

Logo System

Do

Don't

Color System

Do

Don't

Typography

Moodboard Direction

Social Media System

Portfolio Structure

Hero

About

Services

Featured Work

Before & After

Cinematography

Creative Process

Testimonials

Contact

Brand Assets & Motion