An alternative identity — proposed August 2026, not adopted
A second working name and the symbol that would come with it, drawn under the rules the identity page already sets: one flat silhouette, no color of its own, amber never. Everything below is a sketch. The identity of record is the one at /identity/.
01The name
A datum is the reference plane every elevation on a drawing is measured from. It is also the singular of data that nobody uses — one point, not yet a dataset.
Lintel was chosen because the word is native to both trades: the beam over an opening, and the linter that checks code. Datum passes the same test in a different register — the surveyor's rather than the carpenter's. The evidence register is the datum every claim on this site is measured against, and the phrase this site uses most, nobody has measured, is the vocabulary of datum. An Untested row is one where no datum has been set. Pronounced DAY-tum.
02The symbol
On a drawing the datum is not a bare line. It carries a mark — the point everything is measured from — and a value beside it. Each variant is that symbol and nothing else.
Today · for comparison
The chevron, landscape.
Inner cut closes
below 12px.
A · Level mark
Rule, triangle apex-down.
Measurements are taken
from this point.
B · Support
Same triangle under the
rule — what a beam rests
on. Keeps the lintel.
C · Datum feature
The ISO form: triangle,
leader, boxed letter.
The box is the favicon.
The structural twin of variant A is the symbol for a pinned support — the thing a
beam rests on — so the mark keeps the Lintel idea while becoming the measurement idea.
Like the chevron it is a single fill painting in currentColor; unlike the
chevron it has no inner counter to close, so it survives the bottom of the size ladder.
03The lockup
The wordmark's own baseline is drawn as the datum line. Typography and surveying mean the same thing by the word — the line everything is measured from.
Vermilion on charcoal
The mark sits past the word,
where a level mark sits on a
drawing. The value is in mono.
Deeper vermilion on the plate
Variant B under the d —
the word rests on its
support. Quieter; no label.
04Reduction
The identity page's ladder — 96, 48, 28, 12 — plus the two favicon forms.
05The strip
Eighteen months of information work, four of site work, eight building, two of sale. The built months stay soft white — they are what survives — and the level marks say where the build starts and stops.
06Never
The first is the palette rule already on the identity page, restated for a triangle.
Upright · alone · amber
That is a warning sign,
and amber belongs to
the register.
The broad arrow
The Ordnance Survey
benchmark. Handsome, and
the British Crown's mark.
One on every rule
A drawing has one datum.
A page with three
has none.
Stated for the record. Datum is a proposal, not the identity. No trademark or domain clearance has been run on it either. The color rule, the palette, and the type are unchanged from the identity of record; what would change is the mark, the lockup and the name. If it is ever adopted, the identity page changes and this page becomes the record of what it replaced. Back to the identity of record →