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Evolution

A record of what changed, and why

A living system needs a record, or nobody can tell the difference between a decision and a habit. This is every locked decision in the system, newest first, with the situation that prompted it.

40 locked decisions, from 2026-07-23 to 2026-08-31. Each one names what prompted it and what it governs. Nothing has ever been deleted for turning out to be wrong: a decision that no longer holds is superseded by a later one, and both stay readable.

How to read this

Three things worth knowing before you start

Nothing is deleted for having been wrong. When a decision no longer holds, a later entry supersedes it and both stay readable. The reasoning is the part that has to survive, because the next person facing the same question needs to know what was already ruled out.

Accepted is not approved. A decision can be accepted for implementation while the document behind it is still under review. Those are two different states and this page keeps them apart, because collapsing them would publish a claim the governance does not make. One person approves things here, and passing a check is not it.

Each entry names what it governs. Typography, colour, layout, the logo, or the process itself. Roughly a third of these are process decisions, which is usually the sign of a system being built rather than decorated.

The record

Every decision, newest first

The full entry for each of these, including the alternatives that were rejected and the exact values, lives in the repository. What is here is the date, the subject, and what prompted it.

  1. Imagery and Art Direction is approved: the seventh canonical chapter

    Art direction had five settled visual principles published by system/art-direction.html and by nothing else, which broke that publication's own contract to render canonical rules and originate none.

    imagery · Accepted

  2. PLAT-04 closes: the budget was right, the stylesheets were verbose

    process | performance · Accepted, Fernando's decision, 2026-08-27.

  3. mybrand.fernandokylas.com is the permanent home

    process · Accepted, Fernando's decision, 2026-08-27.

  4. The font position is closed: purchased, private, embedded not distributed

    process · Accepted, Fernando's statement of fact and instruction, 2026-08-26.

  5. All six foundations are canonical, and the brand's argument is named

    process · Accepted, Fernando's decision, 2026-08-26.

  6. Typography is approved, which turns four discrepancies into four defects

    typography · Accepted, Fernando's decision, 2026-08-26.

  7. Four chapters are canonical: Colour, Accessibility, Grid, and the target locked

    process | colour | layout | accessibility · Accepted, Fernando's decision, 2026-08-26.

  8. The page edge stays fluid, the weights are signed, the targets rise

    layout | typography | logo | process · Accepted, Fernando's decision, 2026-08-26.

  9. COLOUR-01, COLOUR-02 and COLOUR-04: the dark card, and the two inks

    colour · Accepted, Fernando's decision, 2026-08-26.

  10. The spatial values arrive: GRID-03, GRID-13, GRID-21

    layout | spacing · Accepted, Fernando's decision, 2026-08-25.

  11. LOGO-04 closes: one raster, and it carries its clear space

    logo · Accepted, Fernando's decision to produce the rasters, 2026-08-25.

  12. LICENCE-01 resolved: one owner, any number of subdomains

    process · Accepted.

  13. Font use policy, and the licence question it depends on

    process · Accepted for the policy, Fernando's decision, 2026-08-25.

  14. A11Y stands, and rule 10 widens to admit it

    process · Accepted, Fernando's decision, 2026-08-25.

  15. FOUND-08 · Typography is TYPE, Colour Language is COLOUR

    process · Accepted, Fernando's decision, 2026-08-25.

  16. GRID-08 · The spatial foundation is one chapter

    layout | spacing · Accepted, Fernando's decision, 2026-08-25.

  17. CDN-01 · The production delivery architecture

    The repository built and validated publications and had nowhere to deliver them.

    architecture · Accepted: Fernando's decisions D-1 to D-7, 2026-07-29.

  18. The Platform Asset Resolver is the single owner of asset paths

    Five separate pieces of asset-path logic lived in site/build/assemble.py, and two more in derive.py and og-card.py.

    architecture · Ready for review: not approved.

  19. SQ2 is closed, and the repository is the Fernando Kylas Publishing Platform

    REPOSITORY-ARCHITECTURE-AUDIT.md (2026-07-27) found that the repository had outgrown a single Brand System website: four publication surfaces, one shared platform, and a classification model that no longer described either.

    process · Accepted for Phase 0 and Phase 1.

  20. The digital publication is the primary medium, and the shell is shared, not copied

    The publication system had accumulated a set of defects with one thing in common: each was a shared component behaving as though it had been designed for print, or a shared component that was not actually shared.

    process | layout | colour · Accepted *for the medium rule, the shared shell, the widened container and the five component corrections.* Nothing here is Approved: only Fernando approves.

  21. PLAT-14 is refuted: the engine's reading measures are not a defect, and PLAT-15 is

    PLAT-14 was opened earlier the same day, during the public site release.

    process | layout · Accepted *for the refutation, the revert and the two records.* PLAT-15 is open and unfixed.

  22. SITE-03: the publication becomes public, the origin is resolved, and indexing becomes a per-page decision

    The site existed as a reference publication: eight foundation chapters rendered from their canonical markdown, behind a shell reference at the index route, every page noindex, and every canonical URL carrying an unresolved-origin sentinel.

    process | layout | site · Accepted *for the origin, the indexing model, the information architecture and the release package.* The publication itself remains Ready for review and not approved, and one content blocker stands (point 7).

  23. The publication metadata schema is adopted, and the validator becomes its enforcement mechanism

    PUBLICATION-METADATA-SCHEMA.md proposed ten declared fields, a five-class taxonomy, a status-by-field matrix and nineteen validation rules, to close FOUND-01 to FOUND-05.

    process | repository · Accepted *for the schema, the validator and the Phase 1 migration.* The schema document and the validator remain Ready for review and not approved.

  24. PLAT-07 and PLAT-12: reading measure belongs to context, and typography inheritance belongs to the engine

    The static site is the Brand System's second consumer, and building it exposed two defects that were invisible while there was only one.

    typography | layout | process · Accepted *for the architecture and the mechanism.* The Report Engine remains Ready for review and not approved.

  25. SITE-01 and SITE-02: the site is a derived publication, and it may use provisional spatial values

    SITE-PLATFORM-ARCHITECTURE.md recorded eight questions for Fernando and named two of them as the only ones blocking the first milestone: whether site/ belongs in this repository at all, and whether the implementation may use spatial values the rendered chapters already realise while GRID-01 and GRID-03 remain open.

    process | repository | layout | spacing · Accepted.

  26. GRID-05 resolved: a bound pair is recognised by kind, never by position

    GRID-05 asked how a bound pair is enforced.

    layout | process · Accepted.

  27. Grid architecture: pauses are relationships, the page edge is intentional, and responsive typography does not block

    GRID-FOUNDATION-BRIEF.md identified four blocking questions.

    layout | spacing | process · Accepted.

  28. Em dashes: an absolute prohibition replaced by an editorial philosophy

    The WEBSITE-ARCHITECTURE-REVIEW.md review recorded this as contradiction C1, and it was the one item flagged as blocking before any public copy could be written.

    process | brand voice · Accepted.

  29. The Identity System chapter is renamed to match the name it was approved under

    The Identity System was approved on 2026-07-25 under that name.

    logo | process | repository · Accepted.

  30. The Identity System is approved: the first canonical release

    The Identity System chapter reached Ready for review with no blocking item outstanding: LOGO-01 (the mark's rationale), LOGO-03 (the master viewBox) and LOGO-06 (the descriptor typeface) had all been resolved, and the three remaining items could not change the artwork, the architecture or the rules.

    logo | process · Approved.

  31. Descriptor typeface confirmed; mark viewBox accepted into the master

    Two open items on the Identity System chapter, neither blocking: LOGO-06 recorded that the descriptor's typeface could not be read from the outlined artwork, and LOGO-03 recorded that the mark's viewBox correction lived in the export pipeline rather than in the master.

    logo | typography · Accepted.

  32. The mark's rationale, confirmed

    No rationale for the mark existed in this repository, in Figma, or in the Notion source.

    logo · Accepted.

  33. Logo System: canonical chapter, and a currentColor export pipeline

    assets/logos/ held seven SVG masters and no usage specification: assets/logos/README.md said the rules "belong in foundations/ once defined", and they had never been defined.

    logo | process · Accepted *for the pipeline, naming and file architecture.* The chapter and all seven variants are Ready for review and NOT approved: *approval state superseded 2026-07-25: the Identity System is now Approved and canonical; see the entry at the top of this log.

  34. Colour Language: canonical chapter, semantic token set, and Figma parity

    foundations/colour.md covered the v3.1 palette, the green asymmetry and the theme contract, but its §8.5 recorded that states, data visualisation and any dark card surface were undefined: "enough for the lab; not yet enough for a website or for report charts".

    colour | process · Accepted *for the token architecture, naming grammar and Figma parity contract.* The palette remains Ready for review and NOT approved, except the paper tone (decided 2026-07-23).

  35. Report Engine: Digital Visibility Diagnostic report type

    The Report Engine needed its first named report type: a compact-but-substantial website diagnostic spanning performance, technical SEO, accessibility, best practices, GEO (generative-engine) readiness, AIO / agent readiness, sustainability, visible keyword signals, lightweight competitor context and prioritised actions: useful like an online audit tool but with stronger editorial quality, clearer prioritisation and FK branding, and honest about what it can and cannot measure.

    process | layout | typography · Accepted *for ownership, architecture and governance.* The report type and its components are Ready for review and not approved.

  36. Report Engine: first canonical HTML/PDF implementation

    The Brand System needs a reusable, branded publishing system for long-form deliverables: consultancy reports, audits (website/SEO/UX/accessibility/technical), strategic reports, proposals, executive summaries, roadmaps, and future WPressOps Kit outputs.

    process | typography | colour | layout · Accepted *for ownership, architecture and separation of concerns.* The visual system itself is Ready for review and is not approved.

  37. Typography Lab reproduced natively in Figma (41/41)

    Fernando confirmed typography-lab.html as the canonical implementation and directed full reproduction as native, editable Figma objects.

    process | typography · Accepted

  38. typography-lab.html is the canonical implementation; Figma foundations created

    Fernando designated design documentation/typography-lab.html: the 41-board rendered specimen, as the canonical implementation of the type system, and commissioned its recreation as native Figma objects.

    process | colour | typography · Accepted

  39. Repository conventions: root documents, .gitkeep, selective READMEs, canonicity

    The scaffold existed but was not durable or self-documenting.

    process · Accepted

  40. Repository structure and governance

    Brand material was scattered across Notion, legacy files, and Figma with no single authoritative source.

    process · Accepted

What is still open

Every written chapter publishes its own open questions, with an identifier so they can be cited. They are not a backlog hidden from view: they are printed in the chapter that raised them, next to the rule they qualify.

The two largest are worth naming here. Whether spacing and layout become their own chapters or stay absorbed into the grid chapter is undecided, and it blocks the pattern work. And no minimum target size for an interactive element is specified anywhere in the system, which every component eventually needs.

Read the foundations See what is in progress