Brand guide
The Pahana brand
How to use the name, the logo, Dilu, colour, type and voice, so Pahana looks and sounds the same wherever it appears. Warm, playful, patient and encouraging: equally welcoming to a six-year-old and a seventy-year-old.
Name and promise
A lamp, shown as a spark
පහන (pahana) is “lamp” in Sinhala: the light of understanding. It is never drawn as a lamp. Instead, Dilu’s tail tip glows warm yellow at the moment a learner understands something. That glow is the brand’s spark.
- App name
- Pahana
- Store title
- Pahana - Language Learning App
- Meaning
- පහන, “lamp” in Sinhala
- Mascot
- Dilu, a baby giant squirrel
- Character
- Warm, playful, patient, encouraging
The promise
Learn English the fun way, with Dilu.
Short, playful lessons explained in Sinhala and Tamil, with a friendly tutor who listens when you speak.
Logo and wordmark
The icon and the name, side by side
The logo pairs the app icon with the wordmark, “Pahana” set in Fredoka SemiBold. Use the ink version on light grounds and the white version on dark grounds. The wordmark can also stand alone.
#1B2559.
Clear space and size
Keep a margin of a quarter of the icon’s height around the logo, the same as the gap between the icon and the wordmark. The smallest use on the web is the page header, with the icon at 36 pixels.
180 px 87 px 58 px 40 px 29 px
The icon is checked at every iOS size down to 29 pixels and at 48 pixels on Android.
The mascot
Meet Dilu
A baby grizzled giant squirrel, Sri Lanka’s national animal: a bouncy, endlessly curious little chatterbox who collects words the way other squirrels collect nuts, and is never too proud to say “let’s try that again”.
Dilu comes from the hill forests. It noticed that every visitor to the forest speaks differently, so it began hoarding words in its enormous tail, and now it wants to share every one of them with the learner.
In the app Dilu guides the lesson path, sits beneath exercises, is the face of the voice tutor, reacts to right and wrong answers, hosts celebrations and voices reminders. The national animal belongs equally to Sinhala and Tamil speakers and carries no religious association.
Construction
- Body: one egg, slightly wider at the bottom; head and body are the same shape.
- Belly and muzzle: two cream ellipses.
- Ears: two rounded triangles with darker inner triangles.
- Tail: three overlapping circles in one S-shaped cloud ending in a cream crescent tip, as large as the body.
- Eyes: large white circles with a black pupil and two highlights.
- Shading: three flat tones per colour, light from the upper left, no gradients, no outlines, no sharp points.
Dilu’s colours
- Body#FF7A1A
- Body shadow#E0560B
- Body highlight#FF9A4D
- Tail shadow#C2470A
- Cream#FFE9C7
- Cream shadow#F2CFA0
- Nose#F2708A
- Glow#FFC93C
- Eye white#FFFFFF
- Pupil#111111
The tail glow
The tail is Dilu’s second face and the brand’s one moving symbol. When a learner gets it right, the cream tip glows in two or three flat concentric rings of spark yellow #FFC93C, never a soft halo.
| Moment | Tail |
|---|---|
| Thinking | Curls into a question-mark shape |
| Learner gets it right | The cream tip glows warm yellow; small sparks rise |
| Celebration | Fluffs up and bounces |
| After a mistake | Droops, then lifts again with a thumbs-up |
| Sleeping | Wraps around Dilu like a blanket |
| Listening to the learner | The tip pulses gently with the microphone level |
| Progress | The glow can follow lesson progress or streak strength |
Approved poses
The core eight. The body never changes; costumes are layers on top, and the tail stays visible behind everything.
- Waving hello
- Reading
- Thinking
- Having an idea, tail tip lit
- Celebrating
- Listening with headphones
- Encouraging after a mistake
- Graduating
Do and don’t
Do: As drawn
Keep the body, the palette and the proportions fixed. Dilu acts with the eyes and the tail.
Do: Inside the scene
Place Dilu in the moment: on the path, beneath the exercise, beside the tutor.
Do: Outline on the icon
The thick white outline is for the app icon and stickers, never for Dilu in the app.
Don’t: No outline
The white outline belongs to the app icon and stickers only.
Don’t: No blush
Warmth comes from the eyes, the open mouth and the pink nose.
Don’t: Never hide the tail
The tail stays visible in every pose and behind every costume.
Don’t: No stretching
Never stretch, squash or crop Dilu in a way that cuts the eyes or ears.
Don’t: No recolouring
The tangerine body is part of the character. Never change it.
Also never: gradients, fur texture or 3D lighting; a lamp or a flame in Dilu’s paws; text inside the icon; Dilu scolding the learner.
Colour
Tangerine on sky, with a spark
The mascot leads the palette. Tangerine is for Dilu and progress, sky blue for brand moments, spark yellow for rewards. Tangerine is too light to carry small text, so text sits on deeper faces.
- Tangerine#FF7A1ADilu, progress and streaks; never behind white text
- Tangerine button#EB6209Face of primary buttons with white labels
- Tangerine button edge#B54806Bottom edge of primary buttons
- Sky#5BB8FFBrand moments, the icon ground, illustration skies
- Light sky#8FD3FFSunburst rays and lighter skies
- Spark#FFC93CThe tail-tip glow, rewards and XP
- Cream#FFE9C7Warm surfaces and cards
- Paper#FFFBF5Page ground
- Deep blue#1E3BB8Links and text on light blue
- Night#14246EReward and celebration grounds
- Ink#1B2559Text
- Green button#22A458Face of success buttons with white labels
Accessible text pairs
- Ink on white
- Secondary ink on white
- Deep blue on white
- Tangerine text on white
- Green text on white
- White on tangerine edge
- White on tangerine button
- White on green button
- Night on spark
Body text needs at least 4.5:1, large bold labels 3:1. White on the tangerine and green button faces measures 3.2 to 3.3:1, so those faces carry button labels only.
Typography
Rounded, friendly and large
Fredoka for headings and buttons, Nunito for reading, and faces for Sinhala and Tamil that match them in weight. For both scripts the line height is 1.15 times larger, weights stay at 700 or below, and letter spacing is never tightened.
Learn English the fun way
Short, playful lessons explained in Sinhala and Tamil, with a friendly tutor who listens when you speak.
දිලු සමඟ විනෝදයෙන් ඉංග්රීසි ඉගෙන ගන්න.
டிலுவுடன் ஆங்கிலம்
சிங்களத்திலும் தமிழிலும் விளக்கப்படும் குறுகிய, விளையாட்டான பாடங்கள்.
App icon
Dilu on sky rays
Dilu as a front-facing bust with a happy open mouth, the tail curl rising behind one shoulder, a thick white outline and a sunburst of soft rays. No text, no stars, no clouds.
- Ground: sky rays in
#8FD3FFand#5BB8FF; orange on blue is a complementary pair. The sky ground is the working choice, to be confirmed. - Safe zone: the face, both ears and the tail curl stay inside the Android safe zone so no launcher mask crops them.
- Outline: the white outline appears only on the icon and on stickers.
Voice and tone
Warm, simple, direct, never childish
Short sentences that a learner with basic English can read. The same voice speaks to a schoolchild and a grandparent.
Encourage, never scold
There are no penalty states. A wrong answer gets encouragement and a hint. Dilu is never too proud to say “let’s try that again”.
Be honest
No invented ratings, user numbers or testimonials. Until the apps are published, say they are coming soon. Demos are labelled as demos.
Speak every learner’s language
Feedback is available in Sinhala, Tamil and English. Sinhala and Tamil copy is written as natural spoken language and checked by native speakers before release.
Sound identity
A small wooden-and-glass world
Soft mallets, a little bell and air, all in one key, so every sound feels like it comes from the same forest as Dilu, and no sound ever tells the learner off.
Palette
Marimba and kalimba for actions, celesta and soft glass bell for success, an airy shimmer for the tail-tip glow. Tuned to D major pentatonic. No synth leads, no buzzers, no sirens.
Rules
Only gamified actions make sound. Nothing plays before the visitor’s first tap or key press, a mute button is always at hand, and every sound has a visual twin.
Dilu’s voice
A delighted, patient little friend: clearly a cartoon creature, yet every English word is perfectly clear, because learners copy it. One voice, used everywhere.
Downloads
The logo, the wordmark, Dilu, the app icon, concept screens and the palette, in SVG, PNG, JSON and CSS, are in the press kit.