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ThePlaylistDating · Brand book & press kit · Vol. 01 · 2026

The brand, by ear.

How ThePlaylistDating looks, sounds and behaves. One absurd idea, taken completely seriously: the selfie is the villain of modern dating, and we refuse to look.

Side A · Concept

The selfie is the villain.

Liquid Death sold water by taking one absurd idea completely seriously. Ours: the selfie is the villain of modern dating, and we refuse to look.

You date by ear. Your profile is ten songs. We never show a face: not in the app, not on a billboard, not in an ad. The whole brand is built on that refusal, and it’s funny, romantic and a little defiant about it.

The villain
Swipe culture
Selfies, “hey”, bios about hiking.
The hero
Taste
The song you play on the drive home.
The world
Golden hour in a record store, 1974
Warm, analog, a little surreal.

  1. 01

    Your Ten

    Your profile is exactly 10 songs, in order, with an optional one-line liner note. No photos anywhere.

  2. 02

    Like a song, not a face

    You never like a person. You like one of their songs and say why. That note is the first line of the chat.

  3. 03

    The Mixtape

    Every match gets a ten-track mixtape from both Tens. It’s the first thing you made together.

Side A · Say it like a band says its name

The lines.

  1. 01

    Date by ear.

    The brand line

    Hero, app store, sign-off

  2. 02

    No face. All taste.

    The rallying cry

    Merch, posters, social

  3. 03

    Your selfie is lying. Your playlist isn’t.

    The provocation

    Billboards, ads

  4. 04

    Swipe culture is dead. We brought a mixtape to the funeral.

    The manifesto

    About page, launch

  5. 05

    Ten songs. No selfies. Real connection.

    The plain description

    Meta tags, store listings

Never write “The Playlist Dating App”, “TPD” (except catalogue numbers) or “Playlist Dating”. In legal text, metadata and emails it’s always ThePlaylistDating.

Side A · Two records

The mark.

Two overlapping discs. The overlap, the lens, is what you share, and it glows. It’s the Harmony Score drawn as a logo.

On oxblood · paper discs, tangerine lensSVG ↓
On cream · oxblood discs, tangerine lensSVG ↓
64 px and up · the lens may take the sunset
The app icon: the two-records mark in oxblood with a cream lens, on the sunset gradient.
App icon · sunset field, oxblood mark, cream lensSVG ↓
Wordmark lockup · Fraunces + IBM Plex Mono at ~40%, tracked
20 px
Minimum size · 20 px wide

Please don’t

  • Don’t · Rotate it

  • Don’t · Outline the lens

  • Don’t · Add a third disc

  • Don’t · Put a face in it

Side A · Warm, all the way down

Golden hour.

No neutral greys, no pure black, no pure white. Every swatch here is rendered from brand/tokens.json.

Oxblood · the dark side

  • OxbloodAa

    #24110D

    ink

    App background, text on light

  • LeatherAa

    #321812

    ink-2

    Cards, sheets, tab bar

  • WalnutAa

    #42211A

    ink-3

    Inputs, pressed states, chips

  • SaddleAa

    #5A3326

    line

    Borders on dark

Cream · the light side

  • CreamAa

    #FFF1DE

    paper · cream

    Text on dark; light sections

  • SleeveAa

    #F6DEC0

    cream-2

    Cards on cream

  • KraftAa

    #E6C7A4

    cream-line

    Borders on cream

  • TanAa

    #E8CBB0

    paper-dim

    Secondary text on dark

  • FadedAa

    #B99178

    paper-mute

    Tertiary text on dark, placeholders

The accents

  • TangerineAa

    #FF6A2B

    needle

    Primary actions, likes, the lens

  • BurntAa

    #E85A1E

    needle-press

    Pressed tangerine

  • FlamingoAa

    #FF5C8A

    flamingo

    Romance: matches, hearts

  • MarigoldAa

    #FFB627

    gold

    The Album, Harmony ≥ 85

  • RustAa

    #B53A12

    rust

    Accent text on cream

  • CoralAa

    #FF6B5B

    danger

    Destructive actions

The signature · Sunset

Sunset.

Marigold

#FFB627

Tangerine

#FF6A2B

Flamingo

#FF5C8A

Sunset stripes. Three hard-edged bands: dividers, tickets, tape labels.

With gaps, so the surface shows through. The 70s sleeve look.

The Harmony ring fills with the sunset to the score.

  • Text on tangerine, flamingo, marigold or the sunset is oxblood, never white.
  • The app is dark. The site alternates oxblood and cream.
  • One tangerine-filled button per screen.

Side A · Fraunces · Inter · IBM Plex Mono

Type, soft and loud.

Display · Fraunces · SOFT 100 · 700–900

Aa

Date by ear.

Chunky, warm, 1970s (think Cooper Black). Italic for the emotional word. WONK comes on in the italic.

Ten 400Ten 600Ten 700Ten 800Ten 900

UI & body · Inter

Everything functional.

Buttons, forms, song titles (600), artists, body copy. Clear, quiet, out of the way of the music.

Meta · IBM Plex Mono

Side A · TPD—0427 · 01 02 03

Track numbers, labels, catalogue numbers, timestamps. Uppercase, 0.08em tracking, 11–12 px.

Soft vs. sharp

earear

SOFT 0 · SOFT 100 (ours)

Side B · Imagery

Record Heads.

Our people have vinyl records for heads. You see style, posture, hands, the room, the light: everything but a face. It’s the brand promise, made visible.

  • A Record Head in a pink ribbed turtleneck and a gold watch sits against a cream backdrop, an orange-labelled record where the face would be.
    Cream seamless · tangerine label
  • A Record Head in a cream cable-knit sweater and brown flares stands with hands in pockets against a tangerine backdrop.
    Tangerine seamless · marigold label
  • A Record Head in an oxblood leather jacket and gold hoops, seen from behind in a mustard velvet chair against a flamingo-pink backdrop.
    Flamingo seamless · cream label
  • A Record Head in a cream three-piece suit with a pink collar holds a single pink flower against a marigold backdrop.
    Marigold seamless · oxblood label

Scenes · the romance

  • Two Record Heads in a record store at dusk reach for the same record in the crates, under warm amber lamps.
  • Two Record Heads slow-dance barefoot on a checkered kitchen floor at night, a turntable and two glasses of wine on the counter.
  • Two Record Heads in the front seats of a car at night, a cassette in the dash and the city lights blurred ahead.
  • A Record Head waits alone on a bus-stop bench at dusk, holding a bunch of flowers, a tape player on the bench beside them.
  • A giant vinyl record setting into a calm ocean like the sun, under a sky of marigold, tangerine and pink bands.
  • A gold vinyl record resting on crumpled oxblood velvet, lit by a warm marigold glow.

Always

  • 1970s album-cover photography, Kodak Portra, visible grain.
  • Golden hour or warm tungsten. Soft halation.
  • A glossy black 12-inch record for a head, coloured centre label, spindle hole.
  • Palette strictly Golden hour. Surreal but tender.

Never

  • A visible human face. Anywhere. Ever.
  • Stock-photo couples, cold light, blue skies, neon.
  • Anything creepy. The joke is warm.
  • Inside the app, the only other imagery is real album art.

Side B · A friend who works at a record store

How we sound.

Confident, funny, warm, a little defiant. Short sentences. Takes love seriously and itself not at all.

Say it like this

  • Date by ear.
  • Your selfie is lying.
  • What got you?
  • Say why — this becomes your opener.
  • 0% selfies. We checked.

Not like this

  • Swipe right on sound!
  • Leverage your musical DNA
  • A revolutionary new way to date
  • Exclamation-mark soup!!!
  • Mean jokes about people (the villain is the swipe, never the user)

Lexicon · use these exact words

The 10-song playlist
Your Ten / their Ten
A note on a song
liner note
Compatibility score
Harmony (0–100)
Daily discovery set
Today’s Rotation
Pass
Skip
Like
Like a song · “What got you?”
Mutual like
Match · “In harmony.”
The auto-built mix
The Mixtape
Our people
Record Heads
Free plan / Premium
The Single / The Album

Side B · Use it once per surface

Tracklist Facts.

Tracklist Facts

1 serving per profile

Serving size10 songs

Amount per match

Harmony0–100

% Daily Value*

  • Selfies 0g0%
  • Bios about hiking 0g0%
  • Height, job, zodiac 0g0%
  • Openers that say “hey”0%
  • Liner notes ≤ 80 chars—
  • Songs you both pickedVaries

Taste 100g100%

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2 AM drive home. Your values may be higher depending on your Ten.

Ingredients: ten songs (in order), liner notes (optional), a like with a reason. Contains: feelings. Made in a facility that processes mixtapes.

The nutrition-label parody. Serving size: ten songs. Selfies: 0g.

It’s a joke that works because it’s rare: once on the site, once on a poster, once in a deck. Keep the structure (the heavy rules, the % Daily Value column) and change the rows to suit the surface.

Its cousin, the sticker: text around the rim, turning slowly.

Side B · Brand concepts

How far it stretches.

Concept mock-ups showing the system at work: out of home, print, merch. They’re brand concepts, not real placements, campaigns or products.

  • A billboard on a desert highway at sunset reading “Your selfie is lying. Your playlist isn’t.” beside a large record.Brand concept
    BillboardThe provocation, at highway scale.
  • A wall of wheat-pasted posters alternating “Date by ear.” and “No face. All taste.”, with a passer-by walking past in the evening sun.Brand concept
    Wheat-paste postersThe brand line and the rallying cry, alternating.
  • A cream canvas tote printed “No face. All taste.” with the two-records mark, hanging on a wooden chair beside a stack of records.Brand concept
    ToteNo face. All taste. With the mark.
  • A folded tangerine T-shirt printed “Date by ear.” next to sunglasses and a sunset-striped cassette.Brand concept
    TeeDate by ear. In tangerine.
  • A cassette hand-labelled “Your Ten” with a heart, beside its case and a sunset-striped J-card.Brand concept
    CassetteYour Ten, on tape. Sunset-stripe J-card.
  • An enamel pin of the two-records mark, gold rims and a tangerine lens, on the collar of a pink corduroy jacket.Brand concept
    Enamel pinThe mark, in gold and tangerine.

Side B · Press kit

Take it home.

Logos & tokens

Press images · 1600 px webp

Press

Writing about us?

We’ll send more images, founder quotes or a demo account. press@theplaylistdating.com