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Unify Steno icon, naming, and typeface across app/website/docs#321

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WilliamDrewett:WilliamDrewett/update-brand-icon-text
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Unify Steno icon, naming, and typeface across app/website/docs#321
WilliamDrewett wants to merge 2 commits into
ruzin:mainfrom
WilliamDrewett:WilliamDrewett/update-brand-icon-text

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@WilliamDrewett

@WilliamDrewett WilliamDrewett commented Jul 6, 2026

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Why

Icon, product name, and heading font had drifted out of sync across surfaces. Specifically:

  • The app's tray menu and several error dialogs still said "StenoAI" while the Dock icon, website, and docs already said "Steno" — a prior rebrand (feat(brand): rebrand user-facing copy StenoAI → Steno #227) never finished rolling out.
  • At least four separate hand-copied SVG versions of the dragonfly mark existed across the app, website, and docs, and had drifted out of sync with each other — including an unrelated, off-brand AI-generated glowing dragonfly image sitting on the docs favicon and wordmark, nothing like the actual paper+ink brand system.
  • The display serif was Charter in most places, not the intended brand typeface.

This PR makes all of it consistent in one pass.

What changed

  • Icon: one canonical mark (brand/mark.svg) rolled out everywhere — macOS .icns, Windows .ico, tray icons (idle + recording states), favicons, and the website/docs badges. Background settled on ink-900 (#1B1B19) to match the existing brand color token, replacing an inconsistent #3D3D39 that was used in a couple of places.
  • Monochrome tray icon: the macOS/Windows menu-bar icon is a "template image" — a black shape on a transparent background. The OS automatically re-tints this single asset correctly for both light and dark menu bars, so one asset covers both themes; no separate light/dark variants needed there.
  • Naming: "StenoAI"/"stenoAI""Steno" in all user-facing copy — tray menu, error dialogs, OAuth callback pages, site metadata, legal pages, contributor docs. Every technical identifier is untouched: the stenoai:// deep-link scheme, bundle ID, data paths, CLI binary name, and release artifact filenames.
  • Typeface: Ovo (self-hosted woff2, single 400 weight) replaces Charter as the display/heading serif in the app, website, and docs. Along the way this caught and fixed a real bug on the docs site: Mintlify hard-codes a font-bold class on the page title, and since Ovo has no real bold weight, that was forcing the browser to synthesize a fake-bold — headings looked inconsistent as a result.
  • .gitignore fix: a bare docs/ pattern (meant for an unrelated scratch-notes folder) was silently swallowing new files added to the real docs site. Anchored it to the actual folder it was meant for.
image Screenshot 2026-07-06 at 9 33 34 pm Screenshot 2026-07-06 at 10 31 47 pm

Needs a follow-up look

  • website/public/og-image.png and readme.png are screenshots of the running app, not logo files — they still show the old UI and need a fresh capture once this merges, not a static asset swap.
  • Sidebar.tsx and AppWindowDemo.jsx each inline their own copy of the mark instead of importing the AppIcon/StenoMark components that already exist in the same build. Real but minor duplication — left alone to keep this PR's blast radius contained rather than bundling a component refactor in with the rebrand.
  • DMG/exe artifact filenames (stenoAI-macos-arm64.dmg, etc.) still say stenoAI — left deliberately, since renaming touches the release workflow and download links; a decision for a dedicated release-mechanics change, not a copy fix.
  • The new mark has sharper stroke caps/joins than the old one — verified this matches the approved source art exactly, so it's not a bug, but flagging since it's a visible style difference from the old logo.

Test plan

  • Self-reviewed the full diff (8-angle pass: correctness, removed-behavior, cross-file, reuse, simplification, efficiency, altitude, CLAUDE.md conventions) — no critical/medium issues; one trivial redundant !important fixed.
  • tsc --noEmit on the renderer passes clean.
  • Visually verified live: app sidebar/Dock icon/tray icon (idle + recording, light + dark), website nav/footer/legal pages, docs nav (light + dark).
  • Confirm a full signed DMG build still resolves the icon correctly (verified via an unsigned local electron-builder --dir pack in dev).

Summary by cubic

Unifies the Steno brand across app, website, and docs: one canonical dragonfly mark, “Steno” in UI copy, and Ovo for display headings. Aligns icons, fonts, and copy, and fixes a docs bolding glitch.

  • Refactors

    • Adopt a single brand/mark.svg everywhere (.icns/.ico, tray idle/recording template icons, favicons, website/docs badges); unify background to ink-900 #1B1B19.
    • Replace “StenoAI” with “Steno” in all user-facing copy (tray/menu, dialogs, site metadata, legal, contributor docs). Technical IDs stay the same: stenoai:// scheme, bundle ID, paths, CLI, artifact names.
    • Switch display serif to Ovo (self-hosted woff2) across app/website/docs; fixes Mintlify title fake-bold; adjusts docs nav logo size for legibility.
    • Anchor .gitignore rule to app/renderer/docs/ so repo-root docs/ isn’t excluded; update tests/copy to match naming.
  • Migration

    • No breaking changes; existing links and deep-link behavior are unchanged. After merge, refresh website/public/og-image.png and readme.png screenshots.

Written for commit d51f65d. Summary will update on new commits.

Review in cubic

Change hero headline to "AI for your private conversations."
…bsite/docs

Icon, product name, and heading font had drifted out of sync across
surfaces: the app tray/menu still said "StenoAI" while Dock, website, and
docs said "Steno" (a prior rebrand never finished); at least four separate
hand-copied SVGs of the dragonfly mark existed and had diverged, including
an unrelated off-brand placeholder image on the docs favicon and wordmark;
and the display serif was Charter in most places.

- Roll out one canonical mark (brand/mark.svg) everywhere: macOS .icns,
  Windows .ico, tray icons (idle + recording states), favicons, and the
  website/docs badges. Background settled on ink-900 (#1B1B19) to match
  the existing brand token, replacing an inconsistent #3D3D39.
- The macOS/Windows tray icon is a monochrome "template" image (black
  shape + transparent background) - the OS re-tints it automatically for
  light or dark menu bars, so one asset covers both themes.
- Replace "StenoAI"/"stenoAI" with "Steno" in all user-facing copy (tray
  menu, error dialogs, OAuth callback pages, site metadata, legal pages,
  contributor docs). Technical identifiers are untouched: stenoai://
  scheme, bundle ID, data paths, CLI binary name, artifact filenames.
- Replace Charter with Ovo (self-hosted woff2, single 400 weight) as the
  display/heading serif in the app, website, and docs. Fixes a Mintlify
  page-title bug where a hard-coded font-bold class made Ovo render as a
  browser-synthesized fake-bold instead of the intended weight.
- Fix a .gitignore bug where a bare `docs/` pattern (meant for an
  unrelated scratch folder) was silently excluding new files added to
  the real docs site.

Needs a follow-up look:
- website/public/og-image.png and readme.png are screenshots of the
  running app, not logo files - still show the old UI, need a fresh
  capture once this merges.
- Sidebar.tsx and AppWindowDemo.jsx each inline their own copy of the
  mark instead of importing the AppIcon/StenoMark components already in
  the same build - minor duplication, left alone to keep this change's
  blast radius contained.
- DMG/exe artifact filenames still say "stenoAI" - left as-is since
  renaming touches the release workflow, not a code change.
- The new mark has sharper stroke caps/joins than the old one (matches
  the approved source art exactly) - a visible style difference worth
  knowing about, not a bug.

@cubic-dev-ai cubic-dev-ai Bot left a comment

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No issues found across 43 files

Re-trigger cubic

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