A house, not
just a check.
The visual and verbal system behind the Haus Fund website and investor portal. Rooted in Bauhaus functionalism — precise, warm, and built to last — it gives founders, LPs, and our own team one consistent surface to meet on.
The name draws from the German haus and the spirit of the Bauhaus — the idea that a building is not just structure, but a gathering place, a system, a way of working. This system serves two products: the public Fund Website and the internal Investor Portal.
Principles
Five rules that decide every judgment call. When a choice isn't covered by a token, it's covered here.
Function first
Every element earns its place. No decoration for its own sake — geometry, hierarchy, and whitespace do the work.
Warm, not cold
Near-black on warm off-white. Shadows are tinted warm, never blue. The system should feel like a room, not a dashboard.
Flat & honest
No gradients, no glass morphism, no faux-3D. Surfaces are solid; depth comes from restrained, layered shadow.
Data-forward
Specific numbers, always — set in DM Mono so figures read as figures. The portfolio speaks for itself.
Quietly confident
Understated by default. Impact comes from one bold Barlow Condensed headline, not from many loud ones.
Voice & language
Authoritative, not corporate. First-person plural. Precise. The copy respects the intelligence of deeptech founders without excluding newcomers.
Do
- "We back founders at the earliest stage."
- "12 portfolio companies across 4 sectors. $18.4M deployed."
- Numbers as digits — $20M, 14 companies, 3 exits.
- Em dashes (—), Oxford comma, full punctuation.
Don't
- "We're SUPER excited about our amazing portfolio!!"
- "Haus Fund has invested millions of dollars."
- Spelled-out numbers, hype words, or jargon for its own sake.
- Exclamation marks or emoji — ever, in formal UI.
Casing
| Context | Case |
|---|---|
| Primary display headlines | ALL CAPS |
| Subheadings, UI section titles | Sentence case |
| Navigation items | Title Case |
| Metric labels | UPPERCASE + tight tracking |
| Button labels | Sentence case |
Color
A restrained core palette: near-black ink on warm canvas, with deep forest green as primary accent, warm bronze as secondary, and cool steel for data contexts.
House palettes
Each residency track — a city, a thesis, a house — carries its own accent, drawn so its tile reads clearly against warm canvas. Used for node cards, maps, and portfolio tagging.
Typography
Four families, each with one job. Barlow Condensed carries impact; Barlow structures the page; DM Sans does the reading; DM Mono sets every number.
Type scale
Spacing & layout
A 4px base unit. Spacing tokens step from 4px to 192px; a 240px sidebar and 1280px content max frame every layout.
Radius & shadow
Corners stay tight and functional. Shadows are warm-tinted and soft — depth without drama.
Motion
Fast and precise. Most transitions run 160ms on a sharp ease; spring is reserved and used sparingly. Hover any swatch below.
Logo & wordmark
The wordmark is built from a construction rule, not a fixed file: PREFIX in Barlow 900 + HAUS in Barlow 400, ALL CAPS, tracked 0.04em. One system spans every house.
Buttons
Seven variants, three sizes. Labels are sentence case. Forest is the primary brand CTA; bronze signals investment and financial actions.
Badges & tags
Badges carry status with a leading dot. Tags label and categorize — neutral by default, or tinted with an accent family.
Avatars
Initials on an accent fill. Round for people, square for companies and houses.
Cards & stat cards
The white card on warm canvas is the workhorse surface. StatCards carry a single KPI with an accent bar and trend.
Synthetic biology platform for programmable enzymes. Pre-seed, CellHaus cohort.
Synthetic Bio Pre-seedInputs & forms
Quiet by default; a forest focus ring on interaction. Validation uses the semantic negative color.
Tables
For deal flow, portfolio, and LP data. Mono numerals, uppercase mono headers, hairline rows.
| Company | Sector | Stage | Check | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Helix Bio | Synthetic Bio | Pre-seed | $250K | Active |
| Cohort Dx | Diagnostics | Pre-seed | $200K | Diligence |
| Verde Ag | Agtech | Seed | $400K | Closing |
Layout patterns
Recurring compositions assembled from the components above. Explore the live UI kits:
AI agent rules
Guardrails for any AI or contributor generating Haus interfaces. Follow these and output stays on-brand by default.
Token reference
The full system loads from five CSS files. Import them in order, then build with variables.
/* import order */ @import "tokens/colors.css"; /* ink · canvas · forest · bronze · steel · houses */ @import "tokens/typography.css"; /* families · scale · weights · tracking */ @import "tokens/spacing.css"; /* 4px base · containers · layout slots */ @import "tokens/effects.css"; /* radii · shadows · easing · duration */ /* usage */ .cta { background: var(--forest-2); border-radius: var(--radius-md); box-shadow: var(--shadow-sm); font-family: var(--font-body); }
Source of truth lives in the Haus_Design_System package — tokens/, components/, and guidelines/. This page is the human-readable overview; the CSS files are canonical.