# UMUSE · co-creation knot

Three code strokes of equal width, joined by facing interfaces, inward turns and staggered gaps. They are not arrows rotating around a centre; the open negative space in the middle stands for the starting point of a question, and the three strokes share equal standing. The outline lightly echoes u/m and keeps its openings pointing outward.

The cultural reference is chapter 42 of the Tao Te Ching, "one begets two, two begets three, three begets all things" ([Chinese Text Project](https://ctext.org/dao-de-jing)). This is a modern design reading: one origin, two-way exchange, many agents collaborating, and results growing new questions. It does not claim that the ancient text speaks of computer networks.

- Symbol: 96 × 96 viewBox, body stroke 7 units wide, outer margin 10.5 units; gaps between key neighbouring open strokes are about 9 units or more. The three strokes are not rotated copies, avoiding atom, recycling or fan silhouettes.
- Wordmark: 282 × 64 viewBox; u/m/u/s/e are purpose-drawn paths with near-monoline 7.5-unit strokes. The u is an open container, the m shares its branches, the s flows back continuously, the e leaves an interface open below. Straight cuts share their structure with the symbol. No fonts, external links or runtime dependencies.
- Horizontal lockup: 400 × 96 viewBox; at least 144 CSS px wide in navigation is recommended. The mark is normally used once, in the navigation.
- Symbol minimum size 24 CSS px; 32 px in navigation. At 16 px, favicon.svg keeps only the three-stroke outline, without the full wordmark. The Apple touch icon is exported unchanged from favicon.svg as a 180 × 180 PNG.
- When placed on its own, keep extra clear space of at least one body stroke (the safe margin is already inside the artwork); never squeeze it into a glowing ring or add a central crown.
- The main lockup is for the #0B0B0A dark ground: symbol #DCA54A (amber: origin and questions), wordmark #E9E6DC (warm white). Since VISUAL-06, cyan is no longer used, to avoid a generic "AI neon" look; the geometry is unchanged. Monochrome files use currentColor (black by default; set it to white when inlined) and do not depend on gradients, glow or colour differences to be recognised.

The assets contain no scripts, foreignObject or external resources. No trademark search has been carried out, and no claim of global uniqueness is made.