HCST
Brand System
គ្រាប់ស្វាយចន្ទីធ្វើដោយដៃ ស្ទឹងត្រែង
Premium Cambodian cashews. Culture-led brand building, documented food safety, and sustainable international growth — set down as one working system.
One source of truth for everything HCST puts in front of a customer.
Sections 01–07 are the brand book: what HCST is, and the fixed rules for the logo, colour, type, ornament and photography. Sections 08–10 are the digital foundation: tokens, grid, and a component library to build the shop, the buyer site and the templates from — without reinterpreting the brand each time.
Foundation
Who HCST is, what it promises, and how it sounds. Every visual decision later in this document answers back to this section.
1.1 At a glance
1.2 Brand story
Cambodia has long grown excellent cashew and shipped it away raw. HCST was built to keep the valuable part of that work in Stung Treng.
Founded in late 2021 as Handcrafted Cashew Nuts Stung Treng, the enterprise buys raw nut directly from farmers in the province and processes it in-province — shelling, grading, roasting and packing under one roof. Direct buying replaces the broker chain; processing locally keeps the margin, and the jobs, where the crop is grown.
In 2026 the business incorporated as HCST Investment Co., Ltd. and commissioned capacity for ten tonnes of raw cashew a day — a step change that moved HCST from a provincial supplier to a working exporter, with lots landing in the United Kingdom, Germany, Israel, Japan and Singapore.
Two rules have not changed with scale: the value chain stays chemical-free and forest-safe, and the processing floor stays a place where rural women are hired, paid and promoted. The brand's job is to make both legible to a buyer in Hamburg or a shopper in London without either being turned into a slogan.
HCST processes premium Cambodian cashew in the province where it grows, chemical-free, to export food-safety standard.
Use it forTrade-show boilerplate, buyer emails, the website's About paragraph, press enquiries. Do not paraphrase it differently each time.
1.3 Mission & vision
Mission
To produce premium, value-added Cambodian food and beverage products that enrich farmers' livelihoods, create meaningful employment, and delight customers worldwide. Through innovation, operational excellence, and strong partnerships, we are committed to building a sustainable business that creates lasting economic, social, and environmental value.
Vision
To become a leading premium Cambodian food and beverage brand, creating sustainable value through innovation, responsible business practices, and global competitiveness.
Both statements are approved corporate copy. Quote verbatim; never edit for length.
1.4 Core values
Farmer first
We buy raw nut direct from growers in the province, at terms we are willing to state publicly.
Chemical-free by rule
A forest-safe, chemical-free value chain. Volume is never a reason to make an exception.
Craft at scale
Hand-grading standards held at ten tonnes a day. Growth must not show up in the kernel.
Women's work, valued
Woman-founded, and a floor where rural women are hired, trained, paid and promoted.
Cambodian, precisely
Heritage used accurately, never as decoration. Khmer culture is the origin, not a texture.
1.5 Our promises
Values are what we believe. Promises are what a buyer can hold us to — each one is measurable, and each one appears somewhere in the digital experience.
Traceable to province
Every lot traces to Stung Treng and to its harvest window. Lot code printed on every pack.
Documented food safety
Modern food-safety systems, documented per lot, with paperwork available before shipment.
Consistent grade
Kernel grade, moisture and count held to spec — shipment to shipment, season to season.
Answered in two days
Export and wholesale enquiries answered within two working days, by a named person.
1.6 Brand personality
HCST is the calm expert in the room. It answers the question asked, with a number where a number exists. It is warm about people and exact about product — never the reverse.
1.7 Tone of voice
Specific over superlative
A grade, a percentage, a place name. Superlatives are what brands say when they have no numbers.
Plain over promotional
Short sentences, ordinary words. Written to be read by a buyer whose first language isn't English.
Credentialed, not boastful
Name the standard, the partner, the market. Let the credential do the persuading.
Human at the source
Farmers and staff are named individuals doing skilled work, not beneficiaries in a story.
Logo
The circular seal is HCST's visual signature and the company's most valuable visual asset. Its construction is fixed; only its colourway and language change.
2.1 Overview & anatomy
Designed as a circular seal, the logo combines classical Cambodian ornamental elements with elegant serif typography to create a timeless identity suitable for international markets. It communicates trust, authenticity, excellence and long-term value.
Double-rule seal
A heavy outer ring and a hairline inner ring. The gap between them is the brand's smallest structural unit and reappears as the hairline rule throughout this system.
Khmer ornamental motifs
Mirrored flame-leaf ornaments above and below the monogram, drawn from traditional Khmer art and architecture.
HCST monogram
Custom serif lettering with decorative curved terminals. The heart of the logo, and the element that lets the brand stand without its full name.
What the ornament stands for
Classical ornamentation is used instead of modern geometric graphics so the brand's Cambodian roots are stated, not implied. The balanced, mirrored arrangement also stands for harmony between people, agriculture, nature and business.
What the monogram carries
The decorative curves soften an otherwise traditional serif, giving an approachable rather than austere luxury. The monogram is the only element permitted to appear on its own — as a favicon, app icon, seal stamp or embossing.
2.2 Versions
Default in all cases. Use on ivory, white or photography with a clear area.
Documents, invoices, spec sheets, single-colour print, embossing.
Dark surfaces: site header, gift packaging, trade-stand walls.
Photography, black-and-white print, partner co-branding bars.
Language versions
The logo is available with a tagline in Khmer, English and partner languages. Choose the version matching the primary language of the audience, and use it consistently across the whole piece — never two languages of the same lockup in one document.
Which mark, which surface
Full tagline lockup for covers, packaging fronts and trade stands. Seal only — no tagline — for favicons, app icons, social avatars, wax-seal stamps and anything under 32 px.
2.3 Clear space, size & backgrounds
= H
= H
Minimum clear space on all four sides equals the height of the letter H in the logo. No text, graphic, image or page edge may enter this area. When in doubt, give it more.
Use the seal alone at 32–96 px. Below 32 px, use the HCST monogram without ornament — supplied as a separate favicon asset.
Marketing materials and official documents: white, Ivory Cream, Forest Green or Heritage Gold only.
Other background colours are permitted only on packaging — pouches, labels, sleeves — and must be approved per SKU.
2.4 Incorrect usage
Every example below is a rejection. If artwork you receive from a supplier resembles any of these, send it back.
The logo is never redrawn. It is only ever placed.
All reproductions must use the official master artwork supplied by HCST. The logo must never be redrawn, recreated, traced, auto-vectorised or modified without written approval from the Brand Management Team.
MASTER ARTWORK → SEE §10 ASSET INDEX
APPROVALS → BRAND MANAGEMENT TEAM
Colour
Three brand colours, and a small set of digital extensions needed to build accessible interfaces. Nothing else is HCST.
3.1 Brand colours
Forest Green
Sustainability, growth, trust, agriculture, stability.
Heritage Gold
Premium quality, prosperity, craftsmanship, excellence.
Ivory Cream
Purity, cleanliness, simplicity, food safety, elegance.
Gold is an accent, never a field. If a layout reads as gold, it is wrong — reduce it to rules, small type on green, and ornament.
3.2 Digital extensions
These are not new brand colours. They are the tints, shades and state colours a real interface needs — derived from the three brand colours, and permitted on screen only. They never appear on packaging or in print advertising.
3.3 Approved pairings & contrast
HCST digital work targets WCAG 2.2 AA as a minimum. Use only the pairings below; the failing row is included so nobody has to guess.
Never gradient the brand
Forest and gold are flat colours. No green-to-gold gradients, no metallic effects on screen.
Never tint the ivory
Ivory Cream is the only warm white. Do not substitute grey #F5F5F5 or pure white as the page field.
Never colour-code by hue alone
Status always carries an icon or a word as well as a colour — the palette is narrow and mostly green.
Typography
A heritage serif for the voice, a technical sans for the work, a mono for the numbers — and matched Khmer companions so both languages set at the same quality.
4.1 The typefaces
Playfair Display
The closest freely-licensed match to the logo's high-contrast serif with ball terminals. Used for headlines, numbers with weight, and pull quotes — never for body copy or UI.
LICENCE SIL Open Font · free commercial use
IBM Plex Sans
Engineered, neutral and highly legible at small sizes — the right register for spec sheets and export documentation. Carries all body copy, labels, buttons and forms.
LICENCE SIL Open Font · free commercial use
IBM Plex Mono
Lot codes, grades, weights, dates, eyebrows and table figures. Its fixed width makes columns of numbers scan cleanly — and signals documentation rather than marketing.
LICENCE SIL Open Font · free commercial use
Noto Serif Khmer & Noto Sans Khmer
Noto Serif Khmer answers Playfair Display for headlines; Noto Sans Khmer answers Plex Sans for text. Both cover the full Khmer range including subscript consonants and Khmer numerals.
LICENCE SIL Open Font · free commercial use
Substitution fallbacks. Where brand fonts cannot be installed — a partner's PowerPoint, a supplier's label software, an email client — use Georgia for Playfair Display and Helvetica or Arial for Plex Sans. Never substitute a display or script face.
4.2 Type scale
Measure
Body copy sets to 62–72 characters. Never full-width paragraphs on desktop.
Numerals
Tabular figures in every table, price list and spec sheet. Weights and grades always in Plex Mono.
Emphasis
Semibold or Forest Green. No underlines except on links, no all-caps runs longer than four words outside Plex Mono.
4.3 Bilingual setting
Khmer is not Latin set in a different font. Its stacked diacritics and subscript consonants need more vertical room, and it breaks differently.
English first, Khmer beneath in Bark Gold at roughly 70% of the English size. Khmer never sits above English in export-facing material.
Equal columns, hairline between. Both languages the same weight and colour — neither is a translation of the other, both are the label.
Leading +20%
Khmer body sets at 1.9 where Latin sets at 1.6. Clipped diacritics are the most common bilingual error.
No tracking
Never letter-space Khmer, and never set it in all caps — the script has no case.
Word breaks
Khmer has no spaces between words. Rely on the browser's Khmer line-breaking; don't insert manual breaks.
Numerals
Khmer numerals (០–៩) for domestic and cultural material; Western numerals on all export specs, lots and prices.
Khmer copy in this document is placeholder. All Khmer strings must be proofread and approved by a native speaker on the HCST team before they go to print or production — particularly product names and food-safety wording.
Ornament & Pattern
The seal carries all the ornament HCST needs. Everything else in the system is structural: rules, bands and geometric patterns that a printer can hold to and a browser can render.
The ornament rule
Khmer ornamental motifs appear only inside the official seal artwork. They are never lifted out, tiled, enlarged as a watermark, used as a border, or redrawn as a graphic element. This keeps the heritage in one authoritative place and stops it becoming wallpaper.
What replaces it
Where a surface needs texture or differentiation, HCST uses the pattern library below — flat, two-colour, geometric, and defined in CSS and in printer's terms. It works at pouch scale and at favicon scale, and it prints in one colour.
5.1 Structural devices
Double rule
A 3 px forest rule above a 1 px gold hairline, 6 px apart — taken from the seal's two rings. Opens every major section.
Corner bracket
Diagonally opposed brackets on a hairline frame. Marks certificates, gift packs and award-style layouts. Never all four corners.
Origin band
Wide-tracked mono between two hairlines on forest. Carries origin, lot or certification wording on packs and stands.
5.2 Pattern library
Six flat patterns, all gold on forest, all reversible. Because flavours stay inside the brand palette, pattern — not colour — is how one product is told from another on shelf. Each is specified in CSS so web and pack cannot drift.
Photography
HCST has no photo library yet. This section is the art direction and the shot list to commission — build it once, properly, and every surface in section 09 becomes straightforward.
Daylight only
Soft directional daylight, one source, visible shadow. No ring light, no studio gloss, no flash on faces.
Warm and true
Neutral-to-warm white balance. Kernels must read as their real ivory colour — never pushed yellow or orange.
Honest surfaces
Ivory paper, raw linen, unfinished timber, galvanised steel. No marble, no slate, no rustic barn-wood cliché.
People at work
Staff and farmers are photographed doing their job, named in the caption, with consent on file. No stock imagery, ever.
6.1 Shot list to commission
No filters or grading LUTs
Exposure, white balance and crop only. A buyer must be able to trust the colour of the kernel.
No poverty framing
Never photograph people to look in need of help. They are skilled workers and suppliers.
No logo on photography
Place the seal on a solid field beside the image, not burned into it. Exception: the origin band.
Product System
Eight flavours, one palette. Each product is identified by name, SKU and pattern — never by its own colour. That is what keeps a shelf of HCST reading as one brand.
Naming convention
SKU HCST-XX-NNNG
LOT ST-YYMM-NNN
Flavour names are never translated on export packs — Kampot Pepper stays Kampot Pepper. Descriptors beneath may be localised.
Pack architecture
7.1 The range
Roasted Unsalted
Lightly Salted
Kampot Pepper
Spicy
Caramelised
Milk Cream
Cinnamon
Sweet & Sour
Pattern assignments are proposals. Confirm against the current pack range and any existing artwork before production. Two patterns must never sit adjacent on shelf if they are the same family — check the planogram, not just the pack.
Digital Foundation
Tokens, grid and components. This is the part a developer builds from — the shop, the buyer site and every template should be assembled from these pieces without new decisions.
8.1 Design tokens
Every value in sections 03–05 exists here as a named token. Reference tokens, never raw hex — that is what makes a palette change a one-line job instead of a redesign.
{{ tokenCode }}
8.2 Grid, spacing & elevation
Corners
Square by default. 2 px on controls, 4 px on cards. Nothing rounder — the brand is a seal on a document, not a bubble.
Hairlines over shadows
Structure comes from 1 px lines. Shadow is only for things that genuinely float: menus, modals, toasts.
Icons
1.5 px stroke, square cap, 24 px grid, no fills. Icons never carry meaning alone — always paired with a word.
Motion
120 ms for state, 200 ms for reveal, 360 ms for page. One easing curve. No bounce, no parallax, no scroll-jacking.
8.3 Buttons
Focus is always a 2 px Heritage Gold ring at 2 px offset — never removed, never a browser default.
Small is desktop-only, inside tables and toolbars. Anything a customer taps on a phone is Medium or Large.
8.4 Forms
Labels above, always
No floating or placeholder-only labels. Buyers fill these forms in a second language.
White inputs
Fields are pure white on ivory so the editable area is unmistakable.
Errors say what to do
Name the constraint and the number. Never just "invalid input".
Mono for quantities
Weights, counts, lot codes and prices are entered and displayed in Plex Mono.
8.5 Badges, status & credentials
Square corners, mono, uppercase. Filled badges are commercial; outlined badges are operational or cautionary.
Two-line chips: the category above, the claim below. Third-party certification marks sit in a separate greyscale row and are never restyled to the palette.
8.6 Cards & product tiles
Kampot Pepper Cashews
Whole W240 kernels roasted with GI-protected Kampot pepper.
What W240 actually means
Kernel grades explained for buyers who order by count rather than by name.
Read →Lot ST-2604-118
Wholesale carton
12 × 200 g · mixed or single flavour
8.7 Navigation
8.8 Specification table
Forest header, alternating white and ivory rows, mono for every figure, status as a badge in the last column. Tables never use vertical rules — the mono column widths do that work.
Applications
The system assembled on the surfaces HCST needs next. These are reference layouts — proof the parts fit, not templates to trace.
Grown, shelled and roasted in one province.
Whole W240 kernels from Stung Treng. Chemical-free value chain, lot-traceable to the harvest window.
Ten tonnes a day, documented per lot.
HCST supplies retail-ready and bulk cashew to importers in the UK, Germany, Israel, Japan and Singapore. Spec sheets, certificates and sample requests are handled by a named account contact.
Pepper
Grading is a paid skill, and we train for it.
Most of our processing team are women from Stung Treng district.
HCST · @HCSTCASHEWAPRIL 2026New-season W240 is available from 6 May.
This season's first lots are graded and documented. Kampot Pepper and Lightly Salted are open for order; Caramelised follows in June.
UNSUBSCRIBE · UPDATE PREFERENCES
Premium Cambodian cashews
STUNG TRENG · CAMBODIA
Governance
Where the files live, how they're named, and who decides. A brand system without an owner drifts within a season.
10.1 Asset index
hcst-logo-primary.svg / .pngMASTERhcst-mark-forest.svg / .png1-COLOURhcst-mark-gold.svg / .pngON DARKhcst-mark-ivory.svg / .pngREVERSEDThe logo files in this document were extracted from the April 2026 guideline PDF as raster artwork. Vector masters (SVG/AI/EPS) must replace them before any print or packaging production.
10.2 File naming
hcst-pouch-kampotpepper-100g-en.pdf
hcst-spec-w240-en-de.pdf
hcst-social-harvest04-1080.png
10.3 Do's & don'ts — the short version
Brand Management Team
Approves all logo use, packaging artwork, new applications and any change to sections 01–07.
Built on the HCST Brand Guideline, 28 April 2026
Prepared by Sothnita “Cashew” Soeun
Khmer copy proofing · certification marks