Purl
The leaning, open-bowled P in violet that carries Parastrate. Purl is its name — purple and pearl in one syllable, said like pearl. It is a proper name, so it takes a capital and no article: “put Purl in the corner.”
On every page it hangs in the margin beside the page's heading, as it does here, and links home; the Style reference has the rule and why.
The artwork
All SVG, so they scale to any size. Every Purl file shares one outline, redrawn as true curves on 29 September 2026.
One violet, and the grounds it sits on
The P is always a flat violet. Click a swatch to copy its value.
Giving it room
Keep clear space of x on every side, where x is 0.21 of the P’s height (the height of the lowercase a in the wordmark).
| Use | Minimum |
|---|---|
| Clear space, every version | 1 x on all sides |
| Purl on screen | 20 px tall |
| Purl in print | 5 mm tall |
| Tiles | 16 px (violet), 32 px (others) |
| Lockup on screen | 96 px wide |
| Lockup in print | 25 mm wide |
| P inside a tile | 56% of the tile’s height |
Below 20 px the thin bar and crown drop out and the P reads as a plain curl. Tiles are square; let the platform round their corners.
Things Purl never does
- Stretch or squash it.
- Stand it upright. The lean is part of it.
- Close the bowl onto the stem. It is always open.
- Use any colour but violet, ink or white.
- Outline it.
- Add shadows, glows or bevels to the P. The White tile’s own soft shadow is the one exception.
- Set it on a ground too close to violet.
- Rotate it.