The Kit · press & brand
Everything you need to write about a cat.
Logos, colors, type, a description in three lengths, the rules of the voice. Free for editorial coverage. Please don’t redraw the cat.
Boilerplate
The site, described.
Three lengths. Use the plain one anywhere near an emergency.
One line
Is Nigel Peeing? is a live infrared camera on one Chicago cat’s litter box, and a sourced, plain-spoken literature on the urinary disease that nearly killed him.
One paragraph
Nigel, a five-year-old Chicago cat, suffered a complete urethral blockage — a common emergency in male cats, often mistaken for constipation, and fatal within days if untreated. After three nights in hospital, his owner pointed an infrared camera at the litter box. isnigelpeeing.com streams it live, emails subscribers each time Nigel uses the box, and publishes sourced guides to feline lower urinary tract disease (FLUTD) in a deadpan literary voice — except for emergency instructions, which are always plain.
Plain version. isnigelpeeing.com is a website about feline lower urinary tract disease (FLUTD), made after the owner’s cat had a urinary blockage. It has a live camera on the cat’s litter box, optional email alerts, and sourced guides for cat owners. Key message: a male cat straining to urinate and producing little or nothing may be blocked. That is an emergency. Contact a veterinarian immediately.
The mark
Nigel, as a patent drawing.
Pen on newsprint, drawn in the manner of a patent figure: reference numerals, hatching for shadow and for the dark patch. The only color is the infrared eyeshine.
Please do
- Use the drawings as supplied.
- Keep the eyes marigold.
- Leave an eye’s width of space all round.
- Use the mark below about 80 px.
Please don’t
- Redraw, trace or simplify it.
- Recolor the ink or the eyes.
- Add a speech bubble, a crown, a tongue or a pun.
- Put it near emergency instructions. Those are plain.
Color
Newsprint, carbon, ditto, eyeshine.
One spot color for the voice, one light for the eyes, one red for danger and nothing else.
The page.
The ink.
Pencil; metadata.
The voice; links.
His eyes. Sparingly.
Emergency only.
Behind the feed.
Second paper.
Type
Three typefaces, and the system’s.
All SIL Open Font License. All self-hosted.
Big Shoulders Display
Headlines. A condensed gothic drawn for the City of Chicago, named for Sandburg’s line. Heavy, uppercase.
Newsreader, for reading at length.
Body text.
Courier Prime, typed.
Metadata, captions, marginalia, stamps.
System sans, for emergencies.
The device’s own face. Only in plain-text blocks.
Voice
Seven rules.
- 1
Short sentences. Flat delivery. State it. Stop.
- 2
Never wink. No exclamation marks, no emoji, no puns, no cuteness. The cat is not a character. The humor is the straight face.
- 3
The definite article. The Box. The Feed. The Apparatus.
- 4
Allusions pay rent. Explained in a clause, or cut.
- 5
Scholarship, for structure. Figures, reference numerals, call numbers, numbered propositions.
- 6
The apparatus may be absurd. The disease is not.
- 7
The voice stops where the danger starts. Plain text, short sentences, system type.
Fact sheet
For the record.
- Subject
- Nigel, male cat, five, Chicago.
- Event
- Complete urethral obstruction; BUN over 130; three nights in hospital.
- Diagnosis
- Feline lower urinary tract disease (FLUTD).
- The site
- Live infrared feed; an email per visit; seven sourced guides; a glossary.
- The camera
- Reolink E1, via an always-on laptop and Cloudflare.
- Author
- Scott Evens, the owner. Not a veterinarian.
- Key message
- A male cat straining and producing nothing may be blocked. Emergency.
- Contact
- Correspondence