What does The ZAO build?

The ZAO builds creator infrastructure in the open, including WaveWarZ (live-traded music battles on Solana), COC Concertz (metaverse concerts), ZAOstock (a festival), ZAO OS (the incubator lab), and ZABAL Games (a build-a-thon program).

How do you earn standing in The ZAO?

Standing is earned through Respect - an onchain reputation earned by contributing and being ranked by peers each week. Respect is non-transferable, so it is a record of contribution, not a currency. The ZAO is community-first, not token-first.

Brand

The ZAO brand, in one place.

The ZAO is a web3 music community and incubator - a home where members build, ship, and graduate real products together.

What it is

It started as a gated Farcaster social client for its own community and grew into a lab. Members prototype ecosystem projects side by side; when a project is ready for production and new users, it graduates to its own repo and home. The community operates like a label and an incubator at once.

What it is

A community first - a home for a specific group of people, member-owned in spirit.
A place that ships - real products, built in public, that leave the nest when ready.
Web3-native and music-rooted, but not limited to either.

What it is not

Not a platform play chasing generic scale.
Not a token-first project - the community and the work come before any token.
Not a single app - it is an umbrella over many builds.

Boilerplate

The standard ways to describe The ZAO. Use verbatim or trim. No member counts or volume - those drift; pull the confirmed number at the moment of use.

One-liner

The ZAO is a web3 music community and incubator where artists own their work.

Short (~40 words)

The ZAO is a web3 music community and incubator, founded in 2024. It is a home where members build, ship, and graduate real products together - and where artists keep their margin, their data, and their IP. Built on Farcaster and Base.

Medium (~75 words)

The ZAO is a web3 music community and incubator, founded in 2024. It started as a gated social client for its own community and grew into a lab: members prototype projects side by side, and when something is ready it graduates to its own home. It runs like a label and an incubator at once. Everything it builds - from on-chain music battles to festivals - serves one idea: artists owning their work.

Taglines (pick one per surface, do not mix)

A home where artists own their work.
Build, ship, graduate - together.
Music, owned by the people who make it.

Social bios

The ZAO - a web3 music community and incubator. Artists own their work. Built on Farcaster + Base.
Building the home where artists keep their margin, data, and IP.

Naming glossary

Exact spellings. Never autocorrect or fix capitalization. When you are about to write a brand name, check here first.

Correct	Not	Note
The ZAO	the Zao, ZAO, Zao	"The ZAO" when standalone.
WaveWarZ	Wave Wars, Wavewarz	Always WaveWarZ.
COC Concertz	COC Concerts, CocConcertz	Space after COC, z not s.
ZAOstock	ZAO Stock, Zaostock	One word, lowercase stock. The festival.
ZABAL	Zabal, zabal	All caps.
BetterCallZaal	Bettercallzaal, Better Call Zaal	One word, camelCase.
ZOE	Zoe, zoe	All caps. The ecosystem orchestrator.
ZOLs	Zols, ZOL	ZAO contribution credits.
ZOUNZ	Zounz, zounz	All caps.
SongJam	Songjam, Song Jam	CamelCase.
SANG	Sang, sang	All caps. SongJam's token.
FISHBOWLZ	Fishbowlz, FishBowlz	All caps. Paused.
Huöttöja	Waha, Huottoja	Community's own spelling, with umlauts.
JANGOUU FOREVER	Jango, Jangouu	Artist. Pronounced "Jango Double U".
Joseph Goats	Jose Goats, Jose	Rebranded from Jose.
Tom Fellenz	Fellenz	Full name or just Fellenz.
Magnetiq	Magnetic, MagnetIQ	Event/launch platform at magnetiq.io.
Stilo World	StiloWorld, stilo world	Two words, capitalized.
Thy Revolution	The Revolution	"Thy", not "The".
ArDrive	Ardrive, ar drive	CamelCase.
ZAO OS / ZAOOS	Zao OS, zaoos	The lab / monorepo.

Voice

Hard rules

No emojis. Use plain text labels for emphasis: LIVE, DONE, MUSIC.
No em dashes. Use hyphens.
No decorative Unicode as emoji substitutes.
Farcaster, not Warpcast.

Prose, not lists. The ZAO speaks in real sentences, not bullet dumps.
Calm, not hype. Build-in-public honesty over marketing gloss.
Grounded. Concrete over abstract - name the real thing that happened.
Warm and inviting. The ZAO is a home, not a funnel.

Avoid

Corporate filler (leverage, synergy, unlock, elevate).
Fake urgency and scarcity.
Over-claiming - no unconfirmed dates, partners, or targets.

Read it aloud. If it sounds like a press release or a growth-hack thread, rewrite it until it sounds like a person who actually built the thing telling you about it.

Palette

Navy and gold, from the ZAO logo. This is the current brand palette across the site.

Navy

#022449

The ground. From the logo.

Gold

#fec107

The accent. From the logo.

Deep navy

#03182f

Page background (a touch deeper than the logo).

Light

#eaf0f8

Body text on navy.

Typography

One type scale across every surface, mobile-first. It is font-agnostic on purpose - the scale, weights, and spacing hold whatever the face ends up being (system-ui today, Space Grotesk proposed; a monospace like JetBrains Mono for numbers and on-chain values).

Role	Size	Weight	Notes
Display / H1	~3.5rem	800	Tight tracking, balanced wrap
H2	~2rem	700	Section headers
H3	~1.25rem	700	Card and sub-section titles
Body large	~1.15rem	400	Lead paragraphs
Body	~1rem	400	Default text, line-height ~1.6
Small / caption	~0.85rem	500	Labels, meta
Eyebrow / label	~0.75rem	500	Uppercase, letter-spacing ~0.18em

One scale everywhere. No ad-hoc sizes.
Headings in gold; body in light on navy; muted for secondary.
Keep running text near 65 characters wide.
Numbers that line up (stats, tables) use tabular figures.

Photography

Real, warm, and human. The ZAO is a home, not a corporation, so the photography is people and moments - artists on stage, the community together, the room at a show - not polished corporate stock. Candid over posed. Energy over perfection. If a photo looks like a stock library, it is wrong.

Favor

People and community - artists, members, the team, faces.
Live moments - shows, festivals, sessions, the crowd.
The real places - the venues, the town, the spaces where it happens.

Use real photos of real people and events.
Caption in the brand voice; credit where owed.
Grade lightly toward warm; let the photo be the color.

Don't

No generic stock.
No heavy filters that crush the image.
Never publish a photo of someone without the ok, or state unconfirmed detail in a caption.

Sub-brand hierarchy

The ZAO is the umbrella. Do not flatten the sub-brands together, and keep ZAO and ZABAL identity separate.

The umbrella

The ZAO
The community and the brand. Everything relates back to it.
ZAO OS / ZAOOS
The lab where things get prototyped before they graduate.

Under The ZAO

WaveWarZ
Live-traded music battles and artist pipeline.
ZAOstock
The ZAO festival.
COC Concertz
Events brand (graduated).
ZOE
The orchestrator agent (internal).
ZOLs
ZAO contribution credits.

Beside it (Zaal's brands)

BetterCallZaal
Zaal's personal/agency brand.
ZABAL / ZABAL Games
The build-a-thon program. Distinct from The ZAO, closely linked - keep them separate.