Brand Applications
The through-line
Every touchpoint should feel like talking to the same person. The medium changes, the register adjusts, but the character is consistent. Someone who reads our marketing page and then opens our product and then receives a support email should feel like they're in a relationship with one entity, not three departments.
Consistency across touchpoints is how trust compounds. Every time someone encounters us and thinks "this was made by people who mean it," that's a deposit in the trust account. That account is the most valuable thing we own, and it's becoming more valuable, not less.
Product
The brand's home base. Warm stone neutrals, serif headings as editorial accent, tactile button design (inset shadows that feel like physical depression), considered spacing. The product should feel like a well-designed tool: not flashy, not austere. The kind of thing that's pleasant to use every day.
Key principles:
- Zero-decoration UI copy (terse, clear, functional)
- Warm palette, not cold
- Loretta headings for structure, Inter for everything else
- Buttons that feel like they have weight (inset shadows, pressed states)
- Spacing that creates hierarchy without wasting screen real estate
How we show up in inboxes. System font stack for reliability, #2b7fff links for consistency, warm stone border colors. Dark mode is supported via CSS color inversion. Email is functional, not branded; the message matters more than the design.
Reference: app/styles/email.css
Key principles:
- Plain, readable, fast-loading
- No heavy templates or elaborate headers
- Blue links, warm borders
- Collapsible quoted text for threading
Social media
Observational. Dry. Never trying too hard. We notice things about how people work and we say them plainly. We don't chase engagement or engineer shareability. We post when we have something worth saying.
Key principles:
- Observation over promotion
- Documentary seriousness about work topics
- The same voice, shorter
- No hashtag stuffing, no emoji overuse, no "thoughts?" engagement bait
- If we share our own content, we add context; never just a link
Presentations
Editorial typography. Centered composition. Warm palette. Every slide should look like a page in a well-designed annual report: dense with information, elegant in layout, free of decoration.
Key principles:
- Loretta headings, Inter body
- Centered text, generous margins
- Warm background colors (cream/stone from the brand palette)
- Minimal animation (fade in, not fly in)
- No gradient-blob backgrounds
- One idea per slide
Video and creative
The visual principles from the Imagery section applied to motion. Formal composition, deadpan sincerity, observational stillness, tactile warmth. Every video we make should feel like it was directed by someone with taste, not assembled by a marketing team.
Key principles:
- Title cards as structural devices
- Natural lighting, warm tones
- Deliberate pacing: hold the shot
- Editorial typography (Loretta + Inter)
- Sound design that surprises subtly
Website and marketing
Scroll-driven narrative. The website is where marketing voice gets the most room. Long pages that build an argument. The problem we're solving and the work speaks, but it must be seen; so the marketing site's job is to frame the purpose of our work in a way that makes thoughtful people pay attention.
Key principles:
- Hero sections with Loretta serif headlines
- Warm stone backgrounds
- Generous whitespace
- (primary) The problem, job-to-be-done we are focused on solving, expressed in clear, human terms
- (secondary) The product itself (screenshots, workflows) as the primary content
- Writing that builds, not bullet-points that scan
The test for all applications
Before shipping anything (an email, a social post, a slide deck, a video, a feature) apply this test:
"Would a thoughtful, senior leader see this and think 'these people understand something true'?"
Not "this is clever." Not "this is well-designed." Not "this is on-brand." But: "these people get it."
And a second test:
"Can you tell a person made this? Would someone encountering this know, not because we declared it, but because they can feel it, that a thoughtful human stood behind it?"
If the answer to both is yes, ship it. If the answer is no, figure out what's missing. Usually it's sincerity, specificity, or both.