Feel

Every colour, face and layout decision is judged against one phrase, not against taste. Part of the SoR design system; start building from BUILD.md. Who we are and how we sound: brand.md.

Grounded hope

Hope stays the destination, and it is earned by going through the dark rather than around it. A glowing sunrise painting is hope without ground; Dark Mountain is ground without much hope. We sit between: a skilled, caring presence at an ending and at a birth (the doula is a candidate guiding image, still open).

Light: dawn-leaning. We are more about renaissance than hospicing an ending, though we do both.

Three supporting notes

1. Deep sourcing. Going to the source, and the creativity that comes from there. Depth with the aim of really understanding.
2. Crafted rigour. Real thought, love and care in how things are made; truthfulness rather than being right. The elegance of a potter's bowl, not of Vogue.
3. Liminal integration. Not opposites side by side but the moment they become one: dawn, birth, death. Crisis and renaissance as one transition.

Character

A little off-centre. Earthy, a bit muddy, a bit quirky, a bit marginal. Not mainstream, and not a wild artist's site either. The muddiness lives in texture and imperfection (paper grain, torn edges, woodcuts, fingerprints), never in muddy colour or raw imagery.

Nothing may look backwards. We are seeding a new renaissance, not restaging the old one. Antique-looking type and sepia nostalgia are out.

What we are not

• Wellness, spiritual woo-woo, new age ("the age of Aquarius")
• Luxury-clean, glossy, fashion-elegant
• Corporate, mainstream, hard selling
• Sleek and contemporary
• Chaotic or self-indulgent like many artist sites

Who we design for

People who sense the old world is ending before they can name it, and want to help seed the new: intellectually curious and practically hungry, allergic to hype, looking for grounded hope. Four personas (full detail in brand.md, from the brand narrative):

• The meaning seeker (mid-30s to 50s): therapist, teacher, tech, health. Reads McGilchrist. Aesthetically sensitive; wants the people they follow to have done the reading.
• The post-disillusionment renewer (40s to 60s): ex-church, ex-corporate, ex-academic, ex-activist. Allergic to hype; trusts people who admit they don't have it figured out.
• The awakening professional: successful and feels the system is off; little time, so needs clear, digestible pieces.
• The disillusioned young seeker (18 to 30): searching for meaning, belonging and a larger vision; values authenticity.

What they should feel: "These people are honest. They're living it. I'm not alone in seeing what I see." What this means for design: plain, honest entry points; real people in real places, not stock or glossy; depth one step away for those who want it.

Rigour and warmth

Rigour is the form, warmth is the surface (the potter's bowl). Rigour is constant on every page: grid, type, accuracy, sourcing, care. Warmth is a layer that varies: people, texture, hand marks, colour, voice. Rigour first, but both always present.

Eight principles

The rules that carry the feel. When a new page is in doubt, check it against these.

1. Ink and paper first. Pages are mostly white, paper and ink. Colour arrives in photographs, not in the interface.
2. Buttons are ink. Every button is black, solid or outlined. On night they turn chalk.
3. Red is rare. The logo red appears only as an occasional link in running text, and footnote marks. Never a button, never a background.
4. Pale yellow is light, not paint. Sunlight is a ground for a whole section. Never text, never a highlighter, never a bright yellow.
5. One night per page. At most one dark section, plus the footer. Dark and light always meet at a torn edge, never a straight line or a gradient.
6. Polyamine for anything short. Every headline, title and hero is Polyamine, as long as it stays under about ten words. When display text runs longer, it moves to Restora. Reading is Bricolage.
7. Figures are plates. Images are numbered and captioned like plates in a book: Fig. 2 then an italic caption.
8. The hand is our texture. Paper grain, torn edges, woodcut seeds and swallows, the fingerprints in the logo. Imperfection is made, not filtered on.

References

Dark Mountain (seriousness, literary depth, torn ink edges); Emergence Magazine (visible structure, but too sleek and nature-mystical); Christopher Alexander and Iain McGilchrist (rigorous yet warm writing); wabi-sabi; Ally Capellino and Muji (good materials, no logos); a handmade potter's bowl; dawn and dusk. Full list and reasoning: sor-brand/design-system-plan.md.