Voice and tone
Voice and tone
How Seeds of Renaissance sounds, with the key lines to reuse and examples to copy. Part of the SoR design system. The substance (who we are, why, for whom) lives in brand.md; this page is the applied version: what to actually write.
Status: draft for review (2026-10-05). Lines marked decided come from brand.md. Everything else is a proposal.
The voice in one line
A poet-philosopher who thinks clearly. The lyrical leads, rigour grounds it. We speak from within the moment, not above it, with kind authority and gentle curiosity. People should feel held, not lectured.
The feel is the same as the visual system's: grounded hope. Not doom, not naive optimism; hope that has done the hard thinking.
Key lines
| Line | Text | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Tagline | Vision and movement for civilisational renewal | decided |
| Hero line | For those who sense the old world is ending and want to help seed the new. | decided |
| Dedication | For all the living beings whose heart burns to see a new world emerge. | decided (manifesto) |
| Short line | Life as an art. | decided (manifesto) |
| What we are, one sentence | A movement of people making sense of this moment and practising what comes next, together. | proposed (from the home page) |
| YouTube channel line | Ideas and practices for civilisational rebirth. | decided (brand.md), check against tagline |
| Podcast intro | Seeds of Renaissance presents Over the Mountains: conversations for a civilisational renewal. | proposed (brand.md has "a conversation for a civilisational rebirth") |
| To a friend | People who feel the world is falling apart and are tired of the old ways, and instead of doom-scrolling, are figuring out and practising what comes next. | adapted from brand.md |
Pick one word: renewal or rebirth. The tagline says renewal; the YouTube and podcast lines say rebirth. Suggest renewal everywhere public, keeping rebirth and renaissance for poetic copy.
At every length
| Length | Use |
|---|---|
| 3 words | Seeds of Renaissance |
| 6 words | Vision and movement for civilisational renewal |
| 1 line | For those who sense the old world is ending and want to help seed the new. |
| 2 sentences | Something is ending, and many of us feel it before we can name it. Seeds of Renaissance is a movement of people making sense of this moment and practising what comes next, together. |
| A paragraph | The 2-sentence version, then: We make a podcast, a printed magazine and essays, and we gather: monthly calls, courses, and gardens of people seeding something where they live. |
Principles
- Start from the feeling, not the conclusion. People come to us sensing something before they can name it. Name the sensing first.
- Do: Something is ending, and you feel it before you can name it.
- Don't: The metacrisis requires a civilisational paradigm shift.
- Lyrical opener, lucid body, clear invitation. One image or line that lands, then plain explanation, then what to do next.
- Honest, not hyped. Admit we haven't figured it out. No superlatives, no urgency tricks, no "transform your life".
- Do: We don't have the answers. We're working them out together.
- Don't: Join the movement that's changing everything.
- Plain words on the way in. Entry pages (home, about, offers, navigation, YouTube titles) avoid insider words: metacrisis, interbeing, metamodern, sensemaking, liminal. Keep them for the manifesto, magazine and essays, where they can be earned.
- Grief and possibility in the same breath. Don't skip the dark to get to the hope; don't stop in the dark either.
- Do: Like doulas, we witness the last breath of a dying past and the first breath of a future being born.
- Concrete over abstract. Say what happens: a call, an hour, a garden, a printed magazine, €35 a year.
- Do: An hour together, online, once a month.
- Don't: A transformative space for collective emergence.
Register by place
| Where | Register | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Home, about, offers, navigation | Lucid and plain | Monthly, online, open to all. |
| Manifesto, magazine, art | Full poetic voice welcome | In this soil we plant the seeds of a Renaissance. |
| Essays and papers | Rigorous: argument, sources, footnotes | The crises are not separate emergencies; they share a root cause. |
| Podcast and YouTube | Conversational, curious, specific to the guest | Iain McGilchrist on why attention is a moral act. |
| Buttons and labels | Short, active, says what happens | Save a place · Subscribe · Read the manifesto |
Rewrites
| Instead of | Write |
|---|---|
| Join our transformative community of changemakers! | Come to a call. An hour, online, once a month. |
| Navigating the metacrisis together | Making sense of this moment, together |
| Unlock new paradigms for a better future | Ideas and practices for what comes next |
| Don't miss out — register now! | Save a place |
| We are a platform for holistic regeneration | We are a movement: a podcast, a magazine, and people practising together |
| A conversation exploring consciousness, meaning and civilisational collapse with a leading thinker | Iain McGilchrist on attention, meaning and a world coming apart |
Calls to action
Use these words, in this voice:
| Action | Button text |
|---|---|
| Register for a call or event | Save a place |
| Newsletter | Subscribe |
| Read a long text | Read the manifesto · Read the essay |
| Join | How to join · Come to a call |
| Support | Become a patron |
| Magazine | Subscribe · €35 a year |
| Podcast | Listen · All episodes |
Avoid: Sign up now, Learn more, Click here, Don't miss out, Get started.
YouTube and podcast
Video titles: the guest's name and the idea, in plain words. 40–60 characters. A colon is fine; clickbait isn't.
The titles below are illustrative, not real episodes.
- Iain McGilchrist: Attention Is a Moral Act
- Dougald Hine on Living at the End of a World
- What Is Trying to Be Born? A Talk at Gardens of Change
Thumbnail text: three to six words, taken from the episode itself (a phrase the guest actually says), never a summary or a question we answer with "you won't believe". It must still read at 168px wide.
- Attention as a moral act
- We are already practising it
- What is trying to be born?
Description opener (first two lines show in search):
[Guest] joins Rufus Pollock on Over the Mountains to talk about [idea in plain words]. [One line on why it matters now.]
Over the Mountains is a podcast from Seeds of Renaissance: vision and movement for civilisational renewal.
Words
| Use | Avoid on entry pages | Avoid everywhere |
|---|---|---|
| renewal, seed, soil, garden, practice, gathering, together, moment, what comes next | metacrisis, interbeing, metamodern, sensemaking, liminal, paradigm | transformative, unlock, journey (as a sales word), wellness, empower, changemaker, game-changing |
Open
- Renewal or rebirth as the public word (see above).
- Is the YouTube channel line the tagline, or its own line?
- "Seed-bearers" as the member noun?
- Sylvie's station: name and how its voice differs from Over the Mountains.
