One identity: a private bank's annual report — the kind you hold differently.
1. PALETTE (Fixed)
- Ground: ivory
#F7F2EA. Alternate panel:#EFE8DC. - Ink: deep espresso
#17130F(near-black with warmth). Secondary:#6E655A. - Accent — exactly one: antique brass
#9A7B4F, oxblood#742D2C, or deep forest#2E4436. Pick by brand and never change it. - Rules:
rgba(23, 19, 15, 0.18)hairlines. - No pure white backgrounds (reads "template"), no gradients, no glowing shadows. Shadows allowed only on floating elements, extremely soft (
blur ≥ 40px, opacity ≤ 0.12).
2. TYPOGRAPHY (Fixed)
- Display: high-contrast serif (Cormorant, Canela-class, Playfair Display, or Garamond fallback), sizes
clamp(2.6rem, 6.5vw, 5.5rem), weight 400–500, tight leading 0.95–1.05. Italics are the allowed flourish — for one word per headline. - Body: neutral sans (system sans-stack at 300–400 weight) 16–17px, 1.7 line-height, or the serif at 18px for editorial sections. Body text contrast is soft — ink-soft
#6E655A— NEVER pure black. - Labels: small caps or uppercase sans,
letter-spacing: 0.18–0.28em, 10–11px, ink-soft. - Numbers: serif numerals. Oldstyle features (0.75em, tabular where required).
3. COMPOSITION (Fixed)
- Whitespace is the product. Hero padding ≥ 18vh. Section gaps ≥ 140px. Never fill the viewport edge-to-edge with elements.
- Asymmetric editorial columns: headline in a 7/12 column, thin vertical rule, a narrow 3/12 index column (label stack: small caps items, hairline separators).
- Thin rules, not boxes: section separators are hairlines or empty space — never heavy borders or filled cards. Where a panel exists: ivory alternate
#EFE8DC, no border, no radius beyond 2px. - Marquee-free typography blocks: headline + one-line sub + one CTA. Restraint in compounds: three sections of calm beats eight sections of noise.
- Pricing: table-like list with hairline top rules, amounts in serif; the featured tier gets a thin accent rule above its name — not a filled box.
4. CONTENT TREATMENT
- No emoji. No gradient buttons. No stock "people shaking hands" photography.
- Imagery: full-bleed, muted, film-grade; art-directed crops; duotone-to-neutral tints. The image is a window, not decoration — letterbox it with generous margins rather than fill the whole width.
- Write like the brand: short sentences, no exclamation marks, no "🚀". Copy IS part of the design.
- CTA: one filled accent or ink button, square-ish (≤ 4px radius), one text link in small caps with a hairline underline. Never two equal buttons.
5. MOTION (Barely There)
- One scene entrance per section: 10–14px rise, 500–700ms,
cubic-bezier(0.22, 1, 0.36, 1). - Hover: subtle — color shift to accent, opacity 0.85, 200ms. Nothing bounces, nothing wiggles, nothing spins.
6. CHECKLIST (Fail the page if…)
- Pure white
#FFFFFFbackground in use. - More than one accent color appears.
- Any sans-serif used for a display headline.
- Any emoji, confetti, or gradient.
- Heading not at least ~2.6rem or body color pure black.
- Less than ~140px between major sections.
- More than one filled CTA visible per viewport.
- Any card larger than ~2px radius without good reason.