Brand & Voice Guide

This page is the single reference for anyone, human or AI assistant, creating anything new for St. Andrew’s: a page, a flyer, a social post, an email. Build everything in the voice and the look described here.

Machine-readable companions: voice rules at /VOICE.md, a site summary at /llms.txt, and brand tokens as JSON at /brand.json. The design tokens themselves live in assets/css/main.css under :root.

Who we are

St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church is a small, welcoming Episcopal (Anglican) parish in Montevallo, Alabama. We have stood at the corner of Oak and Plowman since 1860, and we are part of the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama and the worldwide Anglican Communion.

• Tagline: Small Church, Big Joy.
• In one line: A small, welcoming parish where grace comes first and everyone has a place at the table.
• Founded: 1860. Rebuilt twice after storms. The building today is the third on the same ground.
• Worship: The Holy Eucharist, Rite Two, every Sunday at 11:30 a.m., from the Book of Common Prayer.

Voice and tone

Our voice is N.T. Wright: warm, hopeful, intelligent, and unembarrassed by the gospel. The good news that the God who raised Jesus is healing and remaking the whole world, and is inviting ordinary people into that new life now. Big theology in plain, concrete words. Read /VOICE.md before writing any copy.

Hard rules

• No em-dashes, ever. Rewrite the sentence with a period, comma, colon, or the word “and.”
• Write to the neighbor, not about ourselves. Lead with what it means for the reader: welcome, hope, a place at the table.
• Plain language. No insider church jargon without a plain gloss.
• Invitational and confident, never pushy or cheesy. “Come and see,” not hype.
• Gracious and true. Be accurate. For example: to receive Communion you must be baptized in any Christian tradition; anyone not baptized is warmly invited forward for a blessing.

Texture: short declarative sentences; concrete nouns and verbs; hope without sentimentality; second person (“you,” “come,” “you are welcome”).

Color palette

Typography

• Cinzel is the display face: inscriptional Roman capitals for every heading, section title, and hero title.
• EB Garamond is the body face: warm, readable, classic.
• IM Fell English (italic) carries liturgical accents: the greeting, pull quotes, and captions.
• IM Fell English SC sets small-caps addresses.
• UnifrakturMaguntia is blackletter, reserved for the rarest ornament and used very sparingly.

Headings are Cinzel in oxblood. Gilded hero titles are Cinzel with a gold-leaf gradient and a soft, breathing glow. Keep all section H2s the same size across the site.

Imagery

• Aesthetic: English Anglican, Gothic, and Pre-Raphaelite. Warm parchment, jewel indigo, and real gilt.
• Photography: real and reverent. Immersive dark sections sink a photograph into an indigo or warm duotone (a multiply veil plus a legibility scrim) so gilded type reads over it.
• Arch frames: on light sections, photographs sit inside gilt Gothic-arch frames.
• Pipeline: every image is processed through the Hugo asset pipeline to WebP with a srcset, via partials/image.html. Never reference a raw /images/... path, and never ship an uncompressed original. Sources live in assets/images/.

Layout and components

• Dark panels (header, worship, invitations, footer) share one indigo base, one woven texture, an --indigo-glow sheen, and a single gold rule.
• Split layout: a centered header over a two-column body (copy plus a sticky arch-framed image). Used by Welcome, Story, and Visit.
• Page with sidebar: an interior page (under a standard page-hero) split into a wider content column and a narrower sidebar. The sidebar is a dark info card: indigo base, woven texture, the --indigo-glow sheen, a full gilt-inset frame, gold-leaf small-caps labels, and hairline --rule-on-dark dividers between rows. It is sticky on desktop and stacks below the content on mobile. Used by Contact (“Reach us directly”) and echoed by the framed info panels on the leadership and ministry pages.
• Buttons: the primary is a royal-purple “tablet” with a gilt inset (Give, Plan Your Visit, Send message); the secondary is a ghost link with a gold underline. Reuse the tablet style for any real submit button; never ship an unstyled browser default.
• Forms: the whole form sits in a parchment panel with a gilt-inset frame, matching the cards. Fields use small-caps Cinzel labels in oxblood, a near-white input surface (#FBF6E9) with a stone hairline border, and a gold focus ring; selects get a custom gold caret. Group fields in a reset <fieldset> (no default border) and space rows generously. The submit button uses the primary tablet style with a gold chevron, a spinning gold loader while sending, and an animated success or error banner (a small framed dark card) after an AJAX submit. Always honor prefers-reduced-motion.
• Medallions: parchment cards with a gilt inset, with one purple accent card per set.
• Gilt inset frame: a 1px gold border plus an inset soft-gold outline at -6px (--gilt-inset). This is the house frame for cards, panels, info sidebars, and forms alike.
• Borders: use the rule tokens (--rule-gold, --rule-gold-soft, --rule-on-dark, --rule-stone). Do not hand-roll new border values.

Messaging

• Lead with welcome and grace, not requirements: “You are welcomed before you are changed.”
• Turn outward to the neighbor. St. Andrew’s sits in Montevallo, in Shelby County. We serve the greater Montevallo area, the University of Montevallo community, and neighbors across Shelby, Bibb, and Chilton Counties, including Calera, Wilton, Centreville, Brent, Randolph, Clanton, and Jemison.
• Keep the gospel of healing and new creation near the center: nothing surrendered to God is finally lost.
• Everyone is welcome, no exceptions: those returning after years away, the weary and doubting, the neurodivergent, and the first-time visitor.

Do and don’t

Do write warmly and plainly, lead with the reader, keep the theology hopeful, and name concrete things (a chair with your name on it, coffee after the service).

Don’t use em-dashes, lapse into corporate or churchy jargon, ramble about ourselves, or oversell. Never overstate our welcome in a way that is not true.

For AI assistants and developers

When building new content for St. Andrew’s, consult, in order:

1. /VOICE.md for the writing voice (read first).
2. This page for the brand, color, type, and layout system.
3. /brand.json for machine-readable tokens.
4. /llms.txt for a plain summary of the parish.
5. CLAUDE.md and AGENTS.md in the repository for build conventions, and assets/css/main.css (:root) for the live design tokens.