System
Content System
Voice is the most consistent thing a brand has. Visuals change by channel and services change over time, but the way something is written is present in every single interaction, including this sentence.
In active development
- What this section covers
- How the writing works: voice, vocabulary, the words I avoid, headings, buttons, microcopy, and the rules that keep punctuation out of the way.
- Why it matters
- Voice is the most consistent thing a brand has. Visuals change by channel. The writing is present in every single interaction.
- How it connects
- It governs the words on every page here, including this one.
The tone
Warm. Direct. Practical. Confident. Premium. Human.
Six words, and they are load-bearing rather than aspirational. Most consultancy writing manages two of them. The combination is the point: warm without being vague, confident without being loud.
What someone should feel reading anything from this practice is fairly specific. This person knows what they are talking about. They are clear and direct. They are not trying to impress me with jargon or sell me something I do not need.
That is a higher bar than it sounds, because most of the ways writing goes wrong are attempts to sound more expert rather than to be clearer.
The rules
Nine rules, and every one of them has been broken and corrected at least once
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British English
Consistently, including in code comments and file names. Sentence-style capitalisation everywhere, including headings.
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Active voice
First person by default. Avoid 'we' unless there is a real team. Use 'you' to address the reader directly.
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Short paragraphs
Two to four sentences. Short sentences inside them. Every sentence has to earn its place.
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Specific over vague
Numbers rather than adjectives. A measured figure with its method beats any amount of confident description.
The punctuation rule that gets the most attention
Em dashes are exceptional punctuation. Not banned, and that distinction was argued out properly rather than assumed: an outright prohibition was replaced with an editorial philosophy, because a rule that forbids a mark outright removes a legitimate cadence along with the bad habit.
So the test is applied to each one individually. Use it where it genuinely improves the rhythm or marks a real interruption in thought. Never for dramatic pauses, never for visual emphasis, and never for the artificial cadence typical of machine-written prose. If removing it leaves the sentence equally clear, remove it.
Beyond that: Oxford comma, single quotation marks, one space after a full stop, exclamation marks almost never, and no emoji anywhere.
Words this practice does not use
Leverage. Synergy. Transform. Disrupt. Innovative. Cutting-edge. Best-in-class. Solutions. Holistic. Deep dive. Circle back. Low-hanging fruit.
The list is not a style preference. Each of those words has a plainer equivalent that says more, and reaching for the buzzword is almost always a sign that the underlying thought has not been finished yet.
What replaces them: clearer, lighter, faster, cleaner, simpler, discoverable, maintainable, responsible, measured, practical. And for actions: audit, simplify, reduce, improve, optimise, build, fix, advise, recommend.
Where this stands
The voice is settled. The system around it is not.
The tone, the rules, the vocabulary and the review checklist are all written and in use. Every page on this site was written against them, and the repository's own punctuation convention is the same convention.
What is missing is the structural half: heading patterns, button and link labels, microcopy, error and empty states, metadata and the copy that feeds search. Those exist as working practice and as a longer content direction document from an earlier project, and neither has been reconciled into this system yet.
There is also a boundary worth stating plainly. Positioning, strategy and offer language are owned outside this repository, in the workspace that owns strategy. This section governs how things are written. It does not own what the practice claims.
The typography chapter is the other half of this
Voice decides the words. Typography decides whether anyone can read them, and it carries a test worth borrowing: cover everything below sixteen pixels and check that the proposition and the next action still arrive.