--- type: plan title: "Home page mockup brief — two directions" status: active updated: 2026-09-02 step: "Design mockup round, Step 1 of 2" owner: "Adi (design) · Rian (chooses the direction)" --- # Home page mockup brief: two directions, home page only Who reads this: Adi (builds the mockups), Rian (reviews first, chooses the direction), and any Claude session guiding the design work. It is the contract for Step 1 of the Design Mockup and Review Round and the scope fence around it. No commercial figure of any kind appears here or in any mockup: no amount, rate, budget or plan or add-on cost; add-ons are named only. Sources: the accepted proposal (sent 2026-07-30, accepted 2026-08-13), Alicia Wimmer's onboarding email of 2026-08-27, the AISV brand story and 12-month marketing strategy (`notes/source/`), the live-site audit (`notes/site-audit-2026-07.md`, re-measured 2026-09-02), and the project plans this file points at. Where this brief and `.logs/planning/design-direction.md` differ, this brief governs Step 1, and the disagreement is listed in section 11. Two known differences: (a) the header carries both paired CTAs here (design-direction checklist item 8 and its "Paired CTAs" paragraph say one button; Rian reconciles, section 11); (b) design-direction's ten headlines, ten taglines and the two brand lines ("Go boldly (and legally)", "know what you don't know") are NOT used on the home page: the landing-page copy is complete and verbatim, and the only headings that appear are the ones already assigned in section 6. Where a detail is only here, this file is the authority for Step 1. Naming in this file: the lead-capture tool is "the Business Legal Health Assessment (name to be confirmed)" on first mention and "the assessment" after. States: Washington first, Oregon secondary, Colorado retained; DC and VA removed (client decision 2026-08-27). Team: 9 bios (8 live plus Nicole Farahdel). Posts: 513 published as of 2026-09-02. ## 1. The job, in one paragraph Two complete home-page mockups, each a distinct design direction, home page only, delivered to Rian first. Only the home page, because the client gets exactly one feedback round (the Design Mockup and Review Round, accepted 2026-08-13, is "one comprehensive round of feedback") and the direction must be right before that round is spent; because the home page is the one page that carries the whole StoryBrand landing-page structure the proposal sold, so every inner page will inherit whatever is decided here; and because the proposal's "designed concept for the key pages" is Step 2, produced in the chosen direction only (`.logs/planning/design-direction.md`, "Mockup sequencing"). Rian's instruction of 2026-09-02 is the source of this step and it is plain: no inner pages, no second page of any kind, no pattern library, no Kadence or WordPress build, no third direction, until Rian has chosen a direction and recorded the choice and its date in `.logs/handoff.md`. A designer who opens a second page has left the step (`agents.md`, rule "No page build before the client approves the mockup, and the mockup round runs home page first"). ## 2. Definition of done "Two mockups delivered" means every line below is true. For each direction (A and B): - [ ] A full-length desktop home page showing all 12 brand-story sections plus the footer line, in the order in section 6, with the real draft headings verbatim from `notes/source/aisv-brand-story.md`. - [ ] A mobile view of exactly these parts: the header closed (logo, menu icon, and whichever CTA stays visible) and once with the drawer open showing both CTAs and the nav labels; sections 1 to 6 in full (the hero through the plan, which carries the second paired-CTA placement and includes the grouped value proposition and the three-step process); and sections 8 and 10 (the before-and-after comparison and the objection-handling accordion), so the client can see how the columns, cards and accordion collapse. No full-length mobile page, no tablet view, no other breakpoint. The footer on mobile is Step 2 ("header and footer in full"). - [ ] The header in three states only: desktop at the top of the page, mobile closed, and the mobile drawer open once (both CTAs visible). Top-level nav labels only; no dropdown or child items drawn (children per `.logs/planning/site-architecture.md` are build work; the mega-menu is fenced in section 8). No sticky or scrolled state: "persistent" in the proposal means present on every page; whether the header sticks is decided in the Kadence build, not drawn. No separate header or footer exploration. - [ ] A one-sentence direction statement: the idea the direction is built on, written at the top of the export or in the handoff entry; plus two sentences, words only, no drawing: how this system carries a long-form migrated post (reading measure, body size, heading scale) and the General Counsel page's three tier cards. - [ ] A labelled callout on each export pointing at the four new patterns and the paired CTAs as this direction expresses them (section 7). - [ ] A list of every placeholder used (the assessment name, the revenue threshold, the objection-handling section heading, the canonical firm name, the footer street address, any imagery slot), each labelled as a placeholder in the mockup itself. Palette, type and logo are no longer placeholders: the Brand Kit arrived 2026-09-03. The one residual note is that the kit's logo files are raster, with vector requested from the client. For every image and typeface used: its source and licence, so the build can use it at no cost to us. Montserrat is open licence and self-hostable; any companion face must be too. Nobody buys a licence (`.logs/planning/scope.md`, Scope assumptions and caps). For the pair: - [ ] Both directions are built from the same copy and the same section order, so the client compares design, not content. The copy is the brand story, verbatim, with exactly two sanctioned substitutions: the revenue criterion in "Who It Is For" is the labelled placeholder (section 6, row 9), and the "(name to be confirmed)" note appears once (section 6, labelling rules). DRAFT is shown once, as a visible note at the top of each export reading "DRAFT copy: to be finalized by Equinox with AISV", repeated in the export notes; no per-section DRAFT stamps inside the composition. Placeholders inside sections (threshold, heading, address, logo) carry their own bracketed labels. - [ ] The two differ in structure and feel, not in colour alone (section 7). A recoloured twin is one direction, not two. - [ ] Exports (PNG or PDF at desktop and mobile widths) filed under `notes/mockups/home-A-v1/` and `notes/mockups/home-B-v1/` (created when the first file is filed) and indexed in `notes/README.md` (which already names those folders); a design-tool link may be added but never replaces the export. - [ ] A handoff entry in `.logs/handoff.md`: what was delivered, the two direction statements, the placeholder list, open questions for Rian. - [ ] The pre-flight checklist (section 10) answered yes on every line before Rian is asked to review. Fidelity expected: enough for a client to react to structure, hierarchy, palette, type and imagery treatment. Real headings, real nav labels, real button labels, real section copy. Not pixel-final: exact spacing, icon sets and final crops are Step 2 and build work. No interaction prototypes, no animation, no clickable hotspots; a static accordion shown open on one item and closed on the rest is sufficient. Every word of the copy is visible on the desktop export. The objection-handling accordion is the only collapsed element; no tabs, "show more" toggles, truncation or hidden lists anywhere else. ## 3. What we promised the client (design scope only, no prices) Every promise below is from the accepted proposal, section named. The full deliverable list is `.logs/planning/scope.md`; only what touches the home-page design is restated here. **Website Design.** "The base scope is a faithful rebuild with a real design uplift. We work from your existing brand and rebuild it properly in the new framework, applying our own judgement on layout, hierarchy, typography, spacing, and calls to action. A clear step up, without asking you to relearn your own website." Read carefully: our judgement applies to layout, hierarchy, typography, spacing and CTAs. The brand itself (logo, colours, name) is the client's, from the Brand Kit. A new brand was not sold. How typography splits between the Brand Kit and our judgement is one rule, in section 7. **Design Mockup and Review Round (add-on, accepted 2026-08-13 by Alicia Wimmer).** "A designed concept for the key pages with one comprehensive round of feedback, delivered before we start building." One concept, one round. Rian's 2026-08-24 email added the timing commitment: an initial mockup within a week of receiving the design inputs, then a call to review it. The Brand Kit and 2026 Brand Photo Shoot links arrived 2026-08-27; the requested site examples did not. Timing: `.logs/planning/design-direction.md` treats 2026-08-27 as the start of the one-week clock (mockup due on or about 2026-09-03); whether that clock started, and what is said to the client about the date, is Rian's call (`.logs/planning/scope.md`, Design Mockup and Review Round), recorded in `.logs/handoff.md` before work starts (section 11, "Due date"). Step 1 (this brief) is the first half of that concept; Step 2 is the remaining key pages in the chosen direction. **Standard Page Creation.** "Home page with custom layout and dynamic elements, built to the full landing page structure in the AISV brand story: hero, problem, stakes, guide, value proposition, three-step plan, transformation, before-and-after, who it's for, objection handling, assessment, and final call to action." Twelve sections, named by the proposal; the brand story adds the footer line. The mockup shows all of them. **Basic Template Creation.** The home page must foreshadow the template-level promises, because it is where the client first sees them: - "Header, footer, and other template areas". - "Menus, including a navigation structure that surfaces your services and the general counsel offer" (the live nav has neither; `notes/site-audit-2026-07.md`, 3.2). - "Consistent colour palette, typography settings, spacing scale, and button styles". - "Reusable UI blocks and layouts used around the site, including the section types the new AISV copy calls for: the three-step Assess / Prioritize / Protect and Grow process, the before-and-after comparison, the objection-handling accordion, and the grouped value proposition. Built as patterns, these can be reused on any page later without developer involvement." - "Fully responsive design (will display nicely on all common device screen sizes)". - "Have a clean SEO friendly structure" and, under Baseline Structural SEO / AEO, "proper heading structure across all pages and post types, resolving the current duplicate and mis-levelled headings": one H1 per page, headings in order. **Calls to Action.** "The AISV brand story defines the pairing: Book a Consultation as the direct call to action, Take the Business Legal Health Assessment as the transitional one, for visitors not ready to book but ready to engage. We'll build to that." (The assessment's name is to be confirmed; see section 11.) Deliverables: "a paired CTA structure carried consistently site-wide, replacing the current single high-commitment ask"; "persistent header CTA and end-of-post CTAs"; "the assessment given proper prominence and a clean path in, rather than sitting behind an anchor link partway down a page" (its "front door" role in the AISV strategy). **Content.** "We ... draft placeholder content for the pages and sections that need it, including the new homepage, working from the AISV brand story, the marketing strategy, and your existing copy. ... It gets finalized by the Equinox team with AISV's guidance, so voice and messaging decisions stay with the people who own them." The designer sets the copy; the designer does not write it. **What was NOT promised** (detail in section 8): more than one feedback round; a new brand, logo or palette; commissioned photography or illustration; the Fractional General Counsel Landing Page with Tiered Pricing (pending add-on) or any figure on any tier; the Practice Area and Topic Hub Architecture (add-on not taken); an interactive rebuild of the assessment (AISV's Creative Concept 03); final copy. ## 4. What the client told us (binding) Alicia Wimmer's email of 2026-08-27, sent after the onboarding call the same day, holds the client's design decisions. They override anything the proposal offered as an option (`.memory/client-decisions-2026-08-27.md`). The points that touch the home page, verbatim (typos included) and numbered in the email's order (the same numbering every sibling document uses), each with what it means for the mockup: 1. > "Remove all mentions of Twitter and Facebook" No Twitter or Facebook icon, link, share button or footer mention. The footer's social row is LinkedIn and YouTube only. 2. > "Remove inks [sic] to EO Portland and Women in Finance" The footer "Community Involvement" list has five entries: EO Seattle, Women's Presidents Organization, Seattle U Family Business Exchange, Bellevue LifeSpring, CFO Leadership Council. Design for five, not seven; they are text links, as on the live site, not logos (section 6, Footer). 3. > "Remove any mention of serving businesses in DC and VA" No DC or VA in any strapline, header line, footer, map label or copy. Colorado stays: the firm's signature reads "WA, OR and CO" by 2026-08-27. If a state list appears at all it reads Washington, Oregon, Colorado in that order. Whether the header carries a state list at all has not been put to the client; for this mockup: no state list in the header, and the location line in the footer (`.logs/planning/design-direction.md`, Open inputs, for the header default; `.logs/planning/site-architecture.md`, footer tree and "Location and state signals", for the footer line). 4. > "Replace Equinox logo, it is no longer our 20th anniversary" Header and footer use the logo from the Brand Kit, in hand since 2026-09-03 (favicon and other placements are build work, section 8). On white, the header default is `Equinox__Logo_SLCTag_B_RGB.png` — wordmark plus tagline with the tagline in BUSINESS `#027CA1`, which is legible at header size; the `SLCTag_RGB` variant's FREEDOM tagline is not. On a dark ground use the reverse lockup. Never the live site's anniversary mark. The files are raster; do not trace or redraw the mark while vector is outstanding. 5. > "Team webpage - remove Mandy Bowen, add Nicole Farahdel, Corporate Paralegal, no headshot or bio yet, can a placeholder be used?" Does not touch the home page (the home page has no team section and no team photos). It is listed so nobody adds a team strip to the home page to "show the team": the roster is 9 bios and belongs to the team pages in Step 2. 6. > "Overall, we find our current website visually busy and somewhat dated. We're looking for a more elevated, simplified look and feel." This sentence is the brief. Each direction must read as a visible step away from the live site: fewer competing elements per screen, one dominant element per section, more whitespace, a tighter type hierarchy, a restrained palette drawn from the Brand Kit. A tidied replica of the current layout fails this line, in either direction. 7. > "Regarding images, we'd like to remove the team photos from our homepage, if that works from a design standpoint. We're comfortable keeping one or two team photos overall across the entire website, however keeping them current is cumbersome, we'd like to remove them from other pages as well wherever it makes design sense. Stock images are fine, just please no stock photos of people" No team photography anywhere on the home page, in either direction. The Guide section is the one place a team photo would be natural; it still gets none unless the client reverses this at review. Stock imagery of objects, places, abstracts, textures, illustration and iconography is fine; a stock human is not, including in a placeholder slot. The one or two team photos permitted site-wide (at most two) are not spent on the home page (section 9). **What the client did not say.** No examples of sites they like (asked by Rian 2026-08-24, not answered 2026-08-27). Proceed without them: the two directions are our judgement within the client's written requirements, and that is what the direction check exists for. Do not block on it. The brand guide question is closed — the Brand Kit arrived 2026-09-03 and contains a real brand system, so palette, typography, the logo and the brand devices are confirmed rather than proposed (section 7, and `notes/source/brand-kit/README.md`). ## 5. What the home page must do for the business Every requirement in sections 6 and 7 traces to one of the lines below. Sources: the AISV marketing strategy and brand story (`notes/source/`), the live-site audit, and the proposal. - **The goal (AISV strategy, cover line; the deck's "The objective" page restates it with figures that are not reproduced here).** "A 12-month plan to build a predictable pipeline of fractional general counsel clients - and the system to run it with a lean team." The pipeline is referral-dependent and unpredictable; "all execution rests on one person". The home page is the front of that pipeline and it must work without a designer or developer touching it again, which is why every section is a reusable pattern (section 9). - **The home page's two jobs.** Move a visitor either to Book a Consultation (the direct CTA) or to the assessment (the transitional CTA for "visitors not ready to book but ready to engage"). AISV's Phase 01 names the assessment "the front door": "Promote the Business Health Assessment as the consistent entry point instead of leaving it unseen on the site." On the live site it sits behind an anchor link partway down an inner page and the only CTA is "Schedule a Meeting" to an Outlook booking link, "the highest-commitment step you offer, with nothing in between" (proposal, Calls to Action). Both doors, always, visibly distinct, in that order: that is the paired CTA requirement. - **The audience (brand story, "Who It Is For"; AISV strategy).** "Business owners who have built a successful company and need a more strategic approach to legal support"; entrepreneurs leading growing companies with employees, contractors, clients and commercial agreements. AISV's later phases add CFO and HR personas via topic hubs; the home page speaks to the owner. The revenue criterion is unresolved between AISV's own documents and is never written as a figure. - **The positioning (AISV strategy, Creative Concept 01).** "Positions Equinox as proactive and modern, not 'old guys in suits'"; the brand's own line "know what you don't know". The brand story's guide posture: Equinox is "the experienced guide beside" the entrepreneur, "a normal and trusted part of the team", not the hero. The design should feel like a modern advisor to founders, not a traditional law firm: this is why the "elevated, simplified" ask and the no-suits, no-stock-people imagery policy line up (the enforcing rule is in section 7). - **The AI-search reality (proposal, Advanced AI Schema; `.memory/faq-rich-results.md`).** AI answer engines read the page text. That means real text in the HTML (not text baked into images), one H1, question-shaped headings where the copy already asks questions (the objection-handling section), and an FAQ-shaped objection section the build maps to the `bw-ai-schema-pro` FAQ block. Google stopped showing FAQ rich results in Search on 2026-05-07; the FAQ content is for buyers and answer engines, not for a snippet. The design must not turn copy into decoration (the enforcing rule is in section 7). - **The live site's failures the design must visibly answer (`notes/site-audit-2026-07.md`).** Visually busy and dated (the client's words); roughly 400 words of visible home-page copy, thin for the queries AISV wants to win; a single high-commitment CTA to an Outlook link; a team-photo grid the client wants gone; two H1s on every page (one is the logo link) with the hero line in an H2; services and the general counsel offer absent from the navigation; 64 script tags and 19 stylesheets on the home page. The mockup is the client's first look at whether we heard them; the "before" is in the audit and the live site is read-only. ## 6. The home page, section by section The copy for every section is the brand story, `notes/source/aisv-brand-story.md`, "Entire Landing Page Copy". Headings are set verbatim. Body copy is used verbatim, as DRAFT, and is not rewritten, trimmed or reordered by the designer: AISV owns copy, the client finalises (proposal, Content; `agents.md`). The length question (this structure is far longer than the live page's roughly 400 words) is answered by density and hierarchy, not by cutting; any cut is AISV's call at review. No Lorem Ipsum, no "text goes here", no empty section (`.logs/planning/content-migration.md`, "Placeholder content rules"). The only words on the page are the brand story's landing-page copy (this section), the nav and footer labels in this file, and UI labels (Menu, Close). No eyebrows, kickers, captions, pull-quotes or micro-copy from the ten headlines, the ten taglines, "know what you don't know" or "Go boldly": design-direction's "candidates for ... a section kicker" is not taken in Step 1, because both directions must share identical copy and added copy is AISV's lane (proposal, Content). The two sanctioned substitutions are the revenue placeholder (row 9) and the "(name to be confirmed)" note (labelling rules below). The AISV strategy deck carries figures and is never a copy source for the mockup. | # | Section | Heading (verbatim) | CTA(s) | Pattern type | What the mockup must show | Constraints | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | 1 | Hero | "Grow Your Business Without Growing Your Legal Anxiety" | Book a Consultation (primary); Take the Business Legal Health Assessment (secondary) | Hero | The H1, the subheading ("Experienced, proactive legal counsel for growing companies, without the cost of a full-time legal department or the surprise bills of a traditional law firm."), both buttons, then the supporting line ("Get the legal guidance, contracts, policies, and protection your business needs to grow with confidence.") | No team photo; no stock person; no full-bleed photograph of people. Typographic, brand-kit graphic, or non-people imagery. Paired CTAs in order and visibly distinct. This heading is the page's only H1. | | 2 | The Problem | "Your Business Has Grown. Has Your Legal Protection Grown With It?" | "Find Out Where Your Business Is Exposed" (links to the assessment) | Question list plus one button (list pattern, plain) | Two short paragraphs, "You may be wondering:", the seven questions as a list, the closing sentence, one button | Seven questions, all of them, as readable text; exactly one button (transitional style). The seven questions are list items, not headings (the source introduces them with "You may be wondering:" as a list); only the four objection questions are headings below the section level (`.logs/planning/schema-entity-plan.md`, FAQ). | | 3 | The Stakes | "Legal Problems Are Easier to Prevent Than Repair" | none | Six-item failure list, closing statement (list pattern, plain) | Intro line, the six one-line failures, the three closing lines (four sentences) | No CTA; no imagery of people. | | 4 | The Guide | "You Do Not Need to Navigate This Alone" | none | Text, optional non-people image | Five short paragraphs | No team photo (the client's decision 7, images, applies here most of all); an image, if any, is a non-people subject or a brand-kit graphic. | | 5 | Value Proposition | "Experienced Legal Counsel Without the Full-Time Legal Department" | none | **Grouped value proposition** (new pattern) | Intro line, then four groups: Contracts and Commercial Agreements (7 bullets); Employment and HR Legal Support (7); Business Risk and Compliance (7); Ongoing Strategic Legal Guidance (3 "No more ..." lines), each with its heading and one-line lead | Four groups with the bullet counts as written; group headings at H3 under the H2; at most two groups across on desktop (2 x 2) or stacked, because four seven-item lists in one row is the dense multi-column treatment the Do-not list bans; choose a treatment that would hold at a different group count, and draw only the four. | | 6 | The Plan | "Protecting Your Business Starts With Three Simple Steps" | Book a Consultation (primary); Take the Business Legal Health Assessment (secondary) | **Three-step process** (new pattern) | 1. Assess, 2. Prioritize, 3. Protect and Grow, each with its one-sentence description, then the paired CTAs | Three numbered steps in order; paired CTAs in order and style; the numbering style is part of the pattern family. | | 7 | The Transformation | "Imagine Feeling Confident About the Legal Side of Your Business" | none | Eight-line list, closing line (list pattern, checkmark) | Six "Your ..." lines, then "You understand what your legal support will cost." and "Most importantly, you no longer feel alone when a legal issue comes up.", then the closing sentence | No CTA; the list reads as a checklist, not a paragraph. | | 8 | Before and After | "Move From Legal Uncertainty to Legal Confidence" | none | **Before-and-after comparison** (new pattern) | Two columns: "Without Proactive Legal Support" (7 lines) and "With Equinox Business Law" (7 lines) | Two columns of seven; the two columns are distinguished by more than colour (heading, marker or position), because colour alone fails the accessibility line sold under Baseline Structural SEO / AEO ("General technical accessibility best practices"); mobile stacking shown. | | 9 | Who It Is For | "Built for Entrepreneurs Leading Growing Companies" | none | Eight-item qualification checklist (list pattern, checkmark) | Intro sentence, "You may be a strong fit if:", eight criteria | The first criterion is set as exactly this line: "Your company generates more than approximately [revenue threshold: AISV to confirm] in annual revenue". This is the one sentence in the brand story that is not copied verbatim; the figure is the only thing removed, and the list stays at eight items (AISV's deck and brand story disagree on the figure; `.logs/planning/scope.md`, Things to confirm; `notes/source/README.md`; `.logs/planning/content-migration.md`, copy map row 9). | | 10 | Objection Handling | No section heading in the copy. Four question headings: "We Only Call a Lawyer When Something Comes Up."; "We Cannot Justify Hiring In-House Legal Counsel."; "We Are Worried About Unpredictable Legal Bills."; "Nothing Is Wrong Right Now." | none | **Objection-handling accordion** (new pattern), FAQ-shaped | Four question-and-answer pairs as an accordion, one shown open; each answer is the two-to-three-sentence response from the brand story | The section carries the labelled placeholder heading "[Section heading: AISV to confirm]" in both directions; no working heading is written. Judge the layout on the four question headings, which are real. The quotation marks are part of the source text; set the four questions with them, as the FAQ module will carry them. The build maps this to the `bw-ai-schema-pro` FAQ block, so the questions must be real headings and the answers real text (`.logs/planning/schema-entity-plan.md`, FAQ). | | 11 | Assessment | "How Legally Healthy Is Your Business?" | Take the Business Legal Health Assessment | Eight-area checklist, one button, supporting line (list pattern, checkmark) | The two intro sentences, the lead-in line naming the assessment ("The Business Legal Health Assessment can help you identify potential gaps involving:"), the eight areas (Contracts; Employment and HR; Corporate governance; Intellectual property; Privacy and cybersecurity; AI-related liability; Client and vendor relationships; Business policies and documentation), the button, the supporting line | One button, transitional style; this is the "front door" section and should read as the clean path in that the proposal promised; the CTA leads to the assessment page (a Typeform embed there, not on the home page). | | 12 | Final CTA | "Protect What You Have Built and Prepare for What Comes Next" | Book a Consultation (primary); Take the Business Legal Health Assessment (secondary) | Full-width CTA band | Three sentences, then the paired CTAs | Paired CTAs in order and style; this band is the same pattern the build places at the end of every post and core page (`.logs/planning/tracking-conversion.md`, CTA structure), so design it once. On the home page this section IS the site-wide footer CTA band that the footer template places above the footer columns (`.logs/planning/tracking-conversion.md`, Placements, "Footer band"): it appears once, directly above the footer columns, never twice; no second band is drawn between it and the footer. | | 13 | Footer line | "Proactive Protection. Predictable Costs. Greater Peace of Mind." / "Experienced legal counsel for growing businesses." | none | Footer tagline area | Both lines, in the footer's brand column | Verbatim; not restyled into a slogan lockup that changes the words. | Three labelling rules apply across the table. The assessment CTA label is the brand story's "Take the Business Legal Health Assessment" with a visible "(name to be confirmed)" note once on the page (or in the export's notes), never a mix of the three names in circulation (`.memory/naming-conflicts.md`). The full label is used on the hero, the plan, the assessment section and the final band; the header button and the mobile drawer use the short form "Take the Assessment" (as `.logs/planning/site-architecture.md` and `.logs/planning/tracking-conversion.md` specify); the short form is a length variant of the one name, not a second name, and no other variant appears anywhere. Every draft or placeholder is visibly labelled in the mockup. **Header and footer on the home page.** Designed only as far as the home page needs them; their full specification is `.logs/planning/site-architecture.md`, "Target sitemap and navigation". - Header: the Brand Kit logo (or the labelled placeholder); a primary navigation whose labels surface the services and the general counsel offer (draft top-level labels: General Counsel; Services; Our Approach; About Us; Blog; Contact; children, including the assessment under Our Approach, are not drawn in Step 1); the persistent paired CTAs, right-aligned, Book a Consultation primary and the assessment secondary (short form "Take the Assessment"), both in the mobile drawer. Decision for Step 1: both buttons in the header (the superset). `.logs/planning/design-direction.md` checklist item 8 and its "Paired CTAs" paragraph describe a one-button header with the assessment as a top-level nav item and attribute that to `.logs/planning/tracking-conversion.md`, which in fact specifies both buttons (as does `.logs/planning/site-architecture.md`, with the assessment as a child under Our Approach); Rian corrects the design-direction wording (section 11). The nav is drawn closed, once; no dropdown, mega-menu or hover state, no future-state variant with an extra item. The header carries the logo, the six nav labels and the two CTAs and nothing else: no utility or announcement bar, no strapline, no search field, no phone number, no language or accessibility toggle. No state list in the header, in either direction, and no second header variant showing one: whether the header carries a state list is Rian's question to the client after the direction check (section 11). No third button. The mockup shows the header at the top of the page only; choose a treatment that could compact to the logo plus the two CTAs without a redesign, and do not draw that state: whether the header sticks is a build decision (section 11). - Footer: brand column with the logo and the footer line (section 13) and a location line naming Washington, Oregon and Colorado only; an Explore column (draft labels per site-architecture); the five Community Involvement entries as text links, as on the live site, no third-party logos; a contact block with phone 425-250-0205, contact@equinoxbusinesslaw.com, a labelled placeholder street address (none is on the live site) and a newsletter sign-up text link "Newsletter" (to `/newsletter-sign-up/`, page kept pending the client's decision), subordinate in style and never a third button (`.logs/planning/design-direction.md`, Do not); no sign-up form anywhere on the home page (not in the brand story); social icons LinkedIn and YouTube only; a bottom bar with the copyright naming Equinox Business Law Group PLLC (the working canonical name, to be confirmed by the client) and the policy links (Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy, Terms of Service, Disclaimer). No DC or VA anywhere. No licensing sentence anywhere. The footer template's site-wide paired CTA band (`.logs/planning/tracking-conversion.md`, Placements, "Footer band") is not drawn separately on the home page: section 12, the Final CTA band, occupies that position, so the home page shows exactly one closing band. The build suppresses the footer-template band on Home; record that in `.logs/handoff.md` for Phase 2. ## 7. The two directions: what both must share and how they must differ **Shared and non-negotiable** (both directions, every screen): - The same copy and the same section order (section 6). The client compares design, not content. - **The Brand Kit, received 2026-09-03** (`notes/source/brand-kit/`, digest in its `README.md`; working set in `notes/mockups/shared-v1/design-system.md`). The real lockups replace the logo placeholder. Palette is the kit's six named colours: NIGHT `#003B53`, BUSINESS `#027CA1`, FREEDOM `#93BCCD`, CONFIDENCE `#FFD457`, DAY `#D98D00`, LAW `#FFFAEB`. **The live site's `#004963` is not a brand colour** — anything drawn on it is swapped to NIGHT. Type is **Montserrat**, the kit's face, at the kit's weights: H1 Bold 700 sentence case, H2 ExtraBold 800 caps, H3 Light 300 caps, H4 SemiBold 600, body Regular 400. The live site's Black 900 headings are not brand. Both directions ship brand-compliant Montserrat body; Direction A's statement additionally *proposes* a companion text face for long-form body only, labelled a declared deviation with its reason, for the client to accept or refuse at the review. - The imagery policy: no team photos, no stock people, no full-bleed photography of people; objects, places, abstracts, textures, illustration and iconography are allowed. - Neither direction reads as a traditional law firm: no scales, gavels, columns, courthouse, wood-and-leather, boardroom or handshake imagery; no heavy display serif. Note the brand's own dark-blue-and-gold pairing is NIGHT and CONFIDENCE and is legitimate — the thing to avoid is the *prestige treatment* built on it, not the colours (AISV strategy, Creative Concept 01: "proactive and modern, not 'old guys in suits'"; the brand guide's own archetypes are the Sage and the **Rebel**). - The paired CTAs, in order (Book a Consultation, then the assessment), visibly distinct (primary and secondary styles), on the hero, the plan, the final band and in the header; the two single-button sections (problem, assessment) use the transitional style; no third ask as a block anywhere: no newsletter form, download offer, phone button or chat widget; a third ask is a footer text link only (`.logs/planning/design-direction.md`, Do not). - Every heading, list item, step name, column heading, assessment area and button label is live text. Nothing from the brand story is rendered inside an image, an illustration or a type lockup; numerals and icons may be graphics, words may not (proposal, Advanced AI Schema; `.memory/faq-rich-results.md`). - One H1 (the hero heading); every other heading in order below it. - "Elevated, simplified": one dominant element per section, generous whitespace, a tight type hierarchy, a restrained palette, no dense multi-column sections (the four value groups and the two comparison columns are the only multi-column structures, and each keeps its whitespace), no decorative dividers, no stacked drop-shadow cards, no gradient overlays on photos, no more than one accent colour per screen (`.logs/planning/design-direction.md`, "Do not"). The secondary button is distinguished from the primary by weight (outline or tonal fill), never by a second accent. Cards are permitted in either direction when bounded by a single tone or a single rule; what is banned is cards stacked with drop shadows, nested cards, and more than one card treatment per screen. - The four new patterns (grouped value proposition, three-step process, before-and-after comparison, objection-handling accordion) visible and reading as one family within each direction: shared spacing, card or panel treatment, numbering style. They are built once as reusable Kadence patterns; the mockup is where their family resemblance is decided. - Every placeholder labelled. No commercial figure of any kind anywhere: no revenue threshold, no tier or plan figure, no rate, nothing that reads as a price. Step numerals, list numbering and the footer phone number are not figures in this sense. - Nothing in either direction depends on an asset the client would have to buy after approving it. - Neither direction is a replica of the live site, and neither invents a new brand. **Different, and this is the point.** The two directions must differ in structure and feel, not in colour alone. A recoloured twin fails Step 1 and forces a second round nobody sold. Two axes, A and B, are set below. Build to them. If the designer believes a different axis would serve the client better, that is a pivot (section 12): send Rian the two-line check-in before hours go in, and build the replacement only after he agrees. Do not build a replacement axis on your own judgement and present it as one of the two. - **Direction A, editorial and typographic.** Calm, whitespace-led, long-form authority. Type carries the hierarchy; minimal imagery; sections separated by rhythm and scale rather than by bands; the four patterns rendered as typographic structures (numbered steps as large numerals, the before/after as two type columns, the accordion as a rule-separated list, the value groups as headed lists). The feel of a considered advisor who does not need to shout. - **Direction B, modular and structured.** A rhythm of bands and cards; library iconography (placeholder-labelled) doing the sectioning; more visual signposting for a reader who scans; the four patterns rendered as clearly bounded modules (step cards, a two-panel comparison, an accordion with icon affordances, a value-group module at most two across on desktop (2 x 2) or stacked; four seven-item lists in one row is the dense multi-column treatment the Do-not list bans). The feel of a modern product company that happens to practise law. The step cards and the value-group module must not become a dense multi-column section: one idea per module, generous gutters, and a column count the designer can defend against the Do-not list at pre-flight. Icons come from one open-licence SVG set the build can use at no cost and no production time (the icon library bundled with Kadence Blocks, or a permissively licensed SVG set), named in the export notes; at most one icon per value group, per step and per objection question (eleven); monochrome or duotone within the palette so the one-accent rule holds; no custom-drawn icon set, no icon font. Illustration, if used, is a labelled placeholder in one or two slots, not a commissioned set; producing an illustration set is a scope conversation with Rian before Direction B can be chosen on the strength of it. Reason: photography and illustration are supplied by the client except where written into scope (`.logs/planning/scope.md`, "Scope assumptions and caps"), and a lean Kadence build carries inline SVG, not an icon font (section 9). Minimum structural difference: the two directions must differ in at least three of these five: (1) hero composition; (2) the sectioning device (rhythm and scale versus bands and panels); (3) the construction of each of the four new patterns; (4) the role imagery plays (none or minimal versus sectioning); (5) header composition. Same palette and type with different values in fewer than three is a recoloured twin. No colour variants, dark modes or alternate palettes of either direction; one artboard set per direction. Both must still pass the shared list above: Direction B is not permitted to become busy, and Direction A is not permitted to become a wall of text. Each direction opens with a one-sentence statement of its idea and shows explicitly how the four new patterns and the paired CTAs are expressed in it (a labelled callout on the export is enough). A replacement axis agreed with Rian is stated in the same one-sentence form, and the two statements must not be paraphrases of each other. ## 8. The scope fence: what pushes this outside the quote This is the heart of the document. Each line is a hard rule and the reason it exists (not sold; a different add-on; a later step; AISV's lane; a client decision). The fence protects the one feedback round, the sold scope and the calendar, and it protects the client from being asked to react to work they did not buy. | Out of Step 1 | Why it is out | |---|---| | Any inner page or template: About Us, Our Approach, General Counsel and its three tiers, Practice Areas, Contact, blog index, single post, team index or any bio, the assessment page, A La Carte Solutions, Testimonials, Events, policy pages | A later step. Step 2 designs the key pages in the chosen direction only; drawing an inner page now spends hours in a direction that may lose (Rian, 2026-09-02; `.logs/planning/design-direction.md`, "Mockup sequencing"). | | A third direction, or a second round of home-page directions | Not sold. The add-on is one concept and one feedback round; Rian asked for two directions, not a menu. A third direction is a scope conversation with Rian before hours go in. | | Variants within a direction: alternate colourways, a dark mode, alternate hero or section treatments, "option 1 / option 2" inside A or B | One complete home page per direction (section 2). Variants multiply what the client must react to in the single round and are the hours of a third direction by another name. | | A new brand: a new logo, a palette or typeface system invented rather than taken from the Brand Kit, a renamed firm, a new tagline | Not sold. The proposal is "a faithful rebuild with a real design uplift" on "your existing brand"; the client asked for a replaced logo from their kit, not a new one. If the kit has no brand guide, the design system is our judgement and is labelled provisional, which is still not a new brand. No redrawn, recoloured, reversed or re-lockup variants of the Brand Kit logo beyond the files the kit supplies; if a placement (a dark band, for instance) needs one, use a labelled placeholder and route the question to the client via Rian. | | Brand collateral of any kind: favicon, Open Graph or social-share image, social or Canva templates, email signature, print, presentation or proposal templates | Not sold and not part of a home-page mockup. The favicon and share image are build items produced from the Brand Kit logo (Phase 2); the on-brand asset library is AISV's Phase 01 work ("Organize the library"), in their lane. | | Commissioned photography, a bespoke illustration set, a custom icon set, or any drawn asset beyond a labelled placeholder slot | Not sold. Photography is supplied by the client except where written into scope (`.logs/planning/scope.md`, "Scope assumptions and caps"). In the mockup, imagery is a labelled slot (size and crop) or a non-people stock image; icons and illustration, where a direction uses them, come from an existing library the build can license, shown as placeholders, and no asset is drawn for the mockup. | | Interaction or animation prototypes, dropdown or mega-menu open states, hover and focus states, scroll behaviour (sticky header, reveals), video backgrounds, parallax, carousels, sliders | Not drawn in Step 1: the mockup's fidelity is structure and hierarchy, and hover, scroll and menu behaviour are build decisions inside Kadence (the sold "dynamic elements" and the persistent header are built, not mocked). Video backgrounds, parallax, carousels and sliders are not built at all: they contradict the performance promise (section 9). | | Header additions: a utility or announcement bar, a strapline, a search field, a header phone number, a second header variant, dropdown or mega-menu states | Not in the home-page specification (section 6) and not sold as a design deliverable; menu behaviour is a Kadence build decision and a utility bar is exactly the "busy" the client named. | | Rewriting, cutting, adding or reordering copy or sections beyond the brand story; inventing a section heading without labelling it DRAFT; any eyebrow, kicker, caption or pull-quote not in the landing-page copy (section 6) | AISV's lane. The proposal: voice and messaging decisions "stay with the people who own them". A designer's cut is a content decision the client did not ask us to make (`agents.md`, "AISV owns copy; we draft placeholders"). | | Kickers, eyebrows, pull-quotes or straplines drawn from outside the landing-page copy: the ten headlines and ten taglines in `.logs/planning/design-direction.md` beyond the ones the brand story already assigns (the hero, the value-proposition heading, the footer line), "Go boldly (and legally)", "know what you don't know", the live site's hero line ("Strategic legal counsel for entrepreneurs") or any live-site copy | AISV's lane and a copy change. The landing-page copy is complete; both directions carry the same words (section 2). A kicker that seems harmless is a new sentence the client is asked to approve and a difference in content between the two directions. | | Any element not in the 13 rows of section 6, or any section the brand story's landing page does not contain: a testimonial band, card or carousel; a client, partner, award or "as seen in" logo or trust strip; stats or number counters; the Community Involvement entries anywhere but the footer; a latest-posts or insights feed; case-study cards; a video embed or video still; a map; a team strip; an embedded contact form or booking widget; a newsletter sign-up form or band; a lead-magnet or download offer; a chat widget; a popup, exit-intent or sticky bar; cookie-banner styling; an announcement or top bar; breadcrumbs; a search box | Not in the brand story's landing-page structure and not sold for the home page. The brand story's twelve sections are the home page (proposal, Standard Page Creation); adding a section is a content decision that belongs to AISV and the client (proposal, Content), and every addition is a new pattern the build must then make and a new element the client did not ask to react to. The live home page's newsletter form and community links are not carried onto the new home page in Step 1; the only newsletter mention allowed is the text link in the footer contact block (`.logs/planning/site-architecture.md`, "if kept"). Testimonials, the blog index and contact belong to their own pages (Step 2 or build); the newsletter form and cookie banner are build items (Gravity Forms, Termageddon). Home has no breadcrumbs (`.logs/planning/site-architecture.md`, Notes on the tree). A video still of a team member is a team photo by another route. | | A General Counsel or tiers teaser on the home page: tier cards, plan names, a "see our plans" band, a fixed-versus-hourly strip, or any element that previews the General Counsel offer beyond the nav item | Not in the brand story's landing page and not sold for the home page. The proposal surfaces the general counsel offer through the navigation (section 6, header), which is where it lives on the home page. AISV's deck says the landing page is "moved high on the homepage"; that is a nav and link decision for the build and, if the add-on is accepted, a Step 2 page, never a home-page section. | | Re-cutting the content: the value proposition as the live site's nine practice areas or the deck's Owner / CFO / HR personas instead of the brand story's four groups; the assessment section as the live page's Spirit / Mind / Body pillars instead of the brand story's eight areas | Open decisions for AISV with the client (service taxonomy; assessment framing; `.logs/planning/scope.md`, Things to confirm). The mockup shows the brand story as written; the answer, when it comes, is a content change, not a design one. | | The Fractional General Counsel landing page, any tier comparison structure, any fixed-versus-hourly comparison, any figure of any kind | A different add-on, pending (the client is "interested, though we'd like to discuss further before making a decision", 2026-08-13). Not built or designed until accepted; tier figures always come from the client; the base-scope General Counsel page is Step 2 and shows no figures either. | | Practice-area hub or child-page templates, hub URL architecture, Owner / CFO / HR hub pages | An add-on not taken (Practice Area and Topic Hub Architecture). Build nothing for it (`.logs/planning/scope.md`). | | The interactive "Smart" assessment, any redesign of the assessment's questions or flow | AISV's Creative Concept 03, a project in its own right. We place, embed and instrument the existing Typeform (`.memory/assessment-is-typeform.md`). | | Building anything in Kadence or WordPress, or any coded prototype (HTML/CSS, a hosted click-through), at this step: patterns, the design system, header or footer builders, a staging home page | A later phase, and the Step 1 deliverable is a static export (section 2). Phase 2 starts after the direction check and is revised to the approved mockup; nothing is built before Rian's choice is recorded (`agents.md`; `.logs/planning/build-plan.md`, Phase 1 and Phase 2). | | State lists other than Washington, Oregon, Colorado; any DC or VA | Client decision 2026-08-27. | | Any licensing sentence ("licensed to practice law in ...") | Unresolved and regulated: the live page says Washington, Idaho and Oregon; the served-states list is WA, OR, CO. Michelle Bomberger resolves it; nobody writes it before then (`.memory/naming-conflicts.md`). | | Twitter or Facebook icons, links, share buttons or mentions | Client decision 2026-08-27. LinkedIn and YouTube only. | | Team photos on the home page; a team strip, grid or "meet the team" band | Client decision 2026-08-27, and the one or two team photos permitted site-wide (at most two) are reserved for inner pages. | | Stock photos of people, including as placeholders | Client decision 2026-08-27. A stock person in a placeholder slot breaks the rule on the first page the client sees. | | Hand-placed schema, FAQ markup or tracking annotations in the comp | Configured in the build by plugin and GTM, never drawn (`agents.md`, "Schema is a plugin, not code"). | **How to handle a request that crosses the fence.** Stop. Send Rian a two-line check-in: what is being asked, and what it would cost in scope (which line above it crosses, roughly how many hours). Never absorb it silently, and never quietly do a smaller version of it "to be helpful": a half-drawn inner page is still an inner page. If the request comes from the client in the feedback round and adds a page that needs new pattern work, a pattern, a direction or a round, that is a scope conversation Rian has with the client under the proposal's Scope Changes term (a page that costs no new pattern work can be seen inside the one round: `.logs/planning/design-direction.md`, "Mockup sequencing", the paragraph after the Step 2 table); the designer's job is to flag it, not to answer it. That round is on the Step 2 set; during Step 1 any page request is a fence crossing (row 1 above). Record the request and its date in `.logs/handoff.md` either way, so it is on record even when the answer is no. ## 9. Factors to carry into the build What the design must keep true so that the later Kadence build and AISV's use of the site achieve the goals in section 5. The mockup is judged against these as much as against the client's requirements. - **Every section is a reusable, editable pattern.** No bespoke one-off layouts; every section must be describable as "this pattern with these values". Blocks inside patterns (images, buttons, lists, headings) must be swappable by an editor, which is why the four new patterns are a family with shared parts rather than four hand-built compositions (`agents.md`, "Build with patterns, not bespoke pages" and "A pattern whose contents cannot be edited is a broken pattern"). - **Five sections are one list pattern.** Sections 2, 3, 7, 9 and 11 are one list pattern with two variants (plain marker, checkmark); design the list once per direction and vary only the marker, heading, intro and button (`.logs/planning/site-architecture.md`, Pattern library: "One list pattern with a checkmark variant"). - **The post template inherits this design.** Type scale, reading width, list styling and heading rhythm chosen here will carry 513 migrated posts (classic HTML with subheadings and lists, as of 2026-09-02) and AISV's AI-drafted posts landing "cleanly and on-brand, with no manual formatting" (proposal). Choose a body size, measure and heading scale that a long article can live in. - **Performance is a build-quality promise.** The live home page loads 64 script tags and 19 stylesheets; the proposal promises before-and-after Core Web Vitals. The design must not require heavy libraries, carousels, sliders, parallax, video backgrounds or icon fonts that a lean Kadence build cannot carry. At most two web-font families, self-hostable under their licence, variable fonts preferred. Hero imagery is SVG, a brand-kit graphic or a lightweight raster: it is the LCP element the before-and-after Core Web Vitals report is measured on (`.logs/planning/tracking-conversion.md`, Performance measurement); a full-bleed high-resolution photograph in the hero is the single heaviest asset a designer can specify, and a direction that uses one must say in its statement how the build serves it lightly. - **One H1 and a clean heading outline.** The hero heading is the H1; every section heading is an H2; group and step headings are H3; the four objection questions are headings below the section level. The live site's two H1s are a sold defect to resolve. - **Every CTA placement is a distinct, classed button.** Every CTA is a discrete button block carrying a path class (`cta-direct` or `cta-transitional`) and a location class (for the home page's placements: `cta-loc-header`, `cta-loc-hero`, `cta-loc-section`, `cta-loc-footer`); GTM fires `cta_click_direct` or `cta_click_transitional` with `cta_location` read from those classes (`.logs/planning/tracking-conversion.md`, CTA structure and Events). The conversions downstream (`booking_click` on the outbound booking URL, `form_submit_contact` on the contact form, `assessment_start` and `assessment_complete` from the Typeform SDK on the assessment page) fire at the destination, not on this page. Design implication: each placement (header, hero, plan, problem section, assessment section, final band) is its own button, never a card or panel that is itself the link, never an image button, so a click lands on the button and nothing else; direct and transitional are visibly distinct for the visitor, which the build then mirrors with the classes. The mockup's job is to make each placement a distinct button instance the build can class, not to draw tracking. - **The objection accordion maps to the FAQ block.** The `bw-ai-schema-pro` Post FAQ module renders the four Q&A pairs as an accordion with `FAQPage` markup inline, placed mid-page by shortcode inside the objection-handling pattern. The design must accept a module-rendered accordion (heading, question headings, answer text) rather than a hand-composed one. - **The assessment CTA leads to the Typeform-embedded page.** The home page carries the checklist and the button; the embed (widget `QIIINVqG`) lives on its own page. Do not design an embedded form into the home page. - **The header nav will carry the services and the general counsel offer**, with the assessment as a child of Our Approach under its confirmed name; if the Fractional General Counsel landing page add-on is later accepted, the General Counsel item points at it. Choose a nav treatment that a label change or one extra item would not break; do not draw that variant. - **The footer's canonical name** is Equinox Business Law Group PLLC (working assumption, labelled); the footer's location line names Washington, Oregon and Colorado; the address block is a placeholder until the client supplies the street address. One entity name everywhere is a sold schema deliverable. - **Mobile is first-class.** The mobile drawer carries both header CTAs; the value groups, steps, comparison columns and accordion must stack without losing the pattern family. - **The one or two team photos permitted site-wide (at most two) are not spent on the home page.** Likely homes are About Us and one other, in Step 2, from the 2026 Brand Photo Shoot. - **Nothing in the design depends on the Outlook booking link staying.** Whether "Book a Consultation" keeps the live `bookwithme` link or routes to the contact form is open with the client; the button is the same either way. - **The assessment has one name.** Every CTA label, nav label and heading changes together when AISV and the client confirm it; the design must not bake the name into an image or a lockup. ## 10. Pre-flight checklist (before Rian sees the mockups) Answer every item yes for both directions. A single no means the set does not go to Rian. 1. Home page only: no inner page, template, pattern sheet or second page of any kind exists in the deliverable. 2. Exactly two directions, A and B, each a complete home page; no variant, colourway or dark mode inside either. 3. The two differ in at least three of the five structural axes in section 7; neither is a recoloured version of the other. 4. Neither direction is a replica of the live site's layout with new colours. 5. All 12 brand-story sections plus the footer line appear, in order, with the headings verbatim from `notes/source/aisv-brand-story.md` (the four objection questions keep their quotation marks). 6. Body copy is the brand story's, verbatim, labelled DRAFT once at the top of each export; nothing cut, added, reordered or rewritten, with exactly two sanctioned substitutions: the revenue criterion in "Who It Is For" is the labelled placeholder (item 17), and the "(name to be confirmed)" note appears once (item 8). 7. The paired CTAs appear in order (Book a Consultation, then the assessment), visibly distinct, on the hero, the plan, the final band and in the header (with the mobile drawer open once to show both); the problem and assessment sections carry one button each; no third button competes anywhere and no third ask appears as a block (no newsletter form, download offer, phone button or chat widget; the newsletter is a footer text link only). 8. The assessment is labelled with one name, "Take the Business Legal Health Assessment", with "(name to be confirmed)" noted once; the short form "Take the Assessment" is permitted in the header and mobile drawer only; no other variant and no mix of names. 9. No team photograph anywhere on the home page, in either direction. 10. No stock photograph of a person anywhere, including placeholders. 11. The logo in every placement is the Brand Kit logo (the correct variant for its ground, per `notes/source/brand-kit/README.md`); the 20th-anniversary logo appears nowhere; the mark is not traced, redrawn or restyled. 12. No Twitter or Facebook icon, link, mention or share button; LinkedIn and YouTube are the only social links. 13. DC and VA appear nowhere; any state list reads Washington, Oregon, Colorado in that order; no licensing sentence anywhere; no state list in the header. 14. The footer Community Involvement list has exactly five entries, as text links: EO Seattle, Women's Presidents Organization, Seattle U Family Business Exchange, Bellevue LifeSpring, CFO Leadership Council. 15. One H1 (the hero heading); the heading outline reads correctly top to bottom: section headings H2, group and step headings H3, the four objection questions as headings below the section level, the seven problem questions as list items. 16. The four new patterns (grouped value proposition, three-step process, before-and-after comparison, objection-handling accordion) are all visible and read as one family within each direction. 17. Every placeholder is visibly labelled: the revenue criterion set as "Your company generates more than approximately [revenue threshold: AISV to confirm] in annual revenue", the objection-handling section heading "[Section heading: AISV to confirm]" in both directions, logo (if provisional), street address, canonical firm name, palette and type (if the kit is not in hand), any imagery slot. 18. No commercial figure of any kind appears: no revenue threshold, no tier figures, nothing that reads as a price (step numerals and the footer phone number are fine). 19. A mobile view is present for each direction covering the closed and open header, sections 1 to 6 in full, and sections 8 and 10; no full-length mobile page or tablet view was produced. 20. Each direction carries a one-sentence direction statement (with the two extension sentences on the post template and the General Counsel tier cards) and a callout showing how the four patterns and the paired CTAs are expressed in it. 21. No "busy or dated" treatment from the Do-not list: no dense multi-column sections, no decorative dividers, no stacked drop-shadow cards, no gradient overlays on photos, no more than one accent colour per screen, no full-bleed people photography. 22. Nothing in the design requires a carousel, slider, video background or heavy library; at most two web-font families; every image and typeface has a recorded source and licence. 23. Files are under `notes/mockups/home-A-v1/` and `notes/mockups/home-B-v1/` and indexed in `notes/README.md`. 24. A handoff entry is drafted in `.logs/handoff.md` with the deliverable, both direction statements, the placeholder list and the open questions. 25. No element outside the 13 rows of section 6 appears: no testimonial band or carousel, logo or trust strip, stats or number counters, latest-posts grid, newsletter sign-up form or band, video embed or video still, map, team strip, announcement or top bar, breadcrumbs, search box, General Counsel or tiers teaser. 26. Every word of the copy is visible on the desktop export; the objection-handling accordion is the only collapsed element. 27. No brand-story text is rendered as an image, illustration or type lockup in either direction. 28. No law-firm cliche imagery or prestige treatment in either direction. 29. Exactly one CTA band sits between the assessment section and the footer columns. ## 11. Inputs and blockers | Input | Status 2026-09-03 | Who | Effect on Step 1 | |---|---|---|---| | Project access for the designer | Not granted as of 2026-09-02: the `equinoxbusinesslaw-dev` group holds rian plus service accounts (`agents.md`, Operational) | Rian runs `srv-gw grant-access --project equinoxbusinesslaw --user adi` (`.logs/planning/build-plan.md`, Phase 0, Staging preparation); files are then reachable by SFTP per `/srv/CLAUDE.md` | Blocks steps 1, 5 and 6 of section 12 entirely; nothing in this brief can be read or filed from the project until it is done. Until access exists, Rian hands the designer the brand story and this brief by other means, and the designer works from those two files only | | Due date | Not set as of 2026-09-02: Rian's 2026-08-24 promise, counted from the 2026-08-27 inputs, puts the first mockup on or about 2026-09-03 (`.logs/planning/design-direction.md`); whether that clock started is Rian's call (`.logs/planning/scope.md`); the calendar is re-baselined by Rian in `.logs/planning/build-plan.md` (`brief.md`, Status) | Rian states two dates to the designer and records them in `.logs/handoff.md`: when the two directions reach him, and when the client sees the mockup; if either moves, Rian tells the client | The step starts on receipt of this brief and project access; hours are recorded in the handoff | | Brand Kit | **RESOLVED 2026-09-03** — received and filed at `notes/source/brand-kit/`; a real 76-slide brand guide plus two later builds with identical palette, type and logo. Digest: `notes/source/brand-kit/README.md` | Filed by Rian | No longer blocking. Palette, type, logo, gradients and the swirl are confirmed; the provisional live-site values are superseded and anything drawn on `#004963` needs the swap to NIGHT `#003B53` | | 2026 Brand Photo Shoot | **RESOLVED 2026-09-03** — received, about 100 images, at `notes/source/photos/` | Filed by Rian; the client confirms which one or two may be used | Non-blocking: the home page carries no photograph in any case | | The logo | **In hand.** Wordmark with the swirl as the O, in NIGHT; tagline lockups read "Strategic Legal Counsel for All". Reverse and gradient variants exist. All raster, about 3300px | — | Placeholder cleared. Header default on white is `Equinox__Logo_SLCTag_B_RGB.png` (readable tagline). Never the retired anniversary mark | | Vector logo files (SVG/EPS/AI) | Not supplied; the kit is raster only | Rian asks Alicia Wimmer | Fine for a mockup, needed before launch. Never trace or redraw the mark | | Palette and typography | **RESOLVED 2026-09-03** by the kit | — | See the shared list in section 7. The one open sub-question is the companion body face, below | | Whether a companion text face may carry long-form body, against the guide's Montserrat Regular | Not raised | Client, on our recommendation at the review; Rian carries it | Both directions default to Montserrat body; Direction A proposes the deviation in its statement | | Examples of sites the client likes | Asked by Rian 2026-08-24; not answered 2026-08-27 | Alicia Wimmer / Michelle Bomberger; Rian asks again | Do not block on it, and do not adjust mid-step: if answers arrive, record them in the handoff entry with what they suggest, and Rian weighs them at the direction check. Any change they prompt is applied in Step 2, in the chosen direction | | The assessment's single name (Legal Health Check / Business Health Assessment / Business Legal Health Assessment) | Unresolved | AISV with the client; raised at the review call | Mockup uses the brand-story label with "(name to be confirmed)" noted once | | Revenue threshold in "Who It Is For" | Unresolved since the proposal (2026-07-30); AISV's deck and brand story disagree | AISV with Michelle Bomberger | The criterion is set as "Your company generates more than approximately [revenue threshold: AISV to confirm] in annual revenue"; never a figure | | Objection-handling section heading | The brand story provides none | AISV | Labelled placeholder heading in both directions; no working heading | | "Go Boldy" versus "Go boldly" spelling | **RESOLVED 2026-09-03** by the brand guide: **boldly**. The signature and a live URL carry a typo | — | Never reproduce the typo. The line is not part of the home copy, so nothing on the home page needs it | | Canonical firm name for the footer copyright | Working assumption Equinox Business Law Group PLLC; not confirmed | Client via Alicia Wimmer | Use the assumption, labelled as such in the export notes | | Street address for the footer contact block | Not on the live site; not supplied | Client via Alicia Wimmer | Labelled placeholder | | Header CTA wording across project docs | `.logs/planning/design-direction.md` checklist item 8 and its "Paired CTAs" paragraph say one header button plus the assessment as a top-level nav item, and attribute that to `.logs/planning/tracking-conversion.md`; `.logs/planning/site-architecture.md` and `.logs/planning/tracking-conversion.md` say both buttons in the header, with the assessment as a child under Our Approach (not top-level) | Rian reconciles design-direction's item 8 and the "Paired CTAs" paragraph, including the nav position, together | The mockup shows both buttons in the header (the superset); if Rian prefers one, removing the secondary is a trivial change | | Header state list | Not put to the client. `.logs/planning/design-direction.md` Open inputs says "Show the header both ways only if cheap"; this brief forbids a second header variant (section 6) | Rian asks the client after the direction check; Rian strikes the "both ways" wording from design-direction | No state list in the header in either direction; the location line is in the footer | | Whether the header sticks | `.logs/planning/tracking-conversion.md` says "Sticky behaviour is a design decision in `.logs/planning/design-direction.md`"; that file does not decide it; the proposal's word is "persistent" | Rian decides in the Kadence build (Phase 2) | Not drawn: the mockup shows the header at page top only, designed so it could compact to the logo plus the two CTAs without a redesign (section 6) | | Footer CTA band on the home page | `.logs/planning/tracking-conversion.md` (Placements) lists a site-wide paired CTA band above the footer columns; on the home page section 12 is that band | Rian records in `.logs/handoff.md` that the build suppresses the footer-template band on Home (Phase 2) | One closing band on the home page, never two (section 6, row 12 and Footer) | | Export versus design-tool link | `.logs/planning/design-direction.md`, Process and gate, step 1, accepts "the exports (or the design-tool link)"; this brief requires the export (PNG or PDF) and treats a link as optional (section 2; section 12, step 5) | Rian aligns design-direction step 1 | The export is filed; a link never replaces it | | A page not in the mockup, asked for in the feedback round | `.logs/planning/design-direction.md` ("Mockup sequencing", the paragraph after the Step 2 table) admits it inside the one round only if it costs no new pattern work, otherwise a scope conversation; this brief (section 8, "How to handle a request that crosses the fence") now uses the same test | Rian confirms the wording, or changes it in both files together | None on Step 1: the round is on the Step 2 set; during Step 1 any page request is a fence crossing (section 8, row 1) | | The live site as the "before" reference | Read-only; never edited before launch | Anyone; look, do not touch | Reference for what the client called busy and dated and for the provisional palette; not a layout to reproduce | ## 12. Process and hand-back 1. Read, in order: `agents.md`, `brief.md`, `.logs/planning/design-direction.md`, this brief (which governs Step 1 wherever the two differ; the differences are in section 11). Then the brand story (`notes/source/aisv-brand-story.md`) for the copy, and the nav and footer tree in `.logs/planning/site-architecture.md`. 2. Read `notes/source/brand-kit/README.md` and `notes/mockups/shared-v1/design-system.md`. The kit is in hand as of 2026-09-03; there is nothing provisional left to wait for except the vector logo files, which do not block a mockup. 3. Build Direction A and Direction B to sections 6 and 7: desktop full-length, mobile view, header and footer as the home page needs them, direction statement, placeholder list. 4. Run the pre-flight checklist (section 10) on both. Fix every no before going further. 5. File the exports under `notes/mockups/home-A-v1/` and `notes/mockups/home-B-v1/` (a design-tool link may be added but never replaces the export); add the index rows in `notes/README.md`. 6. Write the handoff entry in `.logs/handoff.md` (newest first): what was delivered, the two direction statements, the placeholders used, the open questions for Rian, the date. 7. Rian reviews first. He chooses a direction, or decides to take both to the client, at his discretion; he judges how each direction extends to the inner pages on the two extension sentences in its statement (section 2), not on inner-page drawings. The choice and its date are recorded in `.logs/handoff.md`; that entry is the evidence for checklist item 16 in `.logs/planning/design-direction.md`. If Rian takes both directions to the client, that showing is a direction check only: the client picks one (by email or on a short call), the pick and its date are recorded in `.logs/handoff.md`, and Step 2 begins in that direction. The direction check is explicitly not the comprehensive feedback round: the client is not asked for design feedback on the chosen direction at that point; anything volunteered is noted in the handoff and carried into Step 2, not applied as a round. The one round happens once, on the full Step 2 set, after the review call. 8. Only then does Step 2 begin: the remaining key pages (General Counsel, Contact, blog index, single post, team bio, header and footer in full) in the chosen direction, plus the chosen home direction completed on mobile (the full-length page and the footer, per section 2), per the Step 2 table in `.logs/planning/design-direction.md` (Home: "Desktop and mobile for Home at minimum"), followed by the review call, the one feedback round, and written client approval (gate G1 in `.logs/planning/build-plan.md`). **One channel to the client.** Every question for the client or AISV (Brand Kit, sites they like, the assessment name, the heading, the threshold) goes to Rian, who asks; the designer does not contact the client or AISV and shows nothing to anyone before Rian's review. Reason: the client gets one consolidated feedback round (`.logs/planning/design-direction.md`, step 4: "do not iterate on partial feedback"); any earlier reaction is partial feedback that spends it. **Pivots.** Any change of approach mid-step (a photography-led hero, a different navigation model, dropping or merging a brand-story section, a new pattern family, replacing either direction's axis, a third direction) is a two-line check-in with Rian before hours go in: what you want to change, and why. Do not absorb a pivot silently. An inner page during Step 1 is not a pivot; it is a fence crossing (section 8, row 1) with no approval path inside this step. The earliest any inner page is drawn is Step 2, after the direction is recorded in `.logs/handoff.md`. **What stays with the designer.** Type pairing (within the palette and typography rule in section 7), the exact spacing scale, button radius, icon style, card or panel treatment, choice of icon library, the mockup tool and export format. Rian is not consulted on these; the client sees them once, in the round, and reacts to the whole.