Style Guide

Brand voice

Direct. Dignified. Never florid. We are stewards of a public-domain archive, not performers. Ingersoll wrote clearly and believed clarity was a moral act. The editorial voice of this site should honor that: prefer active verbs, concrete nouns, short paragraphs, and the plain Anglo-Saxon word over the Latinate.

Avoid sales language, marketing superlatives, inspirational posturing, and anything that reads like a press release. Respect the reader's time.

Dates & numerals

Human-readable dates: Month DD, YYYY (April 21, 2026). Never numeric (4/21/26) except in machine-readable attributes. Ranges use an en-dash (1833–1899), never a hyphen.

Numerals: spell out one through nine; use digits for 10 and up. Spell out at the start of a sentence regardless. Use commas in four-digit-or-larger numbers (1,000).

Typography

Display / headings: Playfair Display (900 / 700 / 600 / 400). Body: Crimson Pro (400 / 600, italic 400 / 600). Archival flourishes: IM Fell English. All fonts served via Bunny Fonts.

Type scale

xs — The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

sm — The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

base — The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

md — The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

lg — The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

xl — The quick brown fox.

2xl — Quick fox.

Color palette

Navy
--navy
#1E3558 · Primary brand

Navy Deep
--navy-deep
#142542 · Dark backgrounds

Navy Dark
--navy-dark
#0D1A30 · Deepest inverse

Parchment
--parchment
#F5EDD9 · Default background

Crimson
--crimson
#8B1A2B · Accent / links

Crimson Deep
--crimson-deep
#6E1322 · Hover accent

Gold
--gold
#B8862C · Ornamental highlight

Gold Light
--gold-light
#D5A44C · Warm highlight

Gold Deep
--gold-deep
#8E671E · Label text

Stone
--stone
#6B5E4E · Muted text

Ink
--ink
#1A1512 · Body text

Punctuation & marks

Use curly quotes (“like this”) and apostrophes (’), not straight. En-dashes for ranges (1–10); em-dashes for parenthetical breaks — like this — without spaces. Always © for copyright, never "(c)". Trademark ™ and registered ® marks belong in <sup>.

Accessibility minimums

Contrast: 4.5:1 for body text, 3:1 for headings ≥ 24 px.
Touch targets: 44 × 44 px minimum.
All interactive elements reachable by keyboard with visible focus.
Every image has alt text; decorative images use alt="".
Respect prefers-reduced-motion and prefers-color-scheme.
Forms: every input has a real <label>.

When in doubt

Defer to the reader. The site exists to make Ingersoll's words easy to read, not to show off design. If a flourish makes the text harder to follow, remove it.