Voice and tone
Writing gets decided before the sentence, not during it. Five traits, five principles, a seven point check before anything ships, and a list of words that never do.
Traits are only useful with their failure mode attached. Each one below carries what it looks like in practice and what it becomes when nobody is watching.
Five traits, and what each one turns into when it slips
Voice is constant. Tone is what moves.
The five traits hold in every channel, including the ones where nobody is enjoying themselves. What changes by channel is the mix, and the mix is set out further down this page.
Listing a trait without its failure mode is what makes a voice page decorative. Each trait below is written so a reviewer can point at a sentence and say which side of the line it fell on.
Takes a position in the first line and holds it.
In practice
Name the recommendation and the price without a run up. State what the work will do, and state what it will not.
Bold is a structural choice, not a volume setting. It shows up in where the argument sits, which is always the first line.
Failure mode
Volume standing in for a view. Bold with nothing to recommend is a bigger font and a smaller idea.
In practice
Give the reason once and move on. No insurance clauses, no second paragraph of qualifiers protecting the first.
Confidence is measurable in edits: count the words that exist only in case someone disagrees, and delete them.
Failure mode
Arrogance. Confidence shows its reasoning; arrogance expects to be taken on trust and gets challenged for it.
In practice
One turn of phrase per piece, and it goes where the reader has already understood the argument. Play before clarity reads as avoidance.
It drops to zero in bad news, in pricing disputes and in anything legal.
Failure mode
Jokes. Playful is a light hand on serious work, and a joke in a deadline email is read as not taking the deadline seriously.
In practice
Short sentences, active verbs, present tense. Momentum is built by cutting words, not by adding emphasis.
The shortest sentence in any piece should be the one carrying the central idea.
Failure mode
Hype. Energy that keeps climbing has nowhere to land, and the reader stops believing the next claim.
In practice
Use vocabulary that will survive the next cycle of industry language. No trend words, no dated references, no names that only make sense this quarter.
A useful test: would this sentence need a footnote if it were read in 2031?
Failure mode
Beige. Timeless is a choice of vocabulary, not the absence of a point of view.
The traits are constant. The proportions change by channel, and the channel settings are further down this page.
Principles that cannot be applied to a specific sentence do not survive a deadline. Each one below carries the reasoning, two worked rewrites and the short rules that follow from it.
Five principles, each with a rewrite beside it
01 · Open with a recommendation, not a menu
A menu of options hands the decision back to the client, which is the one thing they were trying to avoid buying.
Three viable directions in a document read as three unfinished ones. Pick the one you would ship and name it in the first line.
Keep the alternatives. They belong under the recommendation as the reasoning that produced it, not beside it as equal candidates.
This holds in an email, a proposal and a review. The reader should know what you think before they know what you considered.
Opening a design review
Do
After. Ship direction B. It cuts setup from four steps to two, and the other two cost more to build for less.
Don't
Before. We explored a few different directions for the dashboard and wanted to get your thoughts on which one feels right for you.
Proposal cover note
Do
After. Start with onboarding. It is where most sign ups are lost, and fixing it first pays for the rest of the work.
Don't
Before. There are several ways we could approach this engagement, depending on where your priorities sit.
The recommendation goes in the first line.
Do
Ship direction B.
Don't
Here are three directions for your consideration.
Alternatives sit under the recommendation, never alongside it.
Do
We tested two others. Both cost more and neither reduced the drop off.
Don't
Options A, B and C are all viable, so it is your call.
02 · Frame in outcomes, not deliverables
A list of files tells a client what they are buying and not what changes once it lands.
Deliverables describe effort. Outcomes describe what is different afterwards, which is the only part being paid for.
Name the outcome first and let the file list sit underneath it as the method. The method is reassuring; it is not the argument.
Retention, conversion, clarity and trust cover most of what the work moves. A paragraph that ties to none of them is describing process.
Scope summary in a proposal
Do
After. You get a checkout fewer people abandon, built from 24 screens, a component library and a motion spec your engineers can work from.
Don't
Before. Deliverables include 24 screens, a component library, a motion spec and a handover document.
Case study opening line
Do
After. Billing questions to support halved, because the invoice screen now answers the thing people were writing in to ask.
Don't
Before. We redesigned the mobile app end to end and delivered a full design system.
Lead on what changes, then say how.
Do
Fewer abandoned carts, from a checkout rebuilt in three weeks.
Don't
A three week checkout rebuild across 24 screens.
Use measured figures or none.
Do
Setup dropped from four steps to two.
Don't
Setup is now dramatically faster and much more intuitive.
03 · State problems directly
A softened problem gets discussed twice, once when you hint at it and again when it lands anyway.
A problem stated plainly is easier to fix than one wrapped in qualifiers. Say what is wrong, say what it costs, say what you propose.
None of that is rude when the next sentence is a fix. Hedging reads as either uncertainty or bad news being managed, and both cost trust.
One qualifier per sentence is the ceiling. Two means the sentence is apologising for itself.
Flagging a broken flow in a review
Do
After. The payment step loses people at the card field. We propose one screen instead of three, and we can test it next week.
Don't
Before. There might be a small opportunity to potentially improve the payment step slightly.
Raising a risk mid engagement
Do
After. The API is not ready, so the build slips a week. Here are two ways to hold the launch date.
Don't
Before. We just wanted to flag a potential concern that may possibly have some impact on timings.
Name the problem in the sentence that raises it.
Do
The card field is where people stop.
Don't
There may be some friction in parts of the payment area.
Every problem arrives with a fix attached.
Do
It slips a week. Here are two ways to hold the date.
Don't
It slips a week. Let us know how you would like to proceed.
04 · Write for a non-specialist
The person who signs the invoice is rarely the person who knows what a design token is.
Jargon narrows the audience to people who already agree with you. Write so the finance lead and the engineer take the same meaning from the same sentence.
Terms of art are fine once the line that introduces them explains them. Used without that line, they are a way of sounding certain without being clear.
Read it aloud before sending. If you would not say it in the room, it does not go in the document.
Explaining a design system to a finance lead
Do
After. We name each colour and size once, so changing it in one place updates every screen. Dark mode then costs days instead of months.
Don't
Before. We will deliver a token layer with semantic aliasing to underpin multi-theme theming across every surface.
Reporting research
Do
After. We watched eight of your customers try to book a table. Six gave up on the same screen.
Don't
Before. We ran a moderated qualitative study to surface latent needs across the target cohort.
A term of art is explained where it first appears.
Do
A component library, meaning one set of parts every screen is built from.
Don't
A tokenised, atomic component architecture.
If you would not say it aloud, rewrite it.
Do
Six of eight gave up on the same screen.
Don't
Qualitative signals indicated a significant completion barrier.
05 · Let the work carry the argument
Adjectives are what a page reaches for when there is no artefact to put in their place.
Show the screen, the before, the number. Description fills the space where evidence should be, and readers can tell the difference.
Cut the adjective and put the artefact where it was standing. The sentence gets shorter and the claim gets stronger.
This is the cheapest edit available on any page: delete the line praising the work, and the work is still there.
Portfolio caption
Do
After. The booking flow, rebuilt in six weeks. Three screens became one.
Don't
Before. A beautiful, thoughtful and highly polished reimagining of the booking experience.
Closing line of a pitch
Do
After. We build products that ship. Here are three that did.
Don't
Before. We are a passionate team obsessed with crafting delightful digital experiences that truly resonate.
Evidence before adjective.
Do
Three screens became one.
Don't
A dramatically streamlined and elegant flow.
Never grade your own work in the copy.
Do
Shipped in six weeks, live since March.
Don't
One of our most successful and beloved projects to date.
Run these before anything leaves the studio. They take under a minute and they catch most of what a review would have caught.
Seven checks, in order
The pre-ship check
1. It opens on a problem or a recommendation, not on Haux.
2. Every paragraph is three sentences or fewer.
3. The central idea is the shortest sentence in the piece.
4. It describes impact, not deliverables.
5. It closes on a result or a direction.
6. No word from the avoid list survived.
7. Read aloud, it sounds like a person.
Check three is the one that gets skipped. If the central idea is currently the longest sentence, the piece is not finished.
Word choice is the fastest thing to check and the slowest to fix once it is in circulation. These four lists settle it.
The words, the punctuation and the way the brand is named
Short, concrete, mostly Anglo-Saxon. Reach here first.
fix, build, ship, earn, clarity, sharp, real, outcome, craft, momentum, direct, partner, works, result, honest, simple, precise, deliberate, considered, distinct, rigorous.
These are not required words and a document stuffed with them reads as a document stuffed with them. They are the register: if a sentence sounds wrong, the nearest word from this list is usually the repair.
synergy, leverage, holistic, ecosystem, best-in-class, cutting-edge, innovative, world-class, passionate, disrupt, seamless, robust, game-changing, solutions, stakeholders, journey, thrilled, excited, delighted, proud, "In today’s".
Each of these is a claim with no evidence behind it, which is why they survive edits: nobody can disprove them. Replace the word with the fact it was standing in for, and the sentence usually gets shorter.
Two of these need care. "Partner" is on the say list as a verb and a role, and is banned as a euphemism for client. "Solutions" is banned as a noun for the work, not in the ordinary sense of solving something.
No em dashes, ever. Use a comma, a colon, a full stop or a pair of brackets, and in almost every case the full stop is the right answer.
One exclamation mark maximum in any piece, and the usual number is zero. If the sentence needs the mark to carry the energy, the sentence is the problem.
No hashtags as decoration. A hashtag is a routing instruction, so it either does a job on a platform that reads it or it does not appear.
The em dash rule is the one people test. This entire site is written without one, which is the argument.
British spelling throughout: colour, prioritise, judgement, organisation.
Sentence case everywhere, including headlines, buttons, navigation and section titles. Title Case is a house style the brand does not have.
Always numerals: 3 screens, 8 weeks, 12%. Never "three screens", including at the start of a sentence, where the sentence gets rewritten instead.
No internal abbreviations in client-facing copy. Write design system, not DS, and write discovery phase, not disco.
Write "we" to clients, in proposals, in email and in the studio’s own writing. Third person is for press releases and award submissions, where a publication needs a name it can quote.
Never verb the brand. Nothing is "hauxed", nobody "hauxes" a product, and no engagement is "getting the Haux treatment".
A sentence should not open on the brand name. Open on the problem or the recommendation, which is also check one of the pre-ship list.
Tone is the setting that moves. Each channel below carries its own mix, and one of them turns the playfulness off entirely.
Five channels, five registers
Direct and specific. Recommend, price, stop.
Lead with the recommendation, then the outcome it buys, then the price. Everything after that is method, and method goes last.
Bold and confident run high here. Playful runs low, because a document with a number in it is being read carefully.
Opening line to aim at: "Start with onboarding. It is where most sign ups are lost, and fixing it first pays for the rest."
Say the thing in the first sentence. Put the ask in its own line, and attach a date to it so nobody has to guess what "soon" means.
Energetic runs high, timeless is irrelevant, playful is allowed once the working relationship is established.
Line to aim at: "The build lands Wednesday. We need the copy for the confirmation screen by Monday to hold that. Can you send what you have, even if it is rough?"
Open on the problem the client had, not on the engagement. Give the change, give the evidence, then show the work.
Timeless runs high here because a case study is read years after it is written. Playful runs low, since the client is being quoted alongside it.
Opening line to aim at: "Six of eight customers gave up on the same screen. Here is what replaced it."
Send it early and lead with the fact. A delayed message is read as a managed one, and that costs more than the problem did.
Playfulness goes to zero. Confidence stays high, because the fix in the next sentence is what makes the message survivable.
Structure: what happened, what it costs, what happens next, what changed so it does not repeat. Four sentences, in that order.
Voice does not change across these five. Only the mix does, and only playfulness ever reaches zero.
Hard messages get written badly because they get written fast. These four are the ones that recur, so the framing is agreed in advance.
Four scripts, so nobody improvises under pressure
Each script below is a starting point, not a template to paste. Change the specifics and keep the order, because the order is what makes the message land.
All four follow the same shape: state it, cost it, offer the next move.
Scope creep
Approved framing: "That is new work, and I would rather be straight about it than absorb it quietly. It adds about a week. Do you want it in this phase or the next one?"
Naming it the first time is what stops the fourth time. Absorbed scope is invisible to the client and expensive to the studio.
A missed date
Approved framing: "We will miss Friday. The build now lands Wednesday the 12th, and nothing after it moves. Here is what caused it and what we changed so it does not repeat."
Send it the day you know, not the day it slips. The new date is only credible if it arrives before the old one fails.
A rejected direction
Approved framing: "Understood, we will not take that one forward. Before we redraw, tell me which part failed: the idea or the execution. That answer saves us a round."
The question is the whole message. Without it the next round is a guess, and the second rejection is much more expensive than the first.
A price increase
Approved framing: "Rates rise 12% from January, and your current rate holds until then. The work does not change. If that lands badly, say so now and we will look at scope together."
Give notice, hold the old rate through it, and offer scope as the lever. A rate conversation that offers no lever becomes a renewal conversation.
A house glossary is the cheapest thing on this page and the one that gets quoted in reviews. There is no approved list yet, so what follows is a proposal.
Proposed: three words the studio should stop improvising
Proposed, not decided. These three terms are the ones currently written four different ways across proposals, invoices and the site.
Sign them off or replace them. Leaving them open is the one option that keeps costing something.
The people who pay for the work.
Do
Client. Used in every document, including internal ones, so the same word survives into the invoice.
Don't
Partner, account, stakeholder, or user when the person meant is the buyer.
The commercial relationship, and the work inside it.
Do
Engagement for the relationship, project for a single piece of work inside it. Two words, two meanings.
Don't
Using engagement and project interchangeably, which makes every scope conversation start with a definition.
The people doing the work.
Do
The studio, externally. The team, internally. Both are fine and neither is a description of headcount.
Don't
The agency, the squad, or the resource. The first is inaccurate and the third is insulting.
Three terms is deliberately small. A glossary that reaches thirty entries stops being consulted and becomes a document about itself.
Gaps stated plainly are cheaper than rules invented to fill them. Five things on this page are still open.
What is not decided yet
The house glossary is proposed and unapproved. Until it is signed off, the terms above are a recommendation and not a rule.
There is no approved boilerplate paragraph, so every proposal writes its own description of the studio. That is the single most repeated writing task here and the easiest to settle.
Product and venture naming is governed by brand architecture, which is still draft. Nothing on this page should be read as settling how a product is named.
The register for the studio’s own website is undecided. First person is set for client writing and third person for press, and the site sits between the two.
British spelling is set, and there is no ruling on what happens when a client’s own style guide requires US spelling in shared documents.