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title: "Style guide — voice and tone" project: "editorial-ops" tags:

  • style-guide
  • brand
  • writing date: 2026-04-07

Voice and tone

Voice — Calm expert neighbor: competent, plainspoken, never sneering at beginners.

Tone — Warm by default; more direct in error messages and security notes.

Principles

  1. Lead with the user outcome, then the mechanism.
  2. Prefer short sentences; one idea per line in UI copy.
  3. Avoid hype adjectives (“revolutionary,” “game-changing”) unless tied to measurable proof.

Do / don’t

Do Don’t
“Your notes stay in a folder you control.” “We leverage best-in-class synergies.”
“If sync fails, check your API token.” “Oops! Something went wrong.” (without next step)
“Try this on a copy of your vault first.” “Simply run the migration.”

Words we like

  • vault, index, export, plain Markdown

Words to use carefully

  • AI — name the task (“summarize,” “extract tasks”) not the mystique.
  • Local-first — define once per article for new readers.

Owner — editorial lead; review after major product positioning changes.

File History 1 commit
sha256:7fe782411f3a68b39f17777b274349b30752365c13438b26bfd602c687de2c65 feat(web): rebrand Parentier family to Ourware on landing Human minor ⚠ 19 days ago