LEVR
Go-To-Market Operating System
BrandGuidelines
The go-to-market operating system. One workshop, then the system to act on it.
Machine-readable layer: levr-tokens.css
Why this guide exists
LEVR sells one thing: certainty about what to do next, and the system to do it. A brand that promises certainty cannot look uncertain.
This guide is how we stay consistent. That consistency is the product proof, not a design preference: every surface a client or facilitator sees — the workshop deck, the Flywheel dashboard, a single status chip — has to read as the same quiet, exacting company. Do that, and the specificity we sell becomes visible before anyone reads a word.
The system is deliberately small. One accent, and it's black. Two typefaces. A pure-white canvas. Hue appears in exactly one place. The restraint is the point. It signals a company that removes before it adds and trusts numbers over adjectives. Attention is the scarce resource here, and the design treats it that way.
Follow the guide and the brand compounds — every asset makes the next one more recognizable. Improvise, and it dilutes. The rules that follow are the cheapest way to make LEVR look like LEVR, everywhere, without a designer in the room.
Who this is for, and how it works
The LEVR team
Product, design, and the founders. This is the house style for every LEVR-facing surface.
Accredited facilitators
The people who sell and run LEVR. Keep client-facing materials on-brand without a design background.
Agencies & partners
Anyone producing a LEVR surface under license.
AI agents
Claude Code and other agents that build LEVR pages, decks, and dashboards. Load the machine-readable layer as context before generating anything.
1 · This written guide
The reasoning and the rules. Read the section you need; each is self-contained.
2 · levr-tokens.css
The machine-readable layer. Every color, radius, type size, and core component here is a CSS variable or class in that file. Humans read the guide; machines link the tokens. When a value here disagrees with the CSS, the CSS is the source of truth for what ships.
Ten sections, each citable in review
| # | Section | Covers |
|---|---|---|
| 00 | Front matter | Cover · Welcome · How to use · Contents |
| 01 | Brand Foundation | Purpose · Mission · Vision · Values · Story & name · Positioning · Personality · Promise · Audience |
| 02 | Logo System | Anatomy · Logotype · Hierarchy · Clear space · Minimum sizes · Color versions · Misuse · Sub-brands · Files |
| 03 | Color | Principle · Core neutrals · Status chips · Proportion · Accessibility · Shadows · Print vs. screen |
| 04 | Typography | The two typefaces · License · Fallback stacks · Type scale · Hierarchy · The numbered kicker · Principles · Misuse |
| 05 | Imagery | Register · Shoot brief · Shot list · Do/don't · Iconography · Product graphics · Data viz · Grid |
| 06 | Voice & Tone | Voice vs. tone · Principles · Tone matrix · Mechanics · Naming · Words · Before/after · Pocket tests |
| 07 | Brand Architecture | Branded house · Hierarchy · Sub-brand lockups · Clear space · Co-branding · Naming a new product |
| 08 | Application | Dashboards · Decks · Documents · Social · Stationery · Apparel · Email · Layout principles |
| 09 | Governance | Version · Where the brand lives · Ownership · Machine-readable layer · Confidentiality · Checklist |
Status: Internal and accredited-facilitator use. Not for public distribution. © 2026 LEVR. All rights reserved. When the guide does not cover your case, ask before improvising — the default answer to "can I add a color, a font, or an effect?" is no.
Brand Foundation
The strategy that gives the visuals meaning. Everything in Logo, Color, and Typography is downstream of what follows — the design choices stop looking arbitrary once you have read this.
Why LEVR exists
Most companies are busy, not aligned. Leadership teams work hard on the wrong things because no one told them, with specificity, what the one right thing was.
Call it what it is: removing the fog between a company and its next move, not "marketing." A decision first, then the system to execute it. Profit follows. It isn't the reason we exist.
What we do, and where it goes
We turn an executive team's positioning into a living go-to-market system.
One workshop sets the direction for the next 6–12 months. Agentic teams build the LEVR Flywheel — 50+ go-to-market assets, in 7–9 hours — and a subscription keeps it current. Facilitators, accredited and backed by LEVR software, sell and run the whole system.
A market where mid-market companies run on a go-to-market operating system, not a folder of one-off campaigns.
LEVR OS becomes the default operating layer for how a mid-market company decides and executes its growth. Delivery comes from a network of accredited, non-technical facilitators — each serving ~30 companies a year.
Four principles govern every LEVR decision
Written in the brand's own idiom, not as generic virtues. The first three are the design philosophy; the fourth makes the brand a sales argument.
Ink, not paint
Brand-as-ink. The accent is black because the work is the decoration. We remove before we add. One color, two fonts, a white page — restraint reads as confidence, and confidence is what a company buying certainty is looking for.
Space is a decision
Use space wisely. Get to the content. No stat-row chrome at the top of every page, no ambient backgrounds, no decorative gradients. Generous room around what matters; aggressive trimming everywhere else. Whitespace is a feature we ship on purpose.
Real names, real dates
Documentary register. We show our work. Actual client names, actual figures, actual timestamps. Inline SVG icons, never emoji. The brand behaves like a documentary, not an ad — it earns belief by being checkable.
Numbers do the persuading
Trust through specificity, not decoration. $35,000. 7–9 hours. 50+ assets. When a sentence has three adjectives, we cut two and add a number. The figures are the rhetoric.
The name is the mechanism
A lever is the oldest machine. A small, well-placed force moves a load many times its size. Everything about the machine is in where you place it.
That is the company. One workshop, placed at the right point in a business, moves the next 6–12 months of its growth. LEVR is the lever. The workshop is where you place it.
The primary mark stages the name as the machine in motion: lowercase le rests upper-left, vr lower-right, and a single long S-curve sweeps between them, rising left to right. Read the mark and your eye travels le → up the curve → vr — the name, spelled by the motion. The curve is the standard S-shaped adoption path: flat while the work compounds, steep once it catches, leveling as it matures.
Brand architecture — a branded house
| Sub-brand | What it is |
|---|---|
| LEVR Positioning Workshop | The $35,000 executive workshop — the entry point |
| LEVR Flywheel | The 50+ asset go-to-market suite and dashboard |
| LEVR Loops | The multi-tenant content-production platform |
| LEVR OS | The operating-system layer / catalog |
| LEVR Workshop Recorder | In-the-room capture |
| LEVR Weekly Pulse | The ongoing market-intelligence signal |
The statement, and why the difference is visible
We name our own category
Go-To-Market Operating System (LEVR OS). We do not compete inside "marketing agency" or "consulting" — both are races we would be pricing against, not defining.
The differentiation is visible
The category convention — martech, agencies, growth tools — is loud: saturated gradients, exclamation marks, hype adjectives. That is the tell of a company selling activity.
LEVR owns the opposite on purpose. Black on white. No hype. Numbers instead of claims. The restraint is the positioning made visible. When every competitor shouts, quiet is the differentiator — and it is the one thing a company selling certainty can credibly wear.
Four traits — the input to the Voice section
Exacting
Specific, not fussy. We cite the number, name the date, show the file.
Quiet
Confident without volume. We state, we do not sell. The absence of hype is the argument.
Editorial
Designed like a good magazine — considered, legible, unhurried. Type and space do the work.
Operational
We ship systems, not slides. The bias is always toward the built, running thing.
What a client can expect, and who reads every surface
A decision, not a deck. One clear direction for the next 6–12 months.
The system, built the same week. 50+ assets in 7–9 hours of agentic build.
Kept current. The system stays live for as long as the subscription runs.
Mid-market executives
CEOs, founders, and CMOs of ~$5M–$100M companies with lean teams. Time-poor, burned by a retainer, fluent in spotting hype.
Accredited facilitators
Non-technical operators who sell and deliver LEVR, each serving ~30 companies a year. They need materials that look expert without a designer.
Partners & machines
Agencies producing LEVR surfaces under license, and AI agents that generate LEVR pages, decks, and dashboards.
Logo System
The logo is a system of marks, not one file. Below: the real le∫vr mark — its parts, its hierarchy, and every rule for reproducing it. When a placement isn't covered here, use the primary combination lockup and ask before improvising.
The name, spelled by a lever's motion
The mark is not "le" and "vr" with a decoration between them. The curve is the connective tissue that turns four lowercase letters into one word in motion. Remove or restyle the curve and the mark stops working.
The mark occupies a roughly square field. Treat that square — the bounding box of the letters and curve at their extremes — as the mark's footprint for spacing and sizing.
| Part | What it is | What it signifies |
|---|---|---|
| le | Lowercase "l" and "e", upper-left, on the upper baseline. The "l" carries the only ascender. | The start of the word — and the start of the growth curve, before it climbs. |
| vr | Lowercase "v" and "r", lower-right, on the lower baseline. | The end of the word — and the mature end of the curve. |
| The curve (∫) | A single, continuous, near-symmetrical S-curve (a sigmoid) sweeping lower-left to upper-right. Stroke weight close to the letters; terminals clean, not tapered. | The lever's arc, and the growth curve it produces — flat, steep, level. The load-bearing element of the mark. |
| The diagonal axis | The invisible lower-left → upper-right line the curve traces, along which le and vr are staggered. | Forces the reading path le → up → vr = "lever." |
Which mark, when
The logotype is the word LEVR set in Geist 600 with tight tracking (≈ -0.02em), uppercase in all text settings. Use it in running copy, in UI chrome next to a sub-label, and anywhere the le∫vr symbol is too detailed to reproduce cleanly. It is set, not drawn — but it still follows the misuse rules: never stretched, never recolored off-system, never spelled "Lever."
Isolation defined by the mark's own geometry
1X
1X
1X
1X
X = the x-height of the lowercase letters (the height of the e, v, or r). Minimum clear space = 1X on all four sides; preferred = 2X. Nothing enters the keep-out zone — not text, not another logo, not an image edge, not a fold or trim. A half-clear-space (0.5X) variant is permitted only for genuinely constrained placements, and must be approved (2.9).
12 mm print
10 mm print
5 mm print
The thin S-curve is the first thing to break up when the mark is too small, so the symbol's minimums are more conservative than the logotype's. Below the floor, use the logotype instead. Proposed v2 spec — verify with a printed and on-screen proof before finalizing.
Monochrome by design — exactly two versions
Never a colored ground for the mark — hue is reserved for chips only (3.3). No single-color variant other than black or white: no grey, no outline, no tinted logo. On a photograph, place the mark only on a calm, high-contrast region and honor full clear space; if the region's texture competes with a hairline stroke, the placement is wrong.
Every rule, shown executed wrong
"Wrong" alone teaches nothing — the caption names the specific sin. Note the strike is black, not red: a red mark would itself break the palette. On brand, even the prohibition is ink.
The complete misuse register — all twelve rules
| ✗ Wrong treatment | The specific sin |
|---|---|
| Stretch / distort | The S-curve is fixed geometry. Stretch one axis and the growth curve warps into a slump or a spike. |
| Recolor the mark | The mark is black. A colored mark breaks Brand-as-ink and reads as a different company. |
| Rotate or tilt | The curve rises left-to-right on purpose. Rotate it and it falls. Keep it level. |
| Add effects | Drop shadow, glow, bevel, gradient, outer stroke. The mark is flat ink. |
| Rearrange the parts | le stays upper-left, vr lower-right, curve between. Reflow it and it stops spelling the word. |
| Redraw the curve | Use the supplied file. A look-alike S, integral sign, or swoosh is not the mark — the curve is trademarked geometry. |
| Spell "Lever" | The wordmark is LEVR. "Lever" is the pronunciation, never the spelling. |
| Busy / low-contrast ground | The hairline curve disappears on texture. Give it a clear, high-contrast field. |
| Violate clear space | Nothing enters the 1X keep-out zone. Crowding the mark cheapens it. |
| Outline the letters | Solid ink or solid reversed only. No wireframe treatment. |
| Tint / ghost as décor | The mark is not a background texture. Reversed on dark, full opacity, is the only "light" treatment. |
| Use a retired lockup | The old "L-in-a-square" placeholder is retired. Do not use it. |
LEVR <Product> — never an independent logo
LEVRPositioning WorkshopLEVRFlywheelLEVRWeekly PulseThe established pattern is the mark tile + stacked labels: a dark rounded square (--ink, radius 8px) carrying a reduced form of the le∫vr symbol, the wordmark LEVR beside it, and the product name as a mono sub-label below.
- Product name in JetBrains Mono, uppercase, muted — never larger or heavier than LEVR.
- One product per lockup. No stacked or hybrid sub-brands.
- The sub-brand never gets its own symbol, color, or font. It inherits the LEVR system entirely.
- Co-branding: place two logos separately, divided by a hairline rule with clear space on both. Never merge; never size a partner mark larger than LEVR.
v2 spec need Ship vector SVG for both versions, a combination-lockup file, and a favicon-optimized 16/32px asset. Raster PNG is a stopgap — the hairline curve needs vector to stay crisp. Approval required (Chase Bowers) for any new sub-brand lockup, a 0.5X placement, placing the mark on a photograph, or any usage not covered here. The default answer to "can I modify the mark?" is no.
Color
A near-black-and-white system where hue is rationed to a single job. The accent is solid black. Hue lives only in status chips — that is the entire system.
Sourcing: every HEX comes from the v1 identity spec and levr-tokens.css. RGB is derived from HEX. CMYK is a standard derived conversion, for reference only. Pantone is left [TBD] — spot colors are matched to a physical proof, never invented.
Nine specified steps from black to white
These are specified values, not opacities of black — specified values reproduce predictably. Click any swatch to copy its HEX.
Roles. Accent Black #000000 is the one accent (active nav, CTA fill, focus ring, badges). Text ink is #111111 — one step off pure black; pure #000000 is reserved for the accent role and the mark. Sidebar Grey is the only pane allowed to be off-white. The functional token --accent-soft = rgba(0,0,0,0.10) is a screen compositing value, not a swatch.
Pastel categorical colors, for labeling and nothing else
Chip color is never brand color — never a logo fill, never a slide or page background, never decoration. This is the single place hue is permitted. Each chip is a background + foreground pair, rendered at --radius-chip 4px (deliberately tighter than controls), 11px Geist weight 500.
Hue enters a LEVR surface only as one of these five chips, at chip size, doing a labeling job. If color is used for any other reason, it is off-brand.
Roughly 90 / 9 / 1 — the layout obeys the ratio it teaches
Read the ratio as a discipline: past ~10% ink coverage a layout is getting heavy (probably too much chrome). If hue exceeds a rounding error of the page, it has stopped being taxonomy and become decoration. White is the brand's loudest color; protect its share.
Real ratios, computed — never eyeballed
Text on white #FFFFFF
| Foreground | Contrast | WCAG |
|---|---|---|
| Accent Black #000000 | 21.0 : 1 | AAA |
| Ink #111111 | 18.9 : 1 | AAA |
| Ink Soft #2A2A2A | 14.4 : 1 | AAA |
| Muted #6B6B6B | 5.33 : 1 | AA only |
The muted-grey rule: #6B6B6B passes AA for normal text but not AAA. Use it for captions, labels, kickers, secondary lines — never long-form body, never below ~12px. When body must clear AAA, set it in Ink or Ink Soft.
Chip legibility fg on bg
| Chip | Contrast | WCAG |
|---|---|---|
| Published | 8.71 : 1 | AAA |
| Ready | 7.37 : 1 | AAA |
| Review | 7.33 : 1 | AAA |
| Draft | 5.88 : 1 | AA |
| Archived | 5.25 : 1 | AA |
Never make color the sole differentiator. A status is carried by the chip's label text, not its hue — a grayscale reader must tell Draft from Ready by the word. Focus states use the accent ring 0 0 0 3px var(--accent-soft).
3.6 · Shadows
Shadows separate white cards from the white ground without a heavy border. All neutral (ink-tinted), never colored.
--shadow-card-hover: 0 8px 20px rgba(17,17,17,.08);
--shadow-elevated: 0 20px 40px rgba(17,17,17,.16);
This is the only sanctioned form of depth. The logo and flat UI never carry shadow.
3.7 · Print vs. screen
The palette is engineered for screen first (light-emitting RGB/HEX). For print, the neutrals are pure-black ramps (0·0·0·K), so print them as tints of black (K only), not rich black or 4-color mixes.
- Confirm every value against a physical proof before an offset run.
- Pantone is deliberately unresolved — match to a physical book, record the PMS, replace each [TBD]. Never invent PMS numbers.
- Where a substrate forces a divergence, publish the print-approved value alongside the screen value.
Typography
Exactly two typefaces and one signature convention. Geist for words, JetBrains Mono for figures and labels. The type is where most of the brand's "editorial" feeling actually comes from.
One readable sans, one mono — and only two
afgjklqrstxyz
123&?!
Everything readable — headlines, body, subheads, UI, buttons, the LEVR logotype. Vercel with Basement Studio · SIL OFL 1.1. Weights 300, 400, 500, 600, 700.
afgjklqrstxyz
123&?!
Everything countable or coded — numbers, statistics, captions, kbd hints, uppercase labels, and the numbered kicker. JetBrains · SIL OFL 1.1. Weights 400, 500, 600.
The division is strict and meaningful: when a reader sees mono, they should be looking at a number, a label, or a system detail — never a paragraph. Both are OFL, so they embed and self-host without licensing cost. Substitute a system font only as a runtime fallback (4.8), never as a design choice.
font-family: "JetBrains Mono", ui-monospace, SFMono-Regular, Menlo, Consolas, monospace;
The scale, shown live at its real sizes
Token map: --fs-body 14 · --fs-h1 32 · --fs-h2 19 · --fs-h3 16 · --fs-subhead 14.5 · --fs-caption 11. Large-format surfaces scale up but hold the relationships — numerals stay JetBrains Mono at every size. Text color is constrained to Ink, Ink Soft, Muted, or (emphasis only) Accent / reversed White. Hue is never a text color.
The signature — the brand's fingerprint
<span class="num">01</span>POSITIONING WORKSHOP
</span>
A mono, uppercase, muted label that opens a section, prefixed with a numbered span whose numeral is set in Ink. Renders as 01 · POSITIONING WORKSHOP — letter-spacing 0.08em, the 01 in --ink, an 8px gap before the label.
- Always JetBrains Mono, always uppercase, always muted with an ink numeral.
- Use it to open sections, slides, and cards — liberally. It is the brand's fingerprint.
- The numeral is a real index (01, 02, 03…), not decoration; keep the sequence honest.
- Never set it in Geist, never sentence-case it, never color it with a chip hue.
How the type behaves — and how it must not
- A third typeface "for personality."
- Body set in JetBrains Mono.
- A system font chosen because Geist "is close enough."
- Stretch, condense, or faux-bold.
- Colored text in a chip hue.
- The kicker in Geist or sentence case.
- Justified or centered body; all-caps Geist for long strings.
- Off-scale H1 sizes in product; italics for emphasis.
Imagery
LEVR shows its work, not its polish. Documentary photography, line icons, framed product screens, ink-on-white charts: every image earns its place by carrying information. Decoration isn't the job.
Documentary, not stock
Every LEVR photograph reads as a real moment — an executive team mid-decision, a facilitator mid-gesture, a recorder on a table between two coffees. Candid over posed. The visual form of the brand's core claim: trust through specificity, not decoration. There is no LEVR photo library yet — everything here is direction to brief a real shoot or to generate images that read as one.
- Soft, natural, directional — window light.
- Bright and airy; rooms feel open.
- No hard flash, no studio gloss, no rim-lit hero.
- Shadows gentle and long, not crushed.
- Neutral and desaturated; never competes with the black-on-white brand.
- Warmth from real materials — wood, paper, skin — not a filter.
- Black-and-white is the default for executive portraits.
- Generous negative space — a headline can sit in the white beside the subject.
- Subject off-center. The picture leaves room, the way the layout does.
- Shallow depth of field; one plane sharp.
Proposed v2 spec Cast real operators, not models. Wardrobe muted, solid, uncluttered — no loud logos. Location: architectural spaces with clean lines and daylight; never a green-screen set or an obvious stock interior.
Five canonical setups
| № | Setup | What it shows | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | The room | Executives around a table, mid-discussion | The workshop as it happens. Candid, no eye contact. |
| 02 | The facilitator | Calm, mid-gesture at a board | The delivery layer — a person, not a platform. |
| 03 | The craft | Notebook, recorder, a laptop showing the Flywheel | Objects of the work. Close, shallow focus, warm tones. |
| 04 | The space | Architectural negative space, daylight | The pause image. Room for a headline. Often no people. |
| 05 | Portraits | B&W, eye contact, shallow focus | Founders, facilitators, clients. Black-and-white by default. |
- Shoot real moments in real rooms, off-center, with room to breathe.
- Keep the grade neutral and desaturated; let materials carry the only warmth.
- Default portraits to black-and-white.
- Leave negative space for type.
- Stock handshakes, headset / call-center clichés, fake-diverse crowds.
- Teal-and-orange grades, neon, or heavy filters.
- HDR over-processing — no glowing halos, no crushed micro-contrast.
- Hard flash, studio gloss, or busy backgrounds that fight the subject.
Inline SVG line icons — never emoji
One unified line-icon family: thin, even stroke; open, geometric forms; no fills, no duotone, no cartoon shapes. Icons sit quietly beside text — they clarify, they don't decorate.
Proposed v2 spec codifies the existing look into exact values so new icons stay on-system.
Held, not pasted
LEVR sells software, so screenshots must look held. The framing rule — the standing convention — is: a 1px border in --line, a 20–24px radius, and a soft shadow (--shadow-card). Never a raw screenshot flush on the canvas, never browser chrome, a device tilt, a loud shadow, or a gradient backdrop.
Data visualization
Ink on white — bars, lines, and axes in the grayscale ramp. Numerals in JetBrains Mono. Hue only as the five categorical chips, never a new chart color. Label directly, no chartjunk, and color is never the sole cue.
Grid & composition
Content max-width 1400px, centered. Card grids use repeat(N, minmax(0, 1fr)) — the minmax(0,…) is mandatory. Whitespace is a feature; one idea per view; align to the grid.
Voice & Tone
LEVR writes the way it designs: quiet, specific, and stripped of ornament. The numbers do the persuading. If a sentence carries three adjectives, cut two.
Personality becomes voice, voice becomes practice
Voice is constant. It is LEVR's personality in language — the traits that never change. The workshop room and the legal footer are the same brand talking.
Tone flexes. It is how that voice is dialed up or down for the moment — warmer in a welcome, plainer in an error, more sober in a legal clause. The voice is the song; tone adjusts which parts you turn up. LEVR is never vague, never hyped, never loud, regardless of context.
| Personality | Voice trait | What it means — and doesn't | Shows up as |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quiet, premium | Quiet, not timid | Restraint is confidence. We under-state because the facts carry the weight. | Declarative sentences. No hedging, no hype, no exclamation points. |
| Editorial | Specific, not vague | Trust comes from specificity. A real number beats an adjective. | $35,000, 7–9 hours, real names, real dates. |
| Editorial, restrained | Editorial, not decorative | Every word earns its place. Ornament is cut. | One claim, one proof. No adjective stacks. No filler. |
| Documentary seriousness | Serious, not stiff | The work is serious; the writing stays human. | Plain words. Contractions where they warm the line. |
Numbers are the rhetoric. Reach for the figure before the adjective.
One claim, one proof. A sentence makes a single point and supports it with a single fact.
Cut adjectives. Three adjectives hide two missing facts.
Real names, real dates. "Chad runs the facilitation" beats "our team handles delivery."
Say it, then stop. No windup, no summary of what you're about to say, no restating at the end. White space around a plain sentence is the LEVR move.
The same voice across the contexts LEVR writes in
| Context | Tone setting | On-brand move | Micro-example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Workshop room | Calm, plain, curious. Warmth on, hype off. | Ask the sharp question; let silence sit. | "Let's name the one thing worth working on for the next 6–12 months." |
| Investor deck | Declarative, spare, number-led. | State the thesis, then the figure. One idea per slide. | "One workshop. Then the system to execute it — 50+ assets, built in 7–9 hours." |
| Dashboard UI | Brief, functional, human. No cleverness. | Say what the control does or what's here. | "No assets yet. Your first build lands here when the workshop wraps." |
| Error states | Plain, accountable, un-cute. | Own it, say what happened, offer the next step. | "That upload didn't go through. Check the file size and try again." |
| Social / LinkedIn | Confident, specific, quiet. A number in line one. | Lead with the concrete fact. No engagement-bait. | "A go-to-market asset suite used to take an agency two months. We build it in a day." |
| Legal / terms | Warm but plain; humor silenced, voice intact. | Plain active voice. No archaic "hereby / pursuant." | "You can cancel anytime from your account settings. We'll bill through the end of the current period." |
| Success / published | Spirited but restrained. | Name the win, don't over-hype. | "Your Flywheel is live — 52 assets, ready to hand to your team." |
| Facilitator recruitment | Direct, respectful, unglamorized. | State the model and economics plainly. | "Accredited facilitators run LEVR for roughly 30 clients a year on an 80/20 split." |
Read down the emotional-stakes column: the celebration line, the error line, and the legal line are unmistakably different registers — and unmistakably the same brand.
The highest-value asset in this chapter
Same message, written off-voice, then in LEVR's voice, with the edit named. Hold your own draft against the left column.
Decide once; apply everywhere
We use
- positioning, go-to-market
- built in 7–9 hours
- workshop, facilitator, the room
- specific, plain, clear
- the system to act on it
- $35,000 · 50+ assets
- accredited facilitators
- live, shipped, ready
We avoid
- synergy, solutions, offerings
- lightning-fast, blazing, instant
- session, engagement, touchpoint
- cutting-edge, next-gen, best-in-class
- end-to-end, holistic solution
- affordable, comprehensive, scalable
- ninjas, rockstars, gurus
- leverage, unlock, supercharge
Never say: "revolutionary," "game-changing," "world-class," "seamless," "robust," "innovative," "transform your business," "take it to the next level," "think outside the box." If a word could sit on any SaaS homepage, it can't sit on LEVR's.
Brand Architecture
LEVR is a branded house. One master name, one ink mark, and a family of products that all read LEVR <Product>. Nothing stands alone; everything ladders up.
The master brand leads; every product is subordinate
Not a house of brands
Products don't get their own logos, colors, or voices. No LEVR product looks like it came from a different company.
The master name always leads
A product is LEVR first, then its label. The reader never has to work out whether something is a LEVR product.
The system is shared
Every product inherits Geist + JetBrains Mono, pure white, solid-black accent, the chip taxonomy, and the documentary voice.
Every product, the same lockup — only the sub-label changes
LEVRFlywheelLEVRLoopsLEVROS- The sub-label sits below the wordmark, never beside it, never above.
- Always mono, always the quieter element — the master name leads visually.
- One product per lockup. No stacked sub-labels or hybrids ("LEVR Flywheel + Loops").
- The mark, wordmark, and sub-label are a fixed unit. Ship the file; don't rebuild it ad hoc.
- Never spell the wordmark "Lever." Never recolor the mark or set the lockup on a busy photo without a clear-space pad.
Proposed v2 spec Clear space equals the height of the mark square (~28px) on all four sides. The mark alone (favicon, app icon, avatar, a stamp on merch) is used only where LEVR is already established by context. First impressions use the full lockup.
Keep LEVR primary; keep relationships clear
Co-branding & partnerships
- Partner logos stay separate — beside LEVR with a hairline divider, never merged.
- Never larger than LEVR. Size to equal optical weight or smaller.
- Clear space is respected on both sides.
- One relationship, stated plainly: "Backed by Rally Co," "Delivered by [Facilitator]."
- Client brand lives inside the delivered asset — never on the LEVR chrome.
Naming a new product
- It fits the visual system in this guide with no exceptions requested.
- Its name is a plain descriptor of the job (LEVR <Noun>), not a coined sub-brand.
- It passes the value test in 7.1 — the name adds value both ways.
- New product names and lockups are approved by the brand owner before release.
Product names are plain descriptors, not sub-brands with their own equity. "Flywheel," "Loops," "Pulse" describe the job; "LEVR" carries the brand.
Application
The system proven on the surfaces LEVR actually ships — dashboards, decks, documents, social, and stationery. Same white canvas, same ink, same restraint, everywhere.
The Flywheel shell — LEVR's flagship surface
Self-contained HTML, pure white, one idea per slide
| Pattern | Use it for |
|---|---|
| Title / cover | Wordmark lockup top-left, one Geist thesis headline, a muted subhead, a small mono meta row. Acres of white. |
| Section divider | A large numbered mono kicker + short Geist title. Almost bare. |
| Statement / big idea | One Geist sentence at large size, nothing else. The pause slide. |
| Standard content | Kicker + title + 3–5 clean rows with hairline dividers. Rows over dense bullets. |
| Stat / metric row | 2–4 columns, each a big JetBrains Mono number + mono label — $35K / WORKSHOP · 7–9 hrs / BUILD · 50+ / ASSETS. |
| Three-up card grid | Three 24px cards, each numbered 01/02/03, a Geist H3, one line of body. |
| Image-led | A framed product graphic or photo filling the slide; headline + caption in the white margin. Frame per 05.6. |
| Quote | A large Geist quote (weight 500), attribution in mono. |
| Comparison | Two columns split by a hairline — old way (muted) vs. LEVR (ink). |
| Roadmap | Numbered mono stages (01 → 02 → 03), short Geist labels, status chips. |
| Team | B&W portraits, name in Geist 600, role in mono. Chase, Chad, Justin, Jeff; "Backed by Rally Co." |
The same restraint on every surface
White canvas, Geist 400 body, mono kickers & numerals, sentence-case headings, hairline dividers, a running footer on every page. This guide is the reference.
LinkedIn feed image 1.91:1. Ink-on-white, a numbered mono kicker, one Geist headline, a single hero number. No stock, no colored backgrounds, no emoji.
White stock, black ink. Name in Geist 600; contact in JetBrains Mono. The dark mark or wordmark, one only, generous clear space. No chips, no color.
Plain text over image logos. One quiet line: Chase Bowers · LEVR · levr.[domain]. No banners, no social rows, no color.
The mark off-screen proposed v2 spec
One element only — a single mark or the wordmark, never both. One color only — black-on-white or white-on-black; hue never appears on apparel. Generous clear space; small and quiet beats large and loud. Method by material: embroidery for knitwear, screen print for tees and totes, blind deboss for paper goods.
Governance
This guide only holds if it's kept current and actually enforced. Here's the version, where the files live, who approves the unusual case — and the fact that this brand is partly run by AI agents reading these same specs.
| Version | 2.0 |
| Date | July 2026 |
| Supersedes | v1 (2026-06-09), extracted from the Flywheel v7 dashboard shell |
| Status | House style for every LEVR-facing surface. No page circulates unlabeled. |
The single source of truth — read by humans and agents alike
| File | What it is |
|---|---|
| brand-style-guide.md | The v1 written reference — tokens, components, philosophy. |
| levr-tokens.css | Drop-in CSS: all tokens, base type scale, core components. |
| index.html | The living visual style guide, rendered in the style itself. |
| guide/ | This portal — the full sectioned guide (00–09) and assets. |
| deck-pack/ | The deck brand pack — slide patterns and graphics. |
- Keep the machine-readable layer in sync with this document.
- Write specs an agent can follow literally — exact token names, exact values, explicit do/don't. Precision here is what keeps 50+ agent-built assets on-brand.
Run this before any LEVR surface goes out
- Canvas pure white; the only accent is solid black #000000.
- Only Geist + JetBrains Mono loaded and used.
- Numbers and labels in JetBrains Mono; the section opens with a numbered mono kicker.
- Hue appears only in a status chip, if at all — never as decoration or a brand accent.
- Cards at 24px radius with a 1px hairline border and soft shadow; product graphics framed per 05.6.
- Icons are inline SVG line icons — no emoji in chrome.
- Photography is documentary, neutral-graded, negative space intact — no stock, no teal-orange, no HDR.
- Copy is plain and specific: one claim, one proof; no hype adjectives; no exclamation points.
- Brand spelled LEVR, never "Lever"; products named LEVR <Product>.
- Real names, real dates. Generous margins; one idea per view.
- Version/confidentiality footer present on documents.
- Anything novel (new lockup, merch, print, partner) cleared with the owner.
Confidential — internal & facilitator network. This guide and the brand kit are for LEVR's team and its accredited facilitators. Not for public distribution. © LEVR. All rights reserved. The LEVR name and mark are protected; trademark use outside these guidelines requires owner approval.
The go-to-market operating system · Confidential