Seeds of Renaissance Website — Design (2026)

Archived 2026-10-05. Superseded by the SoR design system. Links below point at the old folder layout. Brand substance is now ../../brand.md and page copy is ../../content/.

Design exploration for the new Seeds of Renaissance website (the successor to secondrenaissance.net).

Goal right now: agree look and feel through mockups of a few real pages. Sitemap, IA and platform come later.

Starting fresh visually. Existing design (the 2R site, the May 2R design system, the Canva deck) is not a guide. The search is open. What matters first is getting the brief right: tone, what we are, what we offer.

Status

1. Brand → brand.md: single source for substance (no visuals). Brief → brief.md: the design job. Drafts 2026-09-28.
2. Content → content/. Real pages to rebuild (SoR manifesto opening, magazine, intro essay) plus image shortlist.
3. Moodboard → moodboard/. Five reference sites reviewed 2026-09-28.
4. Directions → directions/. Draft 1: A Living Magazine, B Studio Index, C Honest Workshop, D Dusk & Dawn. Mockups v1 (A, B, D, E; home + manifesto): artifact, source directions/v1/.
5. Choose a direction, then complete the page mocks and Instagram templates.
6. Design system → ../sor-design-system/, shared with the experiences project. The typefaces are already decided there and sit above the direction choice; tokens and components still come from the chosen direction.

Inbox (to process)

• 2026-09-28: Sylvie's early moodboards. Not yet reviewed.
  • Cosmos (first gist): https://www.cosmos.so/sylvieshiwei/sor
  • Pinterest, more recent: https://fr.pinterest.com/barbier3595/2r-blue/
  • Pinterest, more recent: https://fr.pinterest.com/barbier3595/2r-2026-branding/
• ✅ Processed into brand.md (2026-09-28): 2R brand narrative doc and SoR manifesto (opening snapshot in content/manifesto.md). Colour notes deliberately not used.
• Google drive folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1b1Wo1k9FDG4VykRs9ICQhQHjz-jSB38b - really only thing is high level 2R/SoR brand narrative in https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sWb8n6hryXfbT0uB5hGvAct9dqbYPNLJ594JIzAo4uc/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.b4nh0xsy71jq
  • but we may use this for artefacts that don't fit in git going forward
• The SoR manifesto: https://docs.google.com/document/d/13ClquJ8mXP2njNb0qGr2yJjbn6p23_f28J7yVvvBSDo/edit?tab=t.0

Tracking: beads epic design-lpe (bd show design-lpe).

Related

• Sibling project: ../sor-experiences-2026/, standalone poetic/animated experiences (seed, pop-up book, leap, temple)
• Shared design system: ../sor-design-system/ — stub; type decided, colour and components not started
• Content site: secondrenaissance.net/
• Planning: planning/projects/2609-seeds-of-renaissance-website.md (lip-1ie.1), rebrand 2608-… (lip-42k)