Brand book v3.0

The Vortex IQ brand, in one place.

Run and Grow outcome positioning, messaging hierarchy, visual rules, UI components and the full tone-of-voice guide. Everything a partner, designer, writer or app builder needs to create a consistent Vortex IQ experience.

Updated August 2026Owned by marketing and productFree to use, no sign-up
01

Start with the promise.

Every design and every sentence exists to make one claim believable. If a decision does not serve this line, it is the wrong decision.

Stop revenue leaks. Accelerate growth.

Vortex IQ finds verified opportunities, prepares the work and takes every change through visible approval, safe application, verification and rollback.

Outcome first

Start with the result the buyer wants. Product, crew and infrastructure names come after the choice, never before it.

Evidence before action

Show what is happening, why it matters and the exact proposed change before asking for approval.

Controlled execution

Apply safely, re-read and verify the result, retain evidence and preserve a rollback point where the workflow supports it.

One loop, five steps

01Detectwatch selected commerce signals
02Diagnosefind the root cause
03Actturn findings into work
04Deploy safelyapproval-gated and reversible
05Learnremember and compound
Outcomes first. Operating loop second.Detect. Diagnose. Act. Deploy safely. Learn.
03

Purple leads. Everything else supports.

These are the exact tokens the product and the website run on. Click any value to copy it. Status colours carry meaning, so they never appear as decoration.

Brand

Purple leads everything. Deep purple grounds dark sections and the footer. Blue is a rare secondary accent, never a substitute for purple.

--brand-purple
Primary, buttons, links
--brand-purple-mid
Hover, secondary
--brand-purple-light
Soft accent, gradient stop
--brand-purple-deep
Dark backgrounds, footer
--brand-blue
Secondary accent, sparing

Surfaces

White is the canvas. Soft grey separates alternating sections. The purple tint carries callouts, chips, and anything that should read as brand-owned.

--white
Base canvas
--surface-soft
Alternating sections
--surface-tint
Brand wash, callouts
--neutral-2
Warm panel

Text

Near-black for headings, 60% black for body, 40% for metadata. Pure black is never used.

--primary
Headings and ink
--text-body
Body copy
--text-faded
Labels and metadata
--border-dark
Hairline borders

Status

Status colours carry meaning, so they never appear as decoration. Green is healthy or recovered, red is revenue at risk, amber is watching.

--success
Healthy, fixed, live
--danger
Incident, at risk
--warning
Watching, anomaly

Gradients

--brand-gradient
Brand cards, icon tiles, the banner above the footer
--brand-gradient-soft
Gradient text, underline sweeps, progress states
Contrast rule: purple text sits on white or the purple tint, never on the mid purple. White text sits on purple or purple-deep. Every text and background pair we ship clears WCAG AA at body size.
04

Geist, end to end.

Geist sets every headline and paragraph. Geist Mono handles eyebrows, labels, metadata, and code: the small, precise type that gives the brand its technical edge. Stylistic sets ss01, ss03 and ss04 are on site-wide.

Headings and body
Aa
Geist
Display, headings, and running text.
Regular 400Medium 500Semibold 600Bold 700
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 0123456789
Labels and code
Aa
Geist Mono
Eyebrows, labels, metadata, and code.
Regular 400Medium 500
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 0123456789

The scale

displaythe AI workforce for ecommerceclamp(2.6rem, 6vw, 4.6rem) · Page hero, one per page
h1the AI workforce for ecommerceclamp(2.6rem, 6vw, 4.6rem) · The single page title
h2the AI workforce for ecommerceclamp(2rem, 3.8vw, 3.1rem) · Section headings
h3the AI workforce for ecommerce1.18rem · Card titles, sub-headings
ledethe AI workforce for ecommerce1.22rem · The paragraph under a heading
bodythe AI workforce for ecommerce1.0625rem · Running text
eyebrowthe AI workforce for ecommerce0.72rem mono · Section label above a heading
labelthe AI workforce for ecommerce0.72rem mono · Chips, metadata, step numbers
One h1 per page, and headings never skip a level. Headline tracking is negative (-0.02em to -0.025em); mono labels run positive (0.14em to 0.16em). That contrast is a brand signal, so keep it.
05

The rest of the system.

Radius, layout rhythm, elevation, and motion. Four small sets that do most of the work of making a new page look like it belongs.

Radius

--radius10pxCards, panels, inputs
--radius-pill200pxEvery button and chip
(product visuals)14px to 18pxFloating console cards

Layout

--max1180pxContainer width
--bento-gap30pxGrid gap, every bento
.section7.5rem 0Vertical section rhythm
nav height4.5remFixed header

Elevation

--shadow-sm0 1px 2px / 0 1px 3pxChips, small tiles
--shadow-md0 6px 20px / 0 2px 6pxRaised cards
--shadow-lg0 20px 50px / 0 6px 16pxHover state, floating visuals
--shadow-brand0 14px 40px rgba(85,41,214,.22)Primary button hover

Motion

--easecubic-bezier(.16,1,.3,1)Every transition
hover lifttranslateY(-1px to -3px)Buttons and cards
reveal600ms, 22px riseScroll-in sections
reduced motionanimations offAlways honoured
06

The parts we build pages from.

Everything below is live CSS from the shipped design system, not a screenshot. Buttons are always pills. Cards are always 10px. Nothing here needs inventing twice.

Buttons

Book a demoprimary, large
Run a free auditprimary
Get startedprimary, small
See how it works →ghost
Read the customer stories →text link

Chips, badges, and status

Defaultchip
AI workforcechip, brand
Live, 200+ connectorschip, healthy
Revenue at riskchip, incident
For merchantscategory tag
Current version v2.4.0 (Stable)version chip
Nerve Centre, live across 200+ connectorsstatus bar

Cards and stats

Feature

Nerve Centre

Watches selected connected commerce signals.

Tint

Vortex Mind

The memory graph that compounds, per store.

Brand gradient

Ask Viq™

Conversational agent, cited back to the graph.

1,400%
increase in organic traffic, one merchant store, Google Analytics
96%
faster quote turnaround, Adobe Commerce B2B
200+
connectors mapped onto one graph
50%
faster problem resolution

Building blocks

gradient icon tile
icon tile, small
3step number
65%increase in operational efficiency, reported by merchants on the platform for 12 months or more.
stat callout
checklist, brand and danger
Fix safely with staging, backup, and rollback
Automate SEO, merchandising, and ops with agents
Reactive reporting that arrives after the damage is done
feature list and tag row
  • Stateful orchestration
  • Managed context windows
  • No LLM ops to run
EcommerceMarketingOpsDev and IT

KPI rows, chat, and FAQ

KPI minicards
Add-to-cart rateDown 8%
Payment decline rateRising, anomaly
Checkout completionStable
Ask Viq chat
You  Which products are losing money on ads this week?
Viq  Here are the SKUs spending above target with no return.
Sourced from: Google Ads · Inventory · Orders
FAQ accordion
How fast is the first audit?

1 to 3 days. Connect your stack, the instant store audit runs, then the Nerve Centre keeps watching live.

Which platforms do you support?

BigCommerce, Shopify, Adobe Commerce and WooCommerce, plus over 200 connectors in the AI OS catalogue.

Will I lose control of my store?

Every proposed change shows evidence and scope before approval. Staging and rollback are used where the workflow supports them.

Signature product visuals

Detect, explain, fix loop card
Vortex IQDetect. Explain. Fix.AI workforce
DetectNerve CentreCheckout errors rising
ExplainVortex MindScript blocks render
FixVortex AppsRollback staged
Ask Viq diagnosis console
Ask Viq™Live, diagnosingVortex Mind
Why did conversion drop 12% on mobile today?
A third-party reviews script is blocking checkout render on mobile, adding 1.8s to LCP. I have staged a fix.
Detected · checkout LCP +1.8s
Diagnosed · reviews script blocking render
Fix ready · defer script, rollback staged
Recovered today£42,800
Apply fix
Want the raw component reference with every class name, variant, and token? It ships inside the HTML brand book, and the source of truth for the CSS is this site's own stylesheet. Ask us at hey@vortexiq.ai if you need a Figma library.
07

Two outcomes. One controlled way of working.

Run and Grow are the only first-level buyer choices. Experience, capability, crew and infrastructure names explain delivery after the outcome is understood.

The experience model

AskGet a read-only answer grounded in verified store evidence.
FixSee the current value, proposed change and full scope before deciding.
RunDispatch longer work and receive a task ID, progress and a result.
WatchReceive qualified alerts with evidence and a sensible next step.
WorkbenchReview findings, staged changes, approvals and evidence in one workspace.
Show. Approve. Apply and verify. Roll back.Never silently apply a change. Fail closed when evidence is uncertain.

Technical foundations

These names explain the technical operating loop after the outcome is clear. They are reference terms, not six competing products and not six first-level buyer choices.
08

Four qualities, testable line by line.

Voice is what stays constant everywhere we write. Run any sentence against these four. If it fails one, it is not finished.

Pillar 01

Confident, not arrogant

We have built this for global brands. We know the chaos because we have fixed it. Write from that authority, but never lecture, never condescend, never imply the reader is failing.

We've lived the chaos, fixed the chaos, and built the AI system that stops the chaos.
Most e-commerce teams get this completely wrong.
Pillar 02

Anti-chaos, action-led

The brand exists because running e-commerce should not feel like fighting fires. Every line should imply less work, less anxiety, more control. Lead with verbs. Stop X, start Y is on-brand and repeatable.

Stop fighting fires. Protect revenue and automate ops.
Our advanced platform uses cutting-edge AI to deliver insights.
Pillar 03

Concrete over abstract

Numbers, names, mechanisms. If a sentence could appear on any SaaS landing page, rewrite it until it could only appear on ours.

Reduced quote turnaround by 96% for an Adobe Commerce B2B merchant.
Powerful AI-driven insights for the modern merchant.
Pillar 04

Warm, not corporate

Vortex IQ is built by people who lived the problem. The voice should feel like a senior peer pulling up a chair, not a vendor pitching from a stage. Contractions, second person, plain words.

Your store is already generating signals every second. It's time those signals worked for you, not against you.
Vortex IQ enables organisations to optimise their digital commerce operations.
09

Voice stays. Tone shifts.

Same brand, dialled differently for the surface. A hero rallies. A docs page explains. An error message apologises softly and names the next step.

SurfaceDial upDial downAnchor
Marketing heroAnti-chaosConcrete, concision beats numbers hereStop revenue leaks. Accelerate growth.
Product pagesConcrete, name mechanisms and proofArchitecture until the outcome is clearChoose the outcome. Then show the mechanism and proof.
Help docsConcrete plus ConfidentAnti-chaos, less rallying and more explainingStart with Stop revenue leaks or Accelerate growth, then route to the task.
In-app labelsConcrete, short and specificWarm, no chatter inside buttonsRun Audit, not Get started with your audit journey.
Empty states and errorsWarmConfident, apologise softly when something is wrongWe couldn't reach Shopify just now. Reconnecting in 30s.
SocialAll four, the format demands voice densityNothing, but keep it shortOne mechanism named per post. One proof point per post.
10

Nine triggers, mapped to the funnel.

Where the reader stands changes what they need to hear. Use this as a checklist before anything ships.

TOFUAm I in the right place?

The reader has never heard of us. They scan in half a second. One job: make them feel named, seen, and at ease.

Trigger 01

Frame the specific category

Name the exact bucket the reader sits in. A specific role plus a specific pain, never a general audience.

For e-commerce ops leads who can't see across their stack.
Business intelligence for everyone.
Trigger 02

Identity matching, not identity attacking

Mirror who they already think they are. Never open with you're doing it wrong. That wakes the defensive brain and they are gone.

You've already built a smart stack. Vortex IQ makes it work as one.
Most teams have set up their stack completely wrong.
Trigger 03

Fluency

Short sentences. Familiar words. Predictable rhythm. Read every top-of-funnel paragraph out loud, and wherever you stumble, rewrite. Non-negotiable on the homepage hero.

Your store is talking. Until now, no one's been listening.
Vortex IQ uses multi-modal anomaly detection across heterogeneous commerce platforms to surface latent operational signals.
MOFUWill it actually work for me?

The reader is interested and is now testing plausibility. We are not asking for the sale, we are earning the right to.

Trigger 04

Name the unique mechanism

Name the outcome first, then the mechanism that makes it believable. Architecture is evidence for the promise, not the opening pitch.

Stop revenue leaks with Store Health. Pulse verifies the finding before CodeCraft prepares approved work.
Our platform monitors your data and provides recommendations.
Trigger 05

Typically atypical

Strong claims need calibrating language so the brain does not reject them. Add time frames. Add ratios. Prefer more than half to an exact multiple that sounds invented.

In one Adobe Commerce B2B engagement, quote turnaround dropped 96% over the first quarter.
100x faster quotes.
Trigger 06

Boring by design

Kill objections in monotone. Flat, factual prose signals this is not a big deal. Drama signals the opposite. Two or three lines per objection, no exclamation marks.

Every proposed change shows evidence and scope before approval. Staging and rollback are used where the workflow supports them.
Don't worry, your store is totally safe with us!
BOFUShould I buy?

The reader believes. Now they need to feel safe saying yes.

Trigger 07

Choice framing

Three options, ours in the middle. The brain pattern-matches on three. Make the other two real, not strawmen, so the choice reads as honest.

Three ways to start: keep firefighting in your current stack, hire a contractor at £4k a month to watch it, or start your free 14-day Vortex IQ trial in 10 minutes.
Vortex IQ has many ways to start.
Trigger 08

Transparent trade-offs

Name what is not included. Result, but limitation. Stating the limit builds trust faster than any feature list.

Vortex Apps catches most regressions before they hit production, but it can't catch what your theme partner pushes outside our staging.
Protection on every supported change.
Trigger 09

Big proof, small bite

One boulder, not a wall. A grid of twelve logos triggers suspicion. One specific, credible, named proof point lets both the fast and the slow brain sign off.

Olaf Akkerman, GM Retail UK at Microsoft: Vortex IQ stands out by showing merchants what's broken, why it happened, and how to fix it automatically.
Trusted by industry leaders worldwide.

Objections, killed in monotone

Will AI replace my team?
Vortex IQ does the watching. Your team makes the calls. Every action ships through human approval unless you say otherwise.
Will I lose control of my store?
Every proposed change shows evidence and scope before approval. Staging and rollback are used where the workflow supports them.
How is this different from analytics tools?
Analytics tells you what happened. The AI workforce tells you what's wrong, why, and helps you fix it.
Do I need a developer?
No. Connect your stack from the UI. The AI workforce handles the rest.

Approved proof points

Pick the one that fits the audience. Show one, never all four.

  • Krispy Kreme's e-commerce ops team uses Vortex IQ to monitor across BigCommerce, Stripe and GA4 from a single Nerve Centre.
  • Wells Stringham, Head of Experience at Apply Digital: saved us at least a week of dev time.
  • Olaf Akkerman, GM Retail UK at Microsoft: Vortex IQ stands out by showing merchants what's broken, why it happened, and how to fix it automatically.
  • Reduced quote turnaround by 96% on a single Adobe Commerce B2B engagement.
11

The words we use, and the ones we never do.

Half of brand consistency is vocabulary discipline. Run any draft through this table before it ships.

UseNot
Stop revenue leaks (Run outcome)Run as a standalone buyer promise
Accelerate growth (Grow outcome)Grow without the result it creates
Ask, Fix, Run, Watch, Workbenchsix buyer-facing product choices
Show. Approve. Apply and verify. Roll back.one-click fixes, automatic changes
AI workforce for ecommerceAI OS, operating system, tool, app, software
commerce, e-commerceonline retail, e-tail, digital commerce
merchantclient, customer, user, end-user
ops lead, growth lead, founderstakeholder, decision-maker, executive
connectorintegration, plugin, app
Nerve Centre, Vortex Mind, Ask Viq, Vortex Appsany paraphrase, any lower-case version
Ask Viq™ on first prominent mentionAskViq, Ask VIQ, ask viq
detect, explain, fixmonitor, analyse, recommend
safe, predictable, controlledbulletproof, guaranteed, foolproof
over 200 connectors, in the Vortex IQ connector cataloguemany, all the major, 215+, 70+
catalogue, mappedsupported, integrated
14-day free trial, free for 14 daysfree forever, freemium
technical foundations, operating loopsix pillars as the buyer journey

Banned phrases

powered by AIWe are AI. This is filler.
leverage, leveragingSay use.
best-in-class, world-class, industry-leadingUnfalsifiable, so it reads as noise.
seamless, frictionless, effortlessEvery vendor says it, so it says nothing.
transform your business overnightFails the calibration test in Trigger 05.
unlock insightsOverworked past the point of meaning.
robust, powerful, scalableEmpty without a specific number beside them.
synergy, ecosystem play, holisticConsultant language, not merchant language.
most teams get this wrongBreaks Voice Pillar 01 and Trigger 02.
free foreverRetired June 2026. The offer is a 14-day free trial.

Punctuation

House rule

Never use an em dash. Never use an en dash either.

Not in marketing copy, not in docs, not in CMS content, not in a social post. The em dash is overused, it reads as machine-written to a lot of readers, and the voice prefers shorter, more declarative sentences anyway. A hyphen covers every legitimate compound case.

Where you would reach for oneUse insteadExample
Parenthetical asidecomma, commaVortex IQ, the AI workforce for ecommerce, runs on every connector you have.
Emphasis or summary clausecolon or full stopOne AI workforce. Detect, explain, fix.
Strong aside or clarificationparenthesesConnect your stack (10 minutes max). The Nerve Centre does the rest.
Range or spanto, or a hyphen5 to 15 minutes. Q2-Q3.
Compound modifierhyphenAI-driven, 24-7, top-quartile.

Owned hooks

Stop revenue leaks.The Run outcome. Use for Store Health, Store Development, Staging & Migration.
Accelerate growth.The Grow outcome. Use for SEO & AI Visibility, Store Experience and Ads Performance.
Ask. Fix. Run. Watch. Workbench.The buyer experience after an outcome has been chosen.
Show. Approve. Apply and verify. Roll back.The compact trust promise for any proposed change.
Detect. Diagnose. Act. Deploy safely. Learn.The detailed operating loop. Use in technical explanation, not first navigation.
The AI workforce for ecommerce.The elevator line.
Built for merchants, agencies, and tech partners.The audience triad.
12

Four structures that carry most of our writing.

When you are staring at a blank page, pick the pattern that matches the format and fill it in. The structure is already approved, so you only have to be good at the sentences.

Pattern A

StoryBrand

Long-form: landing pages, sales decks, video scripts
  1. Character: name the merchant and what they want
  2. Problem: external (fragmented tools), internal (overwhelmed team), philosophical (this shouldn't feel like firefighting)
  3. Guide: empathy (we've lived it) plus authority (the logos, the case studies)
  4. Plan: choose Stop revenue leaks or Accelerate growth, then enter through Ask, Fix, Run, Watch or Workbench
  5. Call to action: direct (start free) plus transitional (see a sample report)
  6. Success: what life looks like running Vortex IQ
  7. Failure: what it costs to keep doing it the old way
Pattern B

PEACE soundbite

Short-form: social, ads, opening paragraphs
  1. Problem: the one most readers nod at
  2. Empathy: we know how this feels
  3. Authority: one credible proof point
  4. CTA: one clear next step
  5. Evidence: one quantified outcome
Pattern C

Three-option close

Bottom-of-funnel CTAs and pricing
  1. Always offer exactly three
  2. Position ours as the middle
  3. Make the other two real options, not strawmen
  4. Mark the middle one, the way pricing marks Growth as most popular
Pattern D

Card body

KPI and connector cards in the docs
  1. Card class line, category, tier
  2. At a glance
  3. Calculation
  4. Worked example
  5. Sibling cards
  6. Reconciling against the vendor's own dashboard
  7. Known limitations and merchant FAQs
  8. Tracked live in Nerve Centre, the closing CTA
13

What changes, surface by surface.

The rules below sit on top of everything above. Where a channel carries extra legal or trust risk, the voice gets tighter, not louder.

Marketing site

vortexiq.ai
  • Lead the homepage and broad entry pages with Stop revenue leaks and Accelerate growth.
  • On a Run or Grow page, state the chosen outcome in the hero before naming a capability or technical foundation.
  • The hero must pass the half-second scan test.
  • One big proof point per page, never a wall of logos.
  • One headline price per pricing tier, with the annual maths in small print.
  • Keep Growth as the marked middle of the self-serve path.

Comparison hub

/vs and /vs/{competitor}
  • Facts only. Every competitor claim sourced to their own public pages and cited on the page.
  • No disparagement. Describe accurately what they do well.
  • Complementary, not superior. They own one slice, we are the cross-stack operating layer.
  • One clear CTA at the end, the free audit.

Limits and guardrails

/trust/limits
  • Boring by design. State the hard rules in flat prose. The calm tone is the message.
  • Transparent trade-offs. Ranges not guarantees, live connector counts not roadmap totals.
  • Keep safety mechanics scoped. Staging and one-click rollback are BigCommerce, Shopify, and Adobe Commerce. Approval-gating is universal.

Help docs

docs.vortexiq.ai
  • The documentation front door starts with the same two outcomes as the website.
  • Task pages may name technical foundations after the user understands the task and expected result.
  • Avoid jargon the merchant will not recognise. Never avoid our own product names.
  • Worked examples stay concrete and merchant-readable.

In-app

app.vortexiq.ai
  • Buttons: one to three words, verb-led. Run Audit, Connect, View finding.
  • Empty states: warm and specific. No findings yet. Connect your first source to put the Nerve Centre to work.
  • Errors: monotone and factual, and always name the next step.
  • Alerts: lead with impact in plain English. Catalogue drift on 14 SKUs. £8,400 at risk.
  • Onboarding: ask which outcome matters first, then route the buyer into Ask, Fix, Run, Watch or Workbench.
  • Use Run as an action only when it dispatches work. Use Stop revenue leaks for the buyer outcome.

Social

LinkedIn and X
  • All four voice pillars run high. The format rewards voice density.
  • One mechanism named per post.
  • One proof point per post.
  • Short. If it needs a scroll, it needs a cut.
14

The rules, applied.

Five edits from our own surfaces. Use them as anchors when you are unsure whether a draft is on brand.

Homepage hero
Before

The AI Operating System That Runs Your Entire eCommerce Operation. Deploy a 24/7 Digital Workforce that connects every app in your stack. We give your business the Eyes to monitor every KPI, the Voice to strategize, and the Hands to execute tasks automatically.

After

Stop revenue leaks. Accelerate growth. Choose the outcome that matters now, then see the evidence and approve what happens next.

The rewrite gives the buyer two clear doors before introducing the system, capability names or technical architecture.
KPI card opener
Before

Active Subscribers (Est.) is a customer lifecycle metric tracked from ActiveCampaign data.

After

Accelerate growth: watch subscriber momentum, ask why it changed and review the evidence before you act.

The outcome and next action arrive before internal product names. Technical attribution can follow in supporting copy.
In-app empty state
Before

You don't have any findings yet. To get started, please connect your first data source by going to the Connectors page in your Settings.

After

No findings yet. Connect your first source, then choose what you want to watch.

Shorter, specific and aligned with the Watch experience without forcing an architecture lesson.
Email subject line
Before

Vortex IQ: your weekly performance report is ready

After

Revenue leaks found in your store this week

Leads with the Run outcome and the value, without brand-stuffing or an internal product name.
Pricing display
Before

Starter £39/month. Save 20%. £199/month.

After

Growth $1,199/mo, most popular. Billed annually at $14,388. Save 20% a year.

One headline figure carries the card. The toggle switches monthly and annual, and the total lives in small print. Never two prices competing for the eye.
15

Take the whole thing with you.

The complete brand book, including the Run and Grow content hierarchy, in the format that suits your workflow. No form, no sign-up. The HTML version prints straight to PDF from any browser.

Building something with us? Point your writing assistant at the Markdown file and instruct it to preserve the Run and Grow hierarchy before applying the house style. For a co-branded lock-up, an EPS, or founder bios, email hey@vortexiq.ai.
Press and partnerships

Writing about us, or building with us?

For interviews, founder bios, partnership announcements, or a tailored asset pack, get in touch and the right person on our team will help.

Connect directly to the commerce platforms you run