Brand book v3.0

Vortex IQ Brand Guidelines

The single source of truth for how Vortex IQ looks and sounds, across the marketing site, the help docs, and the in-app product surfaces. Anyone producing customer-facing work reads this first.

Updated August 2026 Owned by marketing and product vortexiq.ai/branding
Contents
  1. The North Star
  2. Logo
  3. Colour
  4. Typography
  5. Design tokens
  6. Components
  7. Run and Grow positioning
  8. Voice pillars
  9. Tone by surface
  10. The nine triggers
  11. Vocabulary
  12. Structural patterns
  13. Channel playbook
  14. Worked rewrites
  15. How to use this document

If another document contradicts this one, this one wins. Update this document; do not fork the brand in your channel. Questions, corrections, and asset requests: hey@vortexiq.ai.

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.

These are the two buyer outcomes and the first decision on broad entry pages. The AI workforce explains how Vortex IQ delivers them. It is not a third door and should not arrive before the buyer understands the result.

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.

The two doors
Run outcome

Stop revenue leaks

Protect revenue the store should already be keeping.

Store Health · Store Development · Staging & Migration

Grow outcome

Accelerate growth

Turn missed demand, weak conversion and inefficient spend into revenue.

SEO & AI Visibility · Store Experience · Ads Performance

On buyer-facing pages, use the promise as the label. Stop revenue leaks is clearer than a bare Run. Accelerate growth is clearer than a bare Grow. Run and Grow remain useful route names, planning labels and compact internal shorthand.

One loop, five steps
01Detectwatch selected commerce signals
02Diagnosefind the root cause
03Actturn findings into work
04Deploy safelyapproval-gated and reversible
05Learnremember and compound

Use this detailed operating loop when a reader needs to understand execution. Do not use it as the first navigation choice.

03

Purple leads. Everything else supports.

These are the exact tokens the product and the website run on. Status colours carry meaning, so they never appear as decoration.

Brand
--brand-purple#5529d6Primary, buttons, links
--brand-purple-mid#392bd5Hover, secondary
--brand-purple-light#a58af3Soft accent, gradient stop
--brand-purple-deep#0c061fDark backgrounds, footer
--brand-blue#004794Secondary accent, sparing
Surfaces
--white#ffffffBase canvas
--surface-soft#f6f5f3Alternating sections
--surface-tint#f3f0fcBrand wash, callouts
--neutral-2#e8e6e3Warm panel
Text
--primary#222325Headings and ink
--text-bodyrgba(0,0,0,.60)Body copy
--text-fadedrgba(0,0,0,.40)Labels and metadata
--border-darkrgba(0,0,0,.10)Hairline borders

Pure black is never used.

Status
--success#1f9e54Healthy, fixed, live
--danger#d23f31Incident, revenue at risk
--warning#c47d12Watching, anomaly
Gradients
--brand-gradientlinear-gradient(135deg,#5529d6,#0c061f 50%,#5529d6 75%)Brand cards, icon tiles, the banner above the footer
--brand-gradient-softlinear-gradient(135deg,#a58af3,#5529d6)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.

Aa
Geist
Display, headings, and running text. Weights 400, 500, 600, 700.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 0123456789
Aa
Geist Mono
Eyebrows, labels, metadata, and code. Weights 400, 500.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 0123456789

Stylistic sets ss01, ss03 and ss04 are enabled site-wide via font-feature-settings.

The scale
TokenSizeWeightUse
display / h1clamp(2.6rem, 6vw, 4.6rem)500Page hero, one per page
h2clamp(2rem, 3.8vw, 3.1rem)500Section headings
h31.18rem600Card titles, sub-headings
lede1.22rem400The paragraph under a heading
body1.0625rem400Running text
eyebrow0.72rem mono500Section label above a heading
label0.72rem mono500Chips, metadata, step numbers
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 visuals14px to 18pxFloating console cards
Elevation
--shadow-smChips, small tiles
--shadow-mdRaised cards
--shadow-lgHover state, floating visuals
--shadow-brandPrimary button hover
Layout
--max1180pxContainer width
--bento-gap30pxGrid gap, every bento
.section7.5rem 0Vertical section rhythm
nav height4.5remFixed header
Motion
--easecubic-bezier(.16,1,.3,1)Every transition
hover lift-1px to -3pxButtons and cards
reveal600ms, 22pxScroll-in sections
reduced motionoffAlways honoured
06

The parts we build pages from.

Buttons are always pills. Cards are always 10px. Nothing here needs inventing twice. Everything below is built from the tokens in sections 03 to 05.

Buttons

Verb-led labels, one to three words. One primary CTA per section. The ghost variant is always the secondary of a pair, never on its own.

Chips, badges, and status
Default AI workforce Live, 200+ connectors Revenue at risk Anomaly

Status colour always maps to state, never to decoration. Green is healthy or recovered, red is revenue at risk, amber is watching.

Cards and building blocks
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.

icongradient tile
3step number
65% increase in operational efficiency, reported by merchants on the platform for 12 months or more.
Signature product visuals

Three visuals carry the product story. Use them in this order.

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 hierarchy
  1. Outcome: Stop revenue leaks or Accelerate growth.
  2. Problem and result: Name the commercial issue and what improves.
  3. Experience: Ask, Fix, Run, Watch or Workbench.
  4. Trust: Show the evidence, approval boundary, verification and recovery path.
  5. Capability: Name the relevant Run or Grow capability.
  6. Crew or technical foundation: Name only when it helps explain delivery.
Run outcome

Stop revenue leaks

Performance degradation, broken journeys, payment or integration failures, risky changes and migration work.

  • Store Health: Pulse, live crew
  • Store Development: CodeCraft, live crew
  • Staging & Migration: Bridge, shared backbone, not a crew
Grow outcome

Accelerate growth

Search and AI visibility gaps, store experience friction and paid-media performance opportunities.

  • SEO & AI Visibility: Beacon, live capability, not yet a crew
  • Store Experience: Prism, designed, not live
  • Ads Performance: Compass, live capability, not yet a crew
The experience model
MomentMeaning
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.
The trust promise

Show. Approve. Apply and verify. Roll back.

Never silently apply a change. Record approval in the engine, re-read and verify the result, preserve a rollback point where supported, and fail closed when evidence is uncertain.

Technical foundations
FoundationRoleWriting boundary
Nerve CentreDetectWatches selected connected signals. Do not imply every KPI or every connector is live.
Vortex MindDiagnoseExplains likely causes from available evidence.
Ask ViqExplainGives conversational access to connected context. Ask Viq™ on first prominent mention.
Vortex AgentsActPerforms bounded, tracked work within connector, permission and approval limits.
Vortex AppsDeploy safelyProvides staging, backup and rollback for supported commerce-platform workflows.
Vortex MemoryLearnRetains approved context, decisions and outcomes for later work.
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.

YESWe've lived the chaos, fixed the chaos, and built the AI system that stops the chaos.
NOMost 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.

YESStop fighting fires. Protect revenue and automate ops.
NOOur 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.

YESReduced quote turnaround by 96% for an Adobe Commerce B2B merchant.
NOPowerful 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.

YESYour store is already generating signals every second. It's time those signals worked for you, not against you.
NOVortex 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.

TOFU: "Am 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.

YESFor e-commerce ops leads who can't see across their stack.
NOBusiness 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.

YESYou've already built a smart stack. Vortex IQ makes it work as one.
NOMost 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.

YESYour store is talking. Until now, no one's been listening.
NOVortex IQ uses multi-modal anomaly detection across heterogeneous commerce platforms to surface latent operational signals.

MOFU: "Will 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.

YESStop revenue leaks with Store Health. Pulse verifies the finding before CodeCraft prepares approved work.
NOOur 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.

YESIn one Adobe Commerce B2B engagement, quote turnaround dropped 96% over the first quarter.
NO100x 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.

ObjectionAnswer
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.

BOFU: "Should 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.

YESThree 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.
NOVortex 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.

YESVortex Apps catches most regressions before they hit production, but it can't catch what your theme partner pushes outside our staging.
NOTotal protection across every 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. Pick the one that fits the audience, and show one, never all four.

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

On "catalogue" versus "supported": the catalogue has manifests, cards, and audits ready to light up. Production coverage is broadest where merchants connect first. "Supported" implies production-tested for all, which is not the claim we are making.

Banned phrases
PhraseWhy
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.

"Start free" stays valid as a CTA, because the trial does start free.

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 span"to", or a hyphen5 to 15 minutes. Q2-Q3.
Compound modifierhyphenAI-driven, 24-7, top-quartile.
Owned hooks

House style. Repeat them, they build recall.

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 real 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

How to use this document.

Five ways in, depending on what you are about to make.

Writing for any surface

Read sections 01 and 07 first. Choose Run or Grow, then apply section 08 (voice), section 09 (tone), section 11 (vocabulary), and the relevant example in section 14.

Designing a page or screen

Read sections 03 to 06. If a component already exists, use it. If it does not, build it from the tokens rather than inventing new ones.

Editing existing copy

Run it through the vocabulary table in section 11, then check the trigger relevant to its funnel position in section 10.

Using an AI writing or app-generation assistant

Give it the Markdown version as the controlling house style. Instruct it to preserve the Run and Grow hierarchy, distinguish the Run outcome from the Run action, and apply the status and trust boundaries in section 07.

Disagree with something here? Update this document. Do not fork the brand in your channel. Spotted drift on the live product? Flag it at hey@vortexiq.ai. The cost of an inconsistent voice is trust. The cost of one fix is ten minutes.