V11 — Lumen

Thesis: clean institutional clarity — the calm, well-run register of a university consultancy society. White-dominant, generous whitespace, the verified 180DC green as a single confident accent, system fonts for zero asset weight. The design gets out of the way so a first-time visitor knows instantly where to go. Reference point (not template): Imperial College Union's consultancy society page — borrowed its institutional order and metadata-card device, kept none of its blue and none of its layout verbatim.

Design system

Specification

Palette

Paper #FFFFFF, green-tinted wash #F6F9F1 for alternating bands, soft tint #EAF3DF for callouts/chips. Ink #1A2417 (warm near-black), soft ink #4C5748 for secondary text. The verified 180DC green #78B038 is the only accent — fills, top-rules, chips; links and small green text drop to the AA-safe #4A7322. No second colour competes.

Type

System font stack (Segoe UI / SF / Roboto) — no web fonts, no asset weight, instant render, institutional-neutral. Weights 500/700/800; headings tight at −0.02em; uppercase 0.14em eyebrows.

Layout & spacing

1080px measure, centred. Sections alternate white / wash so bands read without heavy colour. 10px radii, hairline #E2E7DB rules, one soft shadow on cards. Breadcrumb eyebrow on every page.

Signature devices

The metadata "fact chips" row (real facts only — founded, cities, first-branch); fact strip with green top-rules; service cards with a short green top-rule; a pill CTA in green; monogram team avatars (reserved for the photo session); a dotted vertical timeline for the engagement.

Method & honesty

How it was made & how to extend it

Build: hand-written static HTML/CSS, one stylesheet, no framework, no build step, no web fonts. The only assets are three compressed WebP logo files shared across the golden-set variants (globe mark + branch lockup + white wordmark). One JS-gated, reduced-motion-gated fade-in; everything renders without JavaScript.

Born correct on the rebrand spec: unlike the other variants, Lumen was built after the 2026-07-23 client feedback round, so it starts already-correct — the verified brand green (never the invented pine-green), the real logo and a green favicon, the affordable-not-free terminology, Project Manager / Branch President roles, the Mission and Our Work sections, the two real consulting cycles (Oct–Jan, Mar–Jun) and recruitment windows (Sept, Jan/Feb), and every honest placeholder. Content source: website/variants/content-v2v3v7.md.

Honesty devices: every gap is a visible green-tinted placeholder chip — impact numbers, case studies (with the Situation → Approach → Outcome structure shown), team photos, the roster (flagged pending Monday.com confirmation), recruitment portal, events, testimonials, partner logos, and the non-submitting form. Nothing is invented: no fake clients, numbers, photos, or logos.

To extend: new pages reuse .card, .facts, .chip, and the alternating band rhythm. Keep the one-accent rule — if a second colour wants in, it belongs to another variant. Keep the whitespace generous; the point of this variant is calm.

Build log

Log

2026-07-24 — initial build (golden-set addition). Created as the fourth "golden set" variant alongside V2 (Port), V3 (De Stijl), and V7 (Polder) — the set the branch will A/B and human-label this semester. Passes the automated eval (tools/eval-v2v3v7.mjs, extended to cover v11): 0 FAIL. Zero horizontal overflow at 390px (tools/check-overflow.mjs). Distinct visual register from the other ten variants — none of them was clean-institutional.

Outstanding blockers (shared with the golden set): (1) Monday.com roster confirmation pending — the monday MCP needs interactive OAuth; the roster shown is the live-page snapshot, flagged pending. (2) The "first multi-city branch" claim is confirmed live on 180dc.org and kept as-is; a one-line sign-off from Stefan Kluwer (Branch President) is recommended before treating it as fully final. (3) Case studies, team photos, testimonials, partner logos, and the recruitment/events links remain honest placeholders awaiting real content.

Still owed: standard Critic rounds (three, per the pipeline in website/variants/RESUME-STATE.md) — Lumen has had none yet.