Copywriting

copywriting — copy is design

Stage: Phase 8 — Voice (consulted during every Phase 6 section build) - Reads: design/BRIEF.md (tone words, audience, offer), design/DIRECTION.md (archetype), design/SITEMAP.md part 2 (density budgets) - Writes: §Voice appended to design/DIRECTION.md + every string in components

Standard

Every string is written for THIS brief in a defined voice. Headlines survive the swap test: paste one onto a competitor's site — if it still works, it says nothing and fails. Microcopy gets the same care as heroes; alt text and aria-labels are copy too. A string that could have been generated without reading the brief is a defect, not a draft. Body copy is scannable, not a wall: readers scan in an F-pattern and rarely pass a paragraph's first two sentences, so front-load the point and break three-plus supporting clauses into a list rather than a subordinate-clause pile-up — the ≤45-word body limit below is the ceiling, not the target (long-form technical prose is exempt).

Voice definition (always first)

1. Take the 3 tone words from design/BRIEF.md and score them onto the Voice Matrix — four orthogonal 1–5 sliders: Formal↔Casual, Serious↔Playful, Plain↔Expressive, Reserved↔Bold. Then write one "sounds like" and one "never sounds like" sentence pair per tone word — six sentences total. The four numbers are the drift detector: every later string batch (hero, nav, footer, errors) gets a one-line check against them, so a witty hero can't sit beside a corporate-flat footer undetected.
2. German register (de-DE — decide before any German string): the Formal↔Casual slider made grammatical. Record Sie or Du plus a one-line brand rationale in design/BRIEF.md, then hold it across nav, forms, errors, confirmations, and transactional email. Sie for B2B, regulated, or trust-coded builds (Ledger & Lane; the Deutsche Bahn / Sparkasse convention); Du for D2C, playful, or modern ones (Loop & Thread, Framewalk; N26's deliberate break from bank convention). gate-content flags any mixed-register string the way it flags dead copy.
3. Fix 5 mechanics: person (we/you/it), contraction policy, sentence-length ceiling in words, jargon policy (which domain terms are in, which are out), humor policy (none / dry / warm — never wacky).
4. Write 3 calibration strings — one hero headline, one button, one error message — and check each against every pair from step 1 and the matrix scores. These are the tuning fork for every later string.
5. Append the result as ## Voice to design/DIRECTION.md. Phase 6 agents draft against it; Phase 8 rewrites in it.

Headline formulas (rotate — no two adjacent sections share one)

Rules: every headline contains ≥1 concrete noun; abstract -ify/-ize verbs (simplify, optimize, revolutionize) never carry the sentence; run the swap test on every H1 and H2.

Length limits (hard)

Density budgets in design/SITEMAP.md part 2 override these downward, never upward. When a kinetic-type reveal is on, split any line longer than one beat into multiple reveal beats with pauses (40–80ms stagger) — never shrink the font to fit; the prefers-reduced-motion fallback shows the full string at once.

Banned phrases (taste list, expanded — grep for every one)

From taste, absolute: "Welcome to", "Elevate your", "Unlock the power of", "Seamlessly", "Empower". Expanded, same status: "Supercharge", "Revolutionize", "Streamline your", "Effortlessly", "Take your ... to the next level", "All-in-one platform", "Built for the modern", "Blazingly fast", "Game-changer", "Cutting-edge", "Next-generation", "Best-in-class", "World-class", "Say goodbye to", "Say hello to", "In today's fast-paced world", "We've got you covered", "Look no further", "Unleash", "Leverage" as a verb, "your journey", "It's that simple", "Made simple", "Discover the difference", "robust" and "innovative" as praise, "solutions" unattached to a named problem. No emoji in production copy (✨🚀🎉 — taste ban). Max 1 exclamation point per page; 0 in error messages.

Microcopy standards

• Buttons: ≤3 words, verb-first, name the outcome — "Start free trial", "See pricing", "Book a call". Banned as defaults: "Submit", "Click here", "Learn more" (try a specific label first: "Read case study").
• Errors: what happened + how to fix, in that order, in the voice — "Card declined. Check the number or try another card." Never "Oops!", never "Something went wrong" without a next step, never blame ("You entered an invalid email" → "That email is missing an @").
• Empty states: state + action — "No projects yet. Create your first." Never a bare "No data".
• Success: confirm the specific thing — "Message sent — we reply within one business day." Not "Success!".
• Form labels and hints: labels are nouns, always visible (forms owns the layout); hints state the format before the error can happen ("8+ characters"), and validation errors follow the error rule above.
• Loading: name the work when it exceeds ~1s ("Generating preview…"); below that, the spinner speaks alone.

Process

1. Define the voice (above) if ## Voice is not yet in DIRECTION.md.
2. Inventory every string: grep components for JSX text, aria-label, alt, metadata objects, and server-action error returns. Nothing user-visible escapes the inventory.
3. Rewrite headlines first, in page order. Then read every H1→H2 aloud as a sequence — it must argue the page's conversion goal on its own (gate-content checks exactly this).
4. Rewrite microcopy: every button, error, empty, success, hint, and loading string against the standards above.
5. Sweep: grep the codebase for each banned phrase; fix all hits. Verify the hard limits on hero H1, H2s, and buttons by counting.
6. Read each full page aloud once. Any string you stumble on, rewrite shorter.

Anti-patterns

• "Welcome to [Product]" as a hero — announces nothing (grep: "Welcome to")
• A headline that is the company's mission statement instead of the reader's outcome
• "Learn more" four times on one page (grep: "Learn more")
• "Submit" on any form (grep: ">Submit<")
• "Oops" or "Something went wrong" with no recovery path (grep: "Oops", "went wrong")
• Title Case On Every Headline Word — default to sentence case; if DIRECTION.md decides otherwise, keep it consistent site-wide
• Lorem ipsum or draft markers surviving into Phase 8 (grep: "lorem", "ipsum", "TBD")
• Body copy that re-explains the headline directly above it — say it once
• A marketing paragraph that buries its point in a subordinate-clause pile-up — lead with the conclusion, list the rest
• Mixed German register — Sie in checkout, Du in a toast confirmation (decide once in BRIEF.md, hold everywhere)
• A kinetic-reveal line too long to read before the stagger finishes — split into beats, never shrink the font
• Alt text like "image" or "photo" — describe what the image argues, or mark it decorative

Worked example — Kaffeewerk Ost, roastery shop voice + hero copy

Moved to references/example.md — read only when this build's case is genuinely ambiguous; the sections above are the decision material.

Composes with

Moved to references/composes.md — the handoff map; load it when orchestrating this skill against its neighbors.