Brand system
Branding.
Palette, type, logo usage, voice, and layout references for the Boise Business Portal — used for both the directory homepage and every /business/<slug>/ profile page.
Brand statement
The Boise Business Portal is a clean, professional directory of real Treasure Valley businesses. The visual language should read calm, trustworthy, and local — not startup-loud, not corporate-cold. Every listing is a real person's livelihood; the design frames it, doesn't upstage it.
When in doubt: quiet blue-on-cream, serif for headlines, sans-serif for body, generous whitespace. Never a splash page, never a hero video, never dark-mode drama.
Logo
Usage
- Header: BB monogram + full wordmark, left-aligned, with a small "Local businesses · Boise, Idaho" tagline below the wordmark.
- Footer: same as header. Keep monogram + wordmark together, don't isolate the BB.
- Favicon: monogram only.
- Don't stretch, recolor outside the palette, add drop shadows, or slap the logo onto a target-brand background.
Color palette
All colors are exposed as CSS custom properties in /assets/portal.css. Prefer the variables over raw hex values.
Brand
Accent
Neutrals
Status
Typography
Two families, both from Google Fonts. Never mix in a third.
- Fraunces — display serif. Used for H1, H2, H3, and any "brand voice" line. Weights 400 – 600.
- Inter — sans-serif body. Used for everything else. Weights 400 – 700.
Voice & tone
Direct, respectful of the business owner's time, no filler. First-person plural ("we") when speaking as the portal.
Layout — directory homepage
The homepage anatomy, top to bottom. Only the promoted strip and the directory grid change day-to-day; everything else is chrome.
#directory · search input + industry filter + result count + card gridLayout — /business/<slug>/ profile page
Every business profile follows this exact structure. No per-brand color overrides. No custom fonts. The business's own branding lives on their own website; the portal is neutral chrome.
Rules:
- Logo image lives in a square white plaque. Any aspect ratio works — object-fit is
contain. - Description is one paragraph, 2–5 sentences. No headings inside it.
- Services list is 3–8 short items. Each item = one benefit line; no nested bullets.
- Portal CTA at the bottom is always the same block. It's the point of the page — every profile funnels back to portal website services.
Card / component tokens
- Radius:
--radius= 10px (cards),--radius-sm= 6px (chips, buttons). - Shadows:
--shadow-smfor resting state,--shadow-mdfor hover. - Hairlines:
--linefor internal dividers,--line-2for stronger separations. - Buttons: primary = brand fill · white text. Ghost = transparent · brand text · line border. Uppercase, 0.08em tracking, Inter 500.