# Anti-patterns > **Brand system v5.0 · Messaging guide v1.0 · Updated 2026-08-15** > Canonical source: > What not to do. The first section is hand-authored; the rest is generated from the guides. The failures below are the ones automated tools produce most reliably. The Brand Guide's DON'T cards and the Messaging Guide's banned-word lists are published separately in this file, generated straight from the guides. Do not restate those here. This section covers what a model gets wrong that a designer would not. ## Fabrication dressed as competence - **Inventing a statistic to complete a sentence.** "Over 1,200 people came to Christ" reads finished, so a model reaches for it. Numbers come from the official ministry record. When you do not have it, write `[n]` and say the field is unverified. - **Composing a testimony from patterns.** A testimony that follows the four slots perfectly but describes no actual person is a fabrication, not a template fill. The slots are a structure for a real, consented, named story. - **Paraphrasing the prophecy to fit a layout.** It is quoted exactly, in full, or it is absent. - **Inventing a Bible reference that sounds right.** Verify or omit. - **Filling a bracketed field to make a draft look complete.** The brackets in the origin story are there on purpose, pending verification. Leave them. - **Naming a city, date, or person from context.** If the record does not say it, the copy does not say it. ## Generated imagery - **Producing a photograph of a congregation, a conference, or the field.** Law VI is documentary only. A generated image of ministry is a violation even as a placeholder, even labeled as one. - **Sourcing a stock photo of hands raised in worship.** An empty slot is better than a borrowed moment. Say the slot needs real capture and list what to shoot. - **Upscaling, restyling, or "cleaning up" a field photograph.** Honest color, natural grading. The moment carries the drama. - **Generating a wordmark.** The mark is an artifact, not live text. Use the published files. ## Register collapse - **Blending the institution and the movement into one voice.** Serif records and bold sans field material are two registers. A page that mixes them reads as neither. - **Making the parent's formality decorative on initiative material.** Sub-brand work is DM Sans led. The serif appears only where the parent speaks. - **Writing an initiative as if it were a separate organization.** One house, named front doors. The endorsement line is not optional. - **Styling EVERY1 as Every1, EVERYONE, or Every One.** It is EVERY1, always, in every context. ## Palette drift - **Introducing a tint, shade, or neutral gray that is not in the token set.** A ten percent lighter Midnight is not Midnight. If a value is needed and does not exist, ask for it to be added to the guide rather than improvising it. - **Using Parchment as a gray.** It is a warm paper ground, and it is never a neutral fill. - **Treating Flame and Ember as interchangeable.** Flame is the non-text accent. Ember is fire at text size. Reaching for Flame on type is the single most common color failure. - **Reviving a retired color** because it appears in an old file, a deck, or a screenshot. Two are retired by name: `#0077AA` cyan and `#5FAD56` green. The green survives in one place only, as a form success state, and never in a brand layout. The Brand Guide stopped listing them at v5.0 because the guide states what the palette is, not what it used to be. They stay recorded here so the audit can still catch them. ## Borrowed authority - **Reaching for governmental iconography.** No seals, no crests, no flags, no eagles, and no device that imitates a government office. The formality of this system comes from restraint, dated records, and signatures, not from costume. We carry authority. We do not imitate office. - **Dressing a document as a legal instrument it is not.** A record carries a kicker, a dateline, and a signature because those things are true of it. Adding notary marks, reference numbers, or seals to make a page feel official is fabrication in visual form. ## Audit theater - **Reporting compliance without fetching the manifest.** If retrieval failed, the verdict is BLOCKED, not SHIP. - **Marking checks "n/a" to reach a clean score.** Every `n/a` carries a reason. - **Auditing against remembered rules.** The version line at the top of the report is a claim about which standard was applied. Make it true. - **Passing gates by not looking.** The gates are the checks most likely to be quietly skipped because they require reading the actual asset, caption, or number. ## Scope creep on the standards - **Writing messaging for something on the roadmap.** SOSKA and the EVERY1 app receive no public messaging until launch. Books, music publishing, and clothing are outside the guides entirely by ruling of August 2026. - **Inventing a catchphrase.** If a line has to be explained to be catchy, it is dead. The load-bearing phrases are already written. - **Editing a guide silently.** Every change is proposed in writing, approved by Joel and Nathan, version bumped, and recorded in the changelog. --- ## Every DON'T in the Brand Guide Generated from the guide's Do / Don't cards, in document order. | Never | Instead | | --- | --- | | Text on Midnight: never Word Blue. Too little contrast. | Text on Midnight: White or Parchment. The flagship pairing. | | Body on light grounds: never Flame. | Body on light grounds: Midnight. | | Buttons: never Flame. 3.3:1 fails AA. | Buttons: Ember fill, white text. 5.4:1, passes AA. | | Flame’s job is never a ground. Accent only, ≤10%. | Flame’s job: display numerals and small uppercase labels on Midnight. | | Fire at small sizes: never Flame and Ember side by side. Pick one. | Fire at small sizes: Ember for links and accents on light. | | Serif headline: never faux-bold. No bold exists, so go bigger instead. | Serif headline: sentence case, one italic word for emphasis. | | Caps done wrong: never the serif in all caps. | Caps done right: DM Sans labels for eyebrows, nav, and the wordmark zone. | | Body text: never the serif below 22px. | Body text: always DM Sans, with true bold and italics. | | Logo on color: never Flame. The mark cannot compete with CTAs. | Logo on imagery: photography with a Midnight scrim. | | Text over footage: never Flame, never without the scrim. | Text over footage: Midnight scrim, white serif, sentence case. | ## Every banned word Generated from the Messaging Guide. ### Hype - insane - epic - unreal - next-level - game-changer - "God showed up and showed out" - "you won't believe" - walls of 🔥 emojis - ALL-CAPS excitement Hype manufactures a feeling. We report what God actually did. The record is more powerful than the adjective. ### Corporate Polish - leverage - synergy - solutions - optimize - engage stakeholders - "excited to announce" - comprehensive - robust We are a ministry, not a vendor. Corporate language makes the guide the hero and the mission a product. ### Churchy Insider Talk - traveling mercies - hedge of protection - "love on" - "do life together" - "press in" - "contend for breakthrough" - "a God thing" - "fresh anointing" (unexplained) - "blessed to announce" Insider language tells a new believer this isn't for them. Everything we say is for them. ## Rewrites | Never this | Always this | | --- | --- | | "🔥🔥 INSANE night!! God showed UP and showed OUT!!" | "Friday night in [city]: [n] people heard the gospel. [n] turned their hearts back to Jesus. The fire is spreading." (numbers from the official record only) | | "Join us as we press into a fresh anointing and contend for breakthrough." | "Come. Jesus is moving. Bring the person you've been praying for." | | "We provide comprehensive discipleship solutions for local church partners." | "We train the local church to walk with Jesus." |