Home page: brief

The landing page of the full Seeds of Renaissance site, not a standalone one-page site. It goes live as soon as it is good enough and then keeps changing.

TL;DR

A calm page that scrolls normally and follows the Experiences sequence, with a few quiet moments of magic and little interaction. It opens with a line that speaks to the reader's longing and an invitation to the Greenhouse newsletter. It says plainly what we are, invites people to join the calls, and offers two ways to go deeper: courses and the podcast.

Intentions

• Orient fast: within about five seconds a newcomer knows who we are, that it is for them, and what to do next.
• Main action: sign up to the Greenhouse newsletter (once a month).
• Second action: join a call (in 3a).
• Ways deeper: courses and the podcast. The vision is one link away from section 2.

Feel

• Grounded hope, leaning towards dawn: hope earned by facing the dark, not by skipping past it.
• A little off-centre, earthy and crafted: paper, torn edges, woodcuts.
• Calm and spacious, with moments of beauty and awe borrowed from Experiences.
• Not glossy, corporate, wellness or woo, and not a hard sell.

Why a normal page, not an interactive one. Heavy scroll-driven animation makes visitors sit through a show before they learn what we are or what to do. It is weaker on mobile, for accessibility and for search, and it tires people who come back. SpaceX is the model: full-bleed media, one line, one button, normal scrolling. In practice:

• Standard sections built from the design system.
• Slow, quiet motion at most (a background loop, a fade), turned off under prefers-reduced-motion.
• Texture does the character work, not animation.
• The full Experiences live on their own page, linked from the home page.

Sources: Rufus and Sylvie's notes (October 2026); the Experiences home sequence (../../sor-experiences-2026/experiences/00-home/brief.md); the existing design-system mockup (../../sor-design-system/examples/web/home.html).

Mockups

Two directions to compare, both built from the design system with real copy where we have it:

• A, conventional: the design-system home page, reordered to this brief. A photo hero (a stand-in for a dawn video) with the newsletter, the manifesto statement plus what we do (Media House and Gardens of Change), the Leap collage as a split with the calls, then courses, the podcast and the close.
• B, from the Experiences: Experiences frame 1 (the arrival line with the seeds settling on its letters) with the newsletter under it; frame 2 (Dawn) on night, brightening once; then the Leap, the Book (as Courses) and the Flight close, each still.

Live (shareable): mockup B · mockup A · hero video options (each clip plays behind the opening line, with our assessment; video brief). Republish with ../publish.sh.

Placeholders: podcast episode titles, the close line in B ("The seeds are already in the soil"), and dates and prices copied from the system mockup.

Step 0: review what we have

Before building anything new, Rufus and Sylvie review the existing design-system home page together. It is close already: photo hero (currently featuring the Global Connection Call), "What we believe", "Take part", a night section of selected work, Mythos, "Coming up", an interlude and "Engage". Note what to keep, cut and reorder against the sequence below. Its hero currently leads with the call; under this brief it leads with the newsletter.

Sections

1. Opening

• Line: For all those whose hearts burn for a new world to emerge. (Experiences frame 1 has a variant: "For all the living beings whose heart burns to see a new world emerge". Settle on one.)
• Background: video if we can find a good one, otherwise a photo or a quiet loop of the floating seeds. Component: .hero-photo.
• Main call to action: sign up to the Greenhouse newsletter. The call is not offered here; it lives in 3a.

2. What this is

• The main manifesto statement (Experiences frame 2): the "Human history has always been a story of transformation…" paragraph, then We are a vision and movement for civilizational renewal.
• Open question: is the paragraph enough? It says what we believe but not what we do. Suggestion: add one short line after it naming what we are, drawn from brand.md (for example "a media house and spaces of belonging: calls, courses, a podcast"). Keep it to one line, not a list of everything we do.
• Links: read the manifesto, and go further into the vision on a separate page (see design-ky7, Sylvie's narrative deck).
• Static, or a single slow brighten at most.

3a. Join us

A split screen: the "Leap" collage (walking.jpg, people walking toward the torn yellow field) next to the regular calls, with the next date and a button. This is becoming our "join us" image; the manifesto page hero already uses it. No animation. Naming (call vs gathering) is still to settle (design-3mb).

3b. Courses and 3c. Podcast

Two ways to go deeper, each its own beat. Leave the magazine and papers off the home page, because otherwise it is too much; they are reachable through the navigation.

• Open question: two sections or one mixed section?
  • Two separate beats: courses (white or paper ground), then the podcast (night ground).
  • One mixed section like the "Selected work" night section in the current mockup, with courses and podcast side by side.
• Avoid the label "Media" here; say "Podcast" (and "Videos" if needed).

4. Close

Newsletter again, support, and the footer. Components: .engage, .site-footer. Optionally a still ending moment from Experiences frame 5 (the swallows).

Cut for now: a "more of the vision" section. The vision is linked from section 2 instead.

Open questions

• Section 2: add a line about what we do, or keep only the manifesto paragraph?
• Sections 3b and 3c: two beats or one mixed section?
• What goes behind the opening: video or image.
• Naming and site structure: calls vs gatherings; Media vs Learn vs Community (design-3mb).

Build

1. Sylvie settles content and order in this brief (taste, copy, sequence).
2. An AI build copies examples/web/home.html into this folder, following BUILD.md and website.md. It uses only system components and real copy from voice.md, brand.md and content/.
3. Rufus and Sylvie tweak the copy and the details.
4. If the build needs a new component, add it to the design system rather than styling it here.