DESIGN.md inspired by Sierra
Calm enterprise-AI — light canvas, deep-green hero, GT America, full-pill CTAs.
Compare to…
- bg
#ffffff - bg-cream
#f6f5f3 - surface
#f6f5f3 - hero-bg
#05351d - text AAA · 13.5
#302e2d - text-heading
#222222 - on-brand
#ffffff - on-hero
#ffffff - brand AA · 6.9
#006838 - brand-bright
#0a7d46 - brand-deep
#05351d - text-soft
#55524f - text-faint AA·LG · 4.4
#7c7873 - text-muted
#a39f99 - link
#006838 - link-hover
#05351d - glass-cta
rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.10) - selected-bg
#eef0ec - disabled
#a39f99 - border — · 1.3
#e4e0dc - border-strong — · 1.5
#d4cfc9 - border-subtle
#efece8 - border-hero
rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.16) - success-bg
#e3efe7 - success-text
#05351d - warning-bg
#f6ecd9 - warning-text
#6b531c - danger-bg
#f6e4e1 - danger-text
#8a3a2e - info-bg
#e6edf2 - info-text
#2c4a5e
- step-0 0px
- step-1 4px
- step-2 8px
- step-3 12px
- step-4 16px
- step-5 24px
- step-6 32px
- step-7 48px
- step-8 64px
- step-9 96px
- step-10 128px
- micro
2px - sm
4px - md
8px - lg
12px - xl
16px - pill
9999px
Maps the 8 canonical role names to this entry's actual tokens. Use these to plug the design into role-aware tools — shadcn/ui themes, role-aware Tailwind plugins, atelier-lint — without hard-coding token names.
- background → bg
- foreground → text
- primary → brand
- primary-foreground → on-brand
- accent → —
- muted → text-soft
- border → border
- ring → brand
theme.extend block for tailwind.config.js
:root { --bg, --text, --brand, … } you can paste anywhere
W3C Design Tokens Community Group format
Importable into Figma → Variables → Import
---
name: Sierra
tagline: Calm enterprise-AI — light canvas, deep-green hero, GT America, full-pill CTAs.
updated_at: 2026-05-29T21:43:27.608Z
published_at: 2026-05-29T21:43:27.608Z
author: webdesignhot
source_url: https://sierra.ai
spec: webdesignhot/0.1
quality: curated
featured: false
categories: [ai, saas]
tags: [light, minimal, warm, calm, enterprise, green]
preview_swatch: ['#ffffff', '#006838', '#302e2d']
related: [anthropic, openai, linear]
description: 'Sierra is the conversational-AI agent platform from Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor, and its site reads exactly like the company sounds — calm, credible, enterprise-grade. A light near-white `#ffffff` canvas carries warm near-black `#302e2d` body type set in GT America; the hero inverts to a deep forest-green ground with a 65px white headline. The signature is a deep, confident GREEN `#006838` — the colour of the primary "Customer stories" call-to-action — paired with cream `#f6f5f3` surfaces and full-pill (9999px radius) buttons throughout. Where most AI startups chase neon gradients and chrome-on-black drama, Sierra ships the visual register of an established institution: warm paper light, a single trustworthy green, and a generous restraint that says "we already have the Fortune 500 as customers."'
# Canonical 8-role aliases (bg / text / brand / border / accent / muted / surface / danger).
# Maps role names to this entry's actual token names so role-aware
# downstream tools resolve `theme.background` → entry's `bg`, etc.
# Auto-generated by scripts/add-aliases.mjs — do not edit manually;
# regenerate after changing color token names.
aliases:
background: bg
foreground: text
primary: brand
primary-foreground: on-brand
muted: text-soft
border: border
ring: brand
colors:
# Primary
bg: '#ffffff' # light near-white page canvas
bg-cream: '#f6f5f3' # warm cream surface — sections, light CTA fill
surface: '#f6f5f3' # cream panel / card ground
hero-bg: '#05351d' # deep forest-green hero ground (inverted block)
text: '#302e2d' # warm near-black — primary ink, never pure #000
text-heading: '#222222' # slightly cooler heading ink for light-section H2s
on-brand: '#ffffff' # white label on green / on hero
on-hero: '#ffffff' # white type on the dark hero
brand: '#006838' # signature deep green — primary CTA, links, accents
brand-bright: '#0a7d46' # hover/lift variant of the green
brand-deep: '#05351d' # pressed / hero-ground darkest green
# Neutral scale (warm-grey ladder off the #302e2d ink)
text-soft: '#55524f' # secondary copy, supporting paragraphs
text-faint: '#7c7873' # captions, eyebrows, helper text
text-muted: '#a39f99' # disabled, footer microcopy
# Interactive
link: '#006838' # links carry the brand green
link-hover: '#05351d' # deepen on hover
glass-cta: 'rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.10)' # translucent pill CTA on the dark hero
selected-bg: '#eef0ec' # green-tinted selected ground
disabled: '#a39f99'
# Borders
border: '#e4e0dc' # default warm hairline on light
border-strong: '#d4cfc9' # emphasized rule / outlined controls
border-subtle: '#efece8' # quietest division
border-hero: 'rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.16)' # hairline on the dark hero
# Semantic
success-bg: '#e3efe7' # pale green tint (echoes the brand)
success-text: '#05351d'
warning-bg: '#f6ecd9' # warm sand tint
warning-text: '#6b531c'
danger-bg: '#f6e4e1' # warm clay tint
danger-text: '#8a3a2e'
info-bg: '#e6edf2' # cool slate tint
info-text: '#2c4a5e'
typography:
display:
family: '"GT America", gtAmerica, system-ui, -apple-system, "Segoe UI", sans-serif'
weights: [400, 500, 600, 700]
opentype-features: ['liga', 'kern']
body:
family: '"GT America", gtAmerica, system-ui, -apple-system, "Segoe UI", sans-serif'
weights: [400, 500, 600]
opentype-features: ['liga', 'kern']
mono:
family: 'ui-monospace, SFMono-Regular, "SF Mono", Menlo, monospace'
weights: [400, 500]
opentype-features: ['tnum']
scale:
display-hero: { size: 80, weight: 400, lineHeight: 1.02, tracking: '-0.02em', family: display }
display-lg: { size: 65, weight: 400, lineHeight: 1.05, tracking: '-0.018em', family: display }
h1: { size: 48, weight: 500, lineHeight: 1.1, tracking: '-0.015em', family: display }
h2: { size: 32, weight: 500, lineHeight: 1.2, tracking: '-0.01em', family: display }
h3: { size: 24, weight: 500, lineHeight: 1.25, tracking: '-0.005em', family: display }
h4: { size: 20, weight: 500, lineHeight: 1.3, tracking: '0', family: body }
body-lg: { size: 18, weight: 400, lineHeight: 1.55, tracking: '0', family: body }
body: { size: 16, weight: 400, lineHeight: 1.55, tracking: '0', family: body }
body-sm: { size: 14, weight: 400, lineHeight: 1.5, tracking: '0', family: body }
eyebrow: { size: 13, weight: 500, lineHeight: 1.4, tracking: '0.06em', family: body, transform: uppercase }
label: { size: 13, weight: 500, lineHeight: 1.4, tracking: '0', family: body }
caption: { size: 12, weight: 500, lineHeight: 1.4, tracking: '0.02em', family: body }
radius:
micro: 2
sm: 4
md: 8
lg: 12
xl: 16
pill: 9999
spacing:
base: 4
scale: [0, 4, 8, 12, 16, 24, 32, 48, 64, 96, 128]
layout:
page-width: 1280
prose-width: 720
site-gutter: 'clamp(24px, 5vw, 64px)'
header-height: 64
grid-columns: 12
section-rhythm: '96-128px'
components:
button-primary:
background: '#006838'
text: '#ffffff'
padding: '12px 24px'
radius: 9999
font: 'GT America 500 / 16px'
hover-bg: '#0a7d46'
active-bg: '#05351d'
use: 'Primary CTA — deep-green full-pill ("Customer stories", "Get a demo")'
button-cream:
background: '#f6f5f3'
text: '#302e2d'
padding: '12px 24px'
radius: 9999
font: 'GT America 500 / 16px'
hover-bg: '#eceae6'
use: 'Light secondary pill — cream fill, warm-ink label'
button-glass:
background: 'rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.10)'
text: '#ffffff'
padding: '12px 24px'
radius: 9999
border: '1px solid rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.16)'
font: 'GT America 500 / 16px'
hover-bg: 'rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.18)'
use: 'Translucent pill on the dark hero — frosted glass, white label'
button-ghost:
background: 'transparent'
text: '#302e2d'
padding: '12px 24px'
radius: 9999
border: '1px solid #d4cfc9'
font: 'GT America 500 / 16px'
hover-bg: '#f6f5f3'
use: 'Outlined tertiary pill on light surfaces'
card:
background: '#f6f5f3'
border: '1px solid #e4e0dc'
radius: 16
padding: 32
use: 'Cream content card — soft warm panel on the white canvas'
input:
background: '#ffffff'
border: '1px solid #e4e0dc'
text: '#302e2d'
radius: 9999
padding: '12px 20px'
font: 'GT America 400 / 16px'
placeholder-color: '#a39f99'
focus-ring: '0 0 0 3px rgba(0, 104, 56, 0.25)'
use: 'Pill-shaped form fields, search — matches CTA geometry'
badge:
background: '#e3efe7'
text: '#05351d'
padding: '4px 12px'
radius: 9999
font: 'GT America 500 / 13px'
use: 'Pale-green status pill — echoes the brand at low saturation'
nav-link:
background: 'transparent'
text: '#302e2d'
padding: '8px 12px'
font: 'GT America 500 / 15px'
hover-text: '#006838'
use: 'Top-nav link — warm ink, green on hover'
motion:
ease-standard: 'cubic-bezier(0.4, 0, 0.2, 1)'
ease-emphasized: 'cubic-bezier(0.2, 0, 0, 1)'
duration-fast: 150
duration-standard: 240
duration-slow: 320
reduced-motion: 'respects prefers-reduced-motion: reduce — transitions become opacity-only, durations halved'
breakpoints:
mobile: 640
tablet: 1024
desktop: 1280
wide: 1536
shadows:
none: 'none'
ambient: 'rgba(48, 46, 45, 0.04) 0 1px 3px'
standard: 'rgba(48, 46, 45, 0.06) 0 4px 16px'
elevated: 'rgba(48, 46, 45, 0.08) 0 16px 40px -12px, rgba(48, 46, 45, 0.04) 0 4px 8px'
green: 'rgba(0, 104, 56, 0.18) 0 16px 40px -16px'
ring: '0 0 0 3px rgba(0, 104, 56, 0.25)'
accessibility:
contrast-text-on-bg: 11.9 # #302e2d on #ffffff — AAA at all sizes
contrast-text-on-cream: 11.1 # #302e2d on #f6f5f3 — AAA
contrast-on-brand: 6.0 # #ffffff on #006838 — AA at all sizes, AAA large
contrast-on-hero: 13.9 # #ffffff on #05351d hero — AAA
focus-ring: '3px green ring rgba(0,104,56,0.25) with 2px offset'
reduced-motion-honored: true
keyboard-nav: 'visible focus on every interactive surface; tab order matches visual flow'
prose-line-length: 'capped at 720px for comfortable reading'
dark-mode: null # marketing surface is light-canvas with an inverted dark-green hero block; no full dark theme offered
---
## 1. Visual Theme & Atmosphere
Sierra's site is what enterprise AI looks like when the people building it have already run Salesforce and Google AR. Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor didn't ship a purple-gradient startup page — they shipped something that reads like an established institution that happens to be new. Open the homepage and you land on a light, near-white `#ffffff` canvas carrying warm near-black `#302e2d` body type set in **GT America**. The register is calm, credible, and confidently quiet: this is a company that lists its customers, not its funding round.
The defining structural move is the **inverted hero**. While the page body sits on light paper, the hero block drops to a deep forest-green ground (`#05351d`), and the headline lands at 65px in white, weight 400 — large but unhurried, never shouting. That single dark band gives the page its drama without resorting to gradients or motion; the rest of the site returns to light, sectioned by warm cream `#f6f5f3` surfaces that lift content gently off the white without ever introducing a hard edge.
The signature is the **green** — `#006838`, the colour of the primary "Customer stories" call-to-action. It is a deep, slightly cool forest green that reads as growth, trust, and money in equal measure: the colour of a financial institution that also cares about the environment, the colour Sierra uses to say *we are serious and we are here to stay*. It appears on the primary CTA, on links, and as the deepest tone in the hero ground. Sierra is disciplined with it — green is the one chromatic note in an otherwise warm-neutral page, so it never has to compete with itself.
Every interactive surface is a **full pill**. Buttons, inputs, and tags all carry the 9999px radius (the production site computes it as a `3.35e7px` value that clamps to a full capsule). The pill geometry is the brand's most repeatable signature: combined with the warm light canvas and the single deep green, a Sierra button is recognisable from a thumbnail. The hero adds a third CTA flavour — a frosted-glass pill (`rgba(255,255,255,0.10)`) that lets the green-black ground show through.
Atmospheric vocabulary that captures the feeling: *warm-paper-light, forest-green-trust, full-pill-soft, enterprise-calm, institution-credible, GT-America-clean, cream-sectioned, restrained-confident, customer-led, considered.* Every surface lands as if approved by a CMO who has sold to the Fortune 500 before.
**Key Characteristics**
- Light near-white `#ffffff` canvas — warm, paper-credible, never cold
- Inverted **deep forest-green hero** (`#05351d`) with a 65px white headline
- Signature deep GREEN `#006838` — the one chromatic note, on the primary CTA
- Warm near-black `#302e2d` body ink — never pure `#000`
- **GT America** throughout — clean grotesque, set at weight 400/500, low drama
- **Full-pill (9999px) geometry** on every button, input, and tag
- Cream `#f6f5f3` surfaces section the page without hard borders
- A third "glass" CTA on the dark hero — `rgba(255,255,255,0.10)` translucent pill
- Restraint as a brand asset — one green, generous whitespace, no gradient
- Customer-led layout — logos and stories carry trust, not feature explosions
## 2. Color Palette & Roles
### Primary / Canvas
- **bg** `#ffffff` — the light near-white page canvas; the warm-paper ground for all body sections.
- **bg-cream / surface** `#f6f5f3` — warm cream; used for sectioned panels, cards, and the light secondary CTA fill. Lifts content off white without a border.
- **hero-bg** `#05351d` — the deep forest-green hero ground; the one inverted dark block on the page.
- **text** `#302e2d` — warm near-black, the primary ink; never substituted for pure `#000`.
- **text-heading** `#222222` — a slightly cooler heading ink used on light-section H2s.
### Brand & Accent
- **brand** `#006838` — the signature deep green. Primary CTA fill ("Customer stories", "Get a demo"), links, focus rings.
- **brand-bright** `#0a7d46` — hover/lift variant of the green.
- **brand-deep** `#05351d` — pressed state and the hero ground; darkest green in the system.
- **on-brand / on-hero** `#ffffff` — white label on green fills and on the dark hero.
### Interactive
- **link** `#006838` — links carry the brand green on light surfaces.
- **link-hover** `#05351d` — deepens to the darkest green on hover.
- **glass-cta** `rgba(255,255,255,0.10)` — translucent frosted pill CTA on the dark hero; border `rgba(255,255,255,0.16)`.
- **selected-bg** `#eef0ec` — green-tinted selected/active ground.
- **disabled** `#a39f99` — muted warm grey for disabled controls.
### Neutral Scale (warm grey off the `#302e2d` ink)
- **text** `#302e2d` — primary copy and high-emphasis labels.
- **text-soft** `#55524f` — secondary copy, supporting paragraphs.
- **text-faint** `#7c7873` — captions, eyebrows, helper text.
- **text-muted** `#a39f99` — disabled, footer microcopy.
### Surface & Borders
- **surface-0 (page)** — `#ffffff` white.
- **surface-1 (panel/card)** — `#f6f5f3` cream.
- **surface-hero** — `#05351d` deep green (inverted block).
- **border** `#e4e0dc` — default warm hairline on light.
- **border-strong** `#d4cfc9` — outlined buttons, emphasized rules.
- **border-subtle** `#efece8` — quietest division.
- **border-hero** `rgba(255,255,255,0.16)` — hairline on the dark hero.
### Shadow Colors
Sierra's shadows are warm-tinted and minimal. Cards lift off the white canvas mostly by the cream value-shift (`#f6f5f3` on `#ffffff`); explicit shadows are soft and low-opacity, tinted with the warm ink (`rgba(48,46,45,0.04–0.08)`) rather than neutral grey. A green-tinted glow (`rgba(0,104,56,0.18)`) is reserved for the rare lifted brand surface. The brand never uses cool blue-tinted shadows — that would crack the warm temperature of the page.
### Semantic
- **success** — bg `#e3efe7` (pale brand-green tint), text `#05351d`. Success literally is the brand green at low saturation.
- **warning** — bg `#f6ecd9` (warm sand), text `#6b531c`.
- **danger** — bg `#f6e4e1` (warm clay), text `#8a3a2e`.
- **info** — bg `#e6edf2` (cool slate), text `#2c4a5e`.
Note the distinctive choice: success draws *from* the brand green rather than a generic green-500, keeping the page on a single chromatic family.
## 3. Typography Rules
### Font Family
- **Display & UI & Body**: `"GT America", gtAmerica, system-ui, -apple-system, "Segoe UI", sans-serif` — Grilli Type's clean American grotesque, a single family across the whole site. Closer in proportions to Helvetica/Akzidenz than to a geometric sans; even, low-contrast strokes that read as trustworthy and neutral.
- **Mono**: `ui-monospace, SFMono-Regular, "SF Mono", Menlo, monospace` — system mono for the rare code or data label.
- **OpenType features**: `liga` and `kern` always on; `tnum` enabled in mono for tabular figures.
A single-family system is deliberate. Sierra never asks a second typeface to carry contrast; hierarchy comes from size, weight (400 vs 500/600), and colour, not from a serif/sans pairing. The headline weight stays low — the 65px hero ships at weight **400**, an unusually light setting at that size that keeps the page calm rather than declarative.
### Hierarchy
| Role | Font | Size | Weight | Line Height | Letter Spacing | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Display Hero | GT America | 80px | 400 | 1.02 | -0.02em | Largest editorial moment |
| Display LG | GT America | 65px | 400 | 1.05 | -0.018em | Hero headline (white on green) |
| H1 | GT America | 48px | 500 | 1.10 | -0.015em | Page title |
| H2 | GT America | 32px | 500 | 1.20 | -0.01em | Major section heading |
| H3 | GT America | 24px | 500 | 1.25 | -0.005em | Sub-section / card heading |
| H4 | GT America | 20px | 500 | 1.30 | normal | Inline emphasis heading |
| Body Large | GT America | 18px | 400 | 1.55 | normal | Lede paragraph |
| Body | GT America | 16px | 400 | 1.55 | normal | Default body copy |
| Body Small | GT America | 14px | 400 | 1.50 | normal | Captions, footnotes, sidebars |
| Eyebrow | GT America | 13px | 500 | 1.40 | 0.06em | Uppercase section pre-label |
| Label | GT America | 13px | 500 | 1.40 | normal | UI labels, button text |
| Caption | GT America | 12px | 500 | 1.40 | 0.02em | Smallest meta text |
| Link (body) | GT America | 16px | 400 | 1.55 | normal | Green underline-on-hover |
| Button | GT America | 16px | 500 | 1.0 | normal | Pill CTA label |
| Nav Link | GT America | 15px | 500 | 1.40 | normal | Top-nav |
### Principles
- **One family, contrast by size and weight.** GT America carries everything; hierarchy never relies on a second typeface.
- **Light headline weights.** The hero ships at weight 400 even at 65px — calm over declarative. Section headings sit at 500; the brand rarely reaches 700.
- **Negative tracking scales with size.** -0.02em at 80px, -0.018em at 65px, -0.015em at 48px, easing to normal at body sizes — a subtle broadsheet compression on large type only.
- **Warm-ink body.** Body copy is `#302e2d`, not black — it sits comfortably on both white and cream without harsh contrast.
- **Generous line-height for body.** 1.55 at 16/18px keeps long enterprise copy readable; headings tighten to 1.0–1.25.
- **White on the hero only.** White type is reserved for the dark-green hero ground and green CTA fills; everywhere else type is warm near-black.
- **Eyebrows in uppercase 13px / 0.06em.** Section pre-labels use letter-spaced small caps in `#7c7873` faint, never coloured.
- **Reading column capped at ~720px** even on the 1280px page — comfortable enterprise prose width.
## 4. Component Stylings
### Buttons
All buttons are **full pills** (9999px radius) — the brand's defining geometry.
**Primary (Green)**
- Background: `#006838` deep green. Text: `#ffffff`, GT America 500 / 16px.
- Padding: `12px 24px`. Radius: `9999px` (full pill). No border.
- Hover: bg → `#0a7d46` (brand-bright); transition `240ms ease-standard`.
- Active: bg → `#05351d` (brand-deep).
- Use: Primary CTA — *Customer stories, Get a demo, Talk to sales.*
**Cream (Light Secondary)**
- Background: `#f6f5f3` cream. Text: `#302e2d` warm ink, GT America 500 / 16px.
- Same pill shape and padding. No border.
- Hover: bg → `#eceae6`.
- Use: Secondary pill on light or dark surfaces — *Learn more, Read more.*
**Glass (Hero Translucent)**
- Background: `rgba(255,255,255,0.10)`. Text: `#ffffff`. Border: `1px solid rgba(255,255,255,0.16)`.
- Same pill shape and padding.
- Hover: bg → `rgba(255,255,255,0.18)`.
- Use: On the dark-green hero only — frosted-glass CTA that lets the ground show through.
**Ghost (Outlined Tertiary)**
- Background: transparent. Text: `#302e2d`. Border: `1px solid #d4cfc9`.
- Same pill shape and padding.
- Hover: bg → `#f6f5f3`; border → `#006838` (subtle green hint).
- Use: Quiet third action on light surfaces.
### Cards
**Cream Card**
- Background: `#f6f5f3`. Border: `1px solid #e4e0dc`. Radius: `16px`. Padding: `32px`.
- Shadow: none by default — the cream value-shift separates it from the white page.
- Hover: shadow → `standard` (`rgba(48,46,45,0.06) 0 4px 16px`); transition `240ms`.
- Use: Capability tile, customer-story card, content panel.
**Hero Card (on dark)**
- Background: `rgba(255,255,255,0.06)`. Border: `1px solid rgba(255,255,255,0.16)`. Radius: `16px`. Padding: `32px`.
- Use: Glass panel inside the dark-green hero block.
### Badges, Tags, Pills
**Status Pill** — bg `#e3efe7` (pale brand-green tint), text `#05351d`, radius `9999px`, padding `4px 12px`, GT America 500 / 13px. The default tag echoes the brand green at low saturation.
**Eyebrow Label** — no chrome, just type. GT America 500 / 13px / uppercase / 0.06em tracking, colour `#7c7873`. Sits above section headlines.
**Semantic Pills** — bg from semantic palette (success `#e3efe7`, warning `#f6ecd9`, danger `#f6e4e1`, info `#e6edf2`), radius `9999px`, padding `4px 12px`.
### Inputs / Forms
- Background: `#ffffff`. Border: `1px solid #e4e0dc`. Radius: `9999px` (full pill — matches CTA geometry). Padding: `12px 20px`.
- Font: GT America 400 / 16px. Placeholder: `#a39f99`.
- Focus: `0 0 0 3px rgba(0,104,56,0.25)` green ring; border → `#006838`.
- Error: border → `#8a3a2e`, ring → `rgba(138,58,46,0.20)`.
- Helper: body-small 14px text-faint below.
- Larger textareas relax to a 16px radius (the pill reads only on single-line fields).
### Navigation
- Header height `64px`. Background `#ffffff` cream-tinted on scroll; transparent over the hero (white links).
- Logo: Sierra wordmark, warm near-black on light / white on hero.
- Nav links: GT America 500 / 15px, colour `#302e2d`, padding `8px 12px`. Hover → `#006838` green.
- Right-side CTA: a green primary pill ("Get a demo") + a cream or ghost secondary.
- Mobile: full-screen sheet, links stack at 20px / 500; the hamburger right-aligns (matches the store's nav fix).
### Optional Components
**Customer Logo Rail** — a row of greyed customer wordmarks at `#a39f99`, 32px tall, on cream `#f6f5f3`; the trust device the brand leads with.
**Quote / Testimonial** — GT America 24px / 400, warm ink, with a customer attribution in 14px text-faint and a small green accent rule.
**Tooltip** — bg `#302e2d`, text `#ffffff`, radius `8px`, padding `8px 12px`, font `13px / 500`.
**Modal** — bg `#ffffff`, radius `16px`, shadow `elevated`, max-width `560px`. Warm-ink backdrop overlay at 60% opacity.
## 5. Layout Principles
### Spacing System
- **Base unit**: 4px.
- **Scale**: 4, 8, 12, 16, 24, 32, 48, 64, 96, 128.
- **Density observation**: Sierra is calm-density — generous but not as airy as a literary magazine. Section gutters run 96–128px; intra-section spacing uses 24–48px; content rows sit on 16–24px gaps.
### Grid & Container
- **Page max width**: `1280px` — the standard enterprise container, signalling familiarity over novelty.
- **Site gutter**: `clamp(24px, 5vw, 64px)` — comfortable on desktop, accommodating on mobile.
- **Grid**: 12 columns with 24px gutters. Hero spans full bleed; capability rails span 8–12 columns; sidebars span 4.
- **Hero treatment**: full-bleed deep-green band, 65px white headline anchored left, body confined to a ~720px column, CTAs as a pill cluster below.
### Whitespace Philosophy
Whitespace here is a credibility signal, not a flourish. Sierra under-fills relative to a typical SaaS landing so that headlines and customer logos have room to breathe — the page should feel like an institution that doesn't need to crowd you. Cream `#f6f5f3` sections do the heavy lifting of separation: rather than hard dividers, the page alternates white and cream bands so the rhythm reads as quiet zoning.
### Section Cadence
- Hero (deep-green, inverted) → Customer Logo Rail (cream) → Capability Rail (white card grid) → Customer Story (cream, large quote) → Product Detail (white, 720px column) → CTA Band (green or cream) → Footer (cream).
- The dark-green hero is the single inverted block; everything below returns to light. A green CTA band may reprise the hero colour once near the page foot.
- Adjacent white/cream sections separate by spacing and value-shift alone — hard borders are rare.
## 6. Shapes & Radius Scale
| Tier | Value | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Micro | 2px | Decorative dividers, slim chip corners |
| Standard (sm) | 4px | Inline tags, compact chips |
| Comfortable (md) | 8px | Tooltips, small dropdowns, code blocks |
| Relaxed (lg) | 12px | Larger dropdowns, popovers |
| Featured (xl) | 16px | Cards, panels, modals, textareas |
| Pill | 9999px | **Buttons, single-line inputs, status tags — the signature** |
Sierra's signature radius is the **full pill** (9999px) on every button, single-line input, and tag. The production site computes this as a `3.35e7px` value that clamps to a capsule. Cards and panels use a softer **16px**; there are effectively no sharp-cornered interactive surfaces. The system reads as a flat ladder of soft corners, with the pill as the loudest repeated shape.
## 7. Depth & Elevation
| Level | Treatment | Use |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | Flat — no shadow | Default page surface, hero, body sections |
| 1 | Value-contrast (cream card on white) | Cream content cards, capability tiles |
| 2 | `rgba(48,46,45,0.04) 0 1px 3px` | Sticky nav, small dropdowns |
| 3 | `rgba(48,46,45,0.06) 0 4px 16px` | Hover-lifted cards |
| 4 | `rgba(48,46,45,0.08) 0 16px 40px -12px` | Popovers, overlay menus |
| 5 | `rgba(0,104,56,0.18) 0 16px 40px -16px` | Rare green-glow brand lift |
### Shadow Philosophy
Sierra's depth is **warm-tinted and minimal**. Cards lift primarily by the cream value-shift (cream-on-white) rather than by explicit shadow. When shadows appear, they're tinted with the warm ink (`rgba(48,46,45,0.04–0.08)`), never neutral grey and never cool blue — a blue shadow would crack the warm temperature of the page. The one chromatic shadow is a soft green glow reserved for a hero-adjacent brand surface. The brand reads as confident paper-light interface, not a heavily layered dashboard.
## 8. Interaction & Motion
### Easing Curves
- `ease-standard`: `cubic-bezier(0.4, 0, 0.2, 1)` — Material-style; default for hover, focus, colour transitions.
- `ease-emphasized`: `cubic-bezier(0.2, 0, 0, 1)` — punchier exit; used on modal/hero reveal.
### Duration Buckets
- **Fast (150ms)** — colour transitions, focus rings, link hovers.
- **Standard (240ms)** — button hover, card hover, dropdown reveal.
- **Slow (320ms)** — modal enter/exit, section fade-in.
### Per-Component Micro-States
- **Button hover**: bg colour shift only (green → brighter green) — no lift, no scale. `transition: background-color 240ms ease-standard`.
- **Card hover**: shadow fades from none to `standard`; no border colour change.
- **Link hover**: colour `#006838` → `#05351d` over 150ms; underline thickens.
- **Input focus**: 3px green ring (`rgba(0,104,56,0.25)`) fades in over 150ms; border darkens to green.
- **Nav link hover**: warm ink `#302e2d` → green `#006838` over 150ms.
### Page Transitions
Calm reveals: hero text and below-fold sections fade in via `IntersectionObserver` at ~80% viewport, 320ms duration, with a small 16px translate-up. No parallax, no scroll-jacking — the brand's restraint extends to motion.
### Reduced Motion
`@media (prefers-reduced-motion: reduce)` — all transitions become opacity-only, durations halved. Translate animations are disabled; scroll-linked reveals snap to final state.
## 9. Accessibility & A11y
### Contrast Pairs
- **`#302e2d` text on `#ffffff` bg**: 11.9:1 — AAA at all sizes.
- **`#302e2d` text on `#f6f5f3` cream**: 11.1:1 — AAA at all sizes.
- **`#55524f` text-soft on `#ffffff` bg**: 7.3:1 — AAA at body sizes.
- **`#7c7873` text-faint on `#ffffff` bg**: 4.0:1 — AA at large sizes only (≥18px or ≥14px bold); use for eyebrows/captions, not body.
- **`#ffffff` text on `#006838` green**: 6.0:1 — AA at all sizes, AAA at large; safe for buttons.
- **`#ffffff` text on `#05351d` hero**: 13.9:1 — AAA.
- **`#006838` link on `#ffffff` bg**: 6.0:1 — AA; underline-on-hover supplies a non-colour cue.
### Focus Indicators
- Default focus ring: `0 0 0 3px rgba(0,104,56,0.25)` green ring with 2px offset on light surfaces.
- On the dark-green hero: `0 0 0 3px rgba(255,255,255,0.5)` white ring.
- Every interactive surface must have a visible focus state — no `outline: none` without a replacement.
### ARIA Patterns
- **Navigation**: `<nav aria-label="Main">` with a skip-link to main content.
- **Disclosure**: `<button aria-expanded aria-controls>` for collapsible FAQ/sections.
- **Dialog**: `role="dialog" aria-modal="true" aria-labelledby` with focus trap and Esc-to-close.
- **Live regions**: `aria-live="polite"` for form-validation messages.
### Keyboard Navigation
- Tab order matches visual flow: skip-link → nav → hero CTA → main content → footer.
- All buttons, links, inputs reachable via Tab; modals trap focus until dismissed.
- `Esc` closes modals and dropdowns; arrow keys navigate within listboxes/tab groups.
### Screen Reader Hints
- Decorative customer logos in rails carry `alt` with the customer name; pure-decoration marks use `aria-hidden="true"`.
- Icon-only buttons carry `aria-label`.
- The dark-hero block is a normal landmark — colour inversion does not change semantics.
### Reduced Motion
Honoured via the global media query: all translate/scale animations become opacity-only; durations halve.
## 10. Responsive Behavior
### Breakpoints
| Name | Width | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Mobile | < 640px | Single column, full-bleed sections, stacked CTAs |
| Tablet | 640–1024px | 2-column rails, narrower gutters |
| Desktop | 1024–1280px | Full 12-col grid, 720px prose |
| Wide | > 1280px | Page locks to 1280, gutters expand |
### Touch Targets
- Minimum tap target: 44×44px (WCAG AAA).
- Pill buttons: 48px minimum height on mobile (12px vertical padding × 2 + line-height).
- Nav link tap area: 44×44px even when visual padding is smaller.
### Collapsing Strategy
- **Header**: full nav at ≥1024px; right-aligned hamburger sheet below.
- **Hero headline**: 65px → 48px → 36px across desktop/tablet/mobile.
- **Capability grid**: 3-up at desktop, 2-up at tablet, 1-up at mobile.
- **CTA cluster**: side-by-side pills on desktop; stacked full-width pills on mobile.
- **Section spacing**: 128px → 96px → 64px across sizes.
### Image Behavior
- Customer logos use `srcset` for crisp 1x/2x rendering; greyed via CSS filter, not baked-in assets.
- Hero / product imagery uses `aspect-ratio` to prevent layout shift.
- Lazy-loading below the fold; eager on the hero.
### Container Queries
Used inside capability cards to switch icon-left vs icon-top layout when card width crosses ~320px.
## 11. Content & Voice
### Tone
**Credible, calm, customer-led.** Sierra writes like an enterprise vendor that already won — plain declaratives, customer proof over feature lists, no exclamation marks. Headlines state outcomes ("Better customer experiences"); subheads explain the agent platform without hype. The brand sounds like a board-level operator, because its founders are.
### Microcopy Patterns
- **Button verbs**: "Customer stories," "Get a demo," "Talk to sales," "Learn more," "Read more." Never "Sign up free!" never "Try it now →".
- **Error messages**: "We couldn't complete that request. Try again, or [contact us]." Specific, calm, no shame.
- **Success confirmations**: "Thanks — we'll be in touch." Brief and assured.
- **Loading states**: "One moment…" — quiet, never cute.
### Empty States
What they say: explain the state and offer the next step. *"No conversations yet — connect a channel to get started."*
What they don't say: "Oops!", "Whoops!", apologetic exclamations. The register is steady, not playful.
### CTA Verb Conventions
- Primary on hero: "Get a demo," "Customer stories"
- Secondary: "Learn more," "Read the case study," "Watch the keynote"
- Footer: "Read our research," "View documentation," "Contact sales"
The brand never trades in urgency or scarcity. The voice is invitational and assured — it assumes the reader is an enterprise buyer, not an impulse signup.
## 12. Dark Mode & Theming
**Light-canvas with a single inverted dark-green hero block — no full dark theme offered.** Sierra's identity is the warm light canvas; the drama comes from *one* inverted band (the `#05351d` deep-green hero), not from a global dark mode. Re-keying the whole page dark would collapse the "established institution" register and waste the cream/white value-shift the layout depends on for elevation.
The inverted hero is itself the theming pattern: when a section needs weight, it drops to the deep-green ground with white type and the frosted-glass CTA, then the page returns to light. A green CTA band near the footer reprises that inversion once.
If a downstream surface ever needs a true companion dark theme, the rule would be: keep the green `#006838` accent at full saturation, use `#05351d` as the dark ground, lift cards to `#0c2a1c`, and set body type to `#e8e6e2` warm off-white — but this is not currently shipped.
## 13. Lineage & Influences
Sierra's design DNA is **enterprise institution** rather than AI startup. The founders — Bret Taylor (ex-Salesforce co-CEO, ex-CTO of Facebook, OpenAI board chair) and Clay Bavor (ex-Google VP of AR/VR) — clearly briefed a page that signals incumbency, not insurgency. The warm light canvas, single trustworthy green, GT America grotesque, and customer-logo-led layout quote the visual language of mature SaaS and financial-services credibility far more than the purple-gradient AI-lab template.
What it inherits: Swiss/grotesque type discipline via GT America (one family, hierarchy by size and weight), the soft-pill geometry popularised by modern fintech and consumer apps, and the cream-and-warm-neutral register of brands that want to feel established. What it borrows from contemporaries: Linear's tonal-stacking calm and Stripe's hairline restraint — recast in warm light with a single green instead of cool monochrome. What it rejects: gradient meshes, neon accents, chrome-on-black drama, scroll-jacking hero animations, and "AI tech" iconography. The one chromatic green doing all the work is the most deliberate move on the page.
**Named influences:**
- **Grilli Type (GT America)** — the grotesque typeface that carries the entire site's neutral, trustworthy voice. *https://www.grillitype.com/typeface/gt-america*
- **Salesforce** — Bret Taylor's enterprise-credibility lineage; customer-logo-led trust layout. *https://www.salesforce.com*
- **Stripe** — hairline-border restraint, cool confidence translated into warm light. *https://stripe.com*
- **Linear** — tonal-stacking calm and disciplined motion restraint. *https://linear.app*
- **Intercom** — the conversational-support category aesthetic Sierra updates for the agent era. *https://www.intercom.com*
## 14. Do's and Don'ts
### Do
- **Do** lead with the light near-white `#ffffff` canvas and warm near-black `#302e2d` ink — the calm, credible base.
- **Do** invert exactly one block to the deep-green `#05351d` hero with white 65px type — the single dramatic move.
- **Do** reserve the green `#006838` as the one chromatic note — on the primary CTA, links, and accents only.
- **Do** make every button, single-line input, and tag a **full pill** (9999px) — the signature geometry.
- **Do** section the page with cream `#f6f5f3` bands instead of hard dividers.
- **Do** keep headline weights light (400 at the hero, 500 at section heads) — calm over declarative.
- **Do** use the frosted-glass CTA (`rgba(255,255,255,0.10)`) on the dark hero, not a solid white button.
- **Do** lead trust with customer logos and stories, not feature explosions.
- **Do** use warm-tinted, minimal shadows — value-shift over heavy elevation.
- **Do** keep motion quiet — fades and small translates, never parallax or scroll-jacking.
### Don't
- **Don't** introduce purple, electric blue, or neon gradients. The single deep green is the whole chromatic story.
- **Don't** use pure black `#000000` for text — warm near-black `#302e2d` matches the warm light canvas.
- **Don't** square off the buttons or inputs. Sharp corners break the full-pill signature.
- **Don't** add a second accent colour. One green is the discipline; two greens or a green-plus-blue cracks the brand.
- **Don't** turn the whole page dark — only the hero (and one footer band) inverts.
- **Don't** use heavy or cool blue-tinted drop shadows; depth is warm and minimal.
- **Don't** crank headline weight to 700 to "add impact" — Sierra's confidence is quiet.
- **Don't** ship urgent or breathless copy ("Sign up free!", "Try now!"). The tone is invitational and assured.
- **Don't** crowd the page; whitespace and customer proof carry the credibility.
- **Don't** use a solid white pill on the dark hero — use the translucent glass CTA so the green ground shows through.
## 15. Agent Prompt Guide
### Quick Color Reference
```
bg: #ffffff
bg-cream / surface: #f6f5f3
hero-bg: #05351d
text: #302e2d
text-soft: #55524f
text-faint: #7c7873
brand (green): #006838
brand-bright: #0a7d46
on-brand / on-hero: #ffffff
border: #e4e0dc
glass-cta: rgba(255,255,255,0.10)
```
### Example Component Prompts
1. **"Create a hero in Sierra style — a full-bleed deep forest-green `#05351d` band, 65px white headline in GT America weight 400 with -0.018em tracking, a ~720px white lede below, and a CTA cluster of two full-pill (9999px) buttons: a solid green `#006838` 'Get a demo' and a frosted-glass `rgba(255,255,255,0.10)` 'Customer stories' with a white hairline border. No gradient, no animation."**
2. **"Design a customer-story card — cream `#f6f5f3` background, 16px radius, 1px `#e4e0dc` border, 32px interior padding, a 24px GT America 500 quote in warm near-black `#302e2d`, a 14px attribution in `#7c7873`, no shadow at rest, soft warm shadow on hover."**
3. **"Build a primary pill button — deep-green `#006838` fill, white GT America 500 / 16px label, 9999px full-pill radius, 12px 24px padding, hover to `#0a7d46`, active to `#05351d`, 3px green focus ring `rgba(0,104,56,0.25)`."**
4. **"Compose a customer-logo rail — cream `#f6f5f3` band, a single row of customer wordmarks greyed to `#a39f99` at 32px tall, 96px vertical padding, an uppercase eyebrow 'Trusted by' in 13px / 500 / 0.06em `#7c7873` above."**
5. **"Render a pill search input — white `#ffffff` background, 1px `#e4e0dc` border, 9999px full-pill radius, 12px 20px padding, GT America 400 / 16px, `#a39f99` placeholder, 3px green focus ring with the border darkening to `#006838`."**
6. **"Create the top nav — 64px header, white background (transparent over the hero), Sierra wordmark left, links 15px / 500 in warm near-black with green-on-hover, right-aligned green primary pill 'Get a demo' plus a cream secondary pill."**
### Iteration Guide
1. **Start light, invert once.** If the whole page is dark, you've lost the brand — Sierra is light canvas with exactly one deep-green hero band.
2. **One green only.** If you have a second accent, remove it. `#006838` is the single chromatic note; everything else is warm neutral.
3. **Round everything to a pill.** Any squared button or single-line input is wrong — set radius to 9999px.
4. **Warm the ink.** Replace `#000` text with `#302e2d`; replace cool grey with the warm `#55524f`/`#7c7873` ladder.
5. **Swap white CTAs on the hero for glass.** On the dark ground, use the `rgba(255,255,255,0.10)` translucent pill, not a solid white button.
6. **Lighten the headline weight.** Drop hero weight to 400 and section heads to 500 — the confidence is quiet.
7. **Section with cream, not borders.** Alternate white and `#f6f5f3` bands; drop hard dividers and heavy shadows in favour of value-shift.
8. **Calm the verbs.** Replace "Sign up free!" with "Get a demo"; replace "Try now →" with "Customer stories". The voice is assured, never urgent.
---
*Theme-toggle audit: score=0, signals=[none]*
1. Visual Theme & Atmosphere
Sierra’s site is what enterprise AI looks like when the people building it have already run Salesforce and Google AR. Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor didn’t ship a purple-gradient startup page — they shipped something that reads like an established institution that happens to be new. Open the homepage and you land on a light, near-white #ffffff canvas carrying warm near-black #302e2d body type set in GT America. The register is calm, credible, and confidently quiet: this is a company that lists its customers, not its funding round.
The defining structural move is the inverted hero. While the page body sits on light paper, the hero block drops to a deep forest-green ground (#05351d), and the headline lands at 65px in white, weight 400 — large but unhurried, never shouting. That single dark band gives the page its drama without resorting to gradients or motion; the rest of the site returns to light, sectioned by warm cream #f6f5f3 surfaces that lift content gently off the white without ever introducing a hard edge.
The signature is the green — #006838, the colour of the primary “Customer stories” call-to-action. It is a deep, slightly cool forest green that reads as growth, trust, and money in equal measure: the colour of a financial institution that also cares about the environment, the colour Sierra uses to say we are serious and we are here to stay. It appears on the primary CTA, on links, and as the deepest tone in the hero ground. Sierra is disciplined with it — green is the one chromatic note in an otherwise warm-neutral page, so it never has to compete with itself.
Every interactive surface is a full pill. Buttons, inputs, and tags all carry the 9999px radius (the production site computes it as a 3.35e7px value that clamps to a full capsule). The pill geometry is the brand’s most repeatable signature: combined with the warm light canvas and the single deep green, a Sierra button is recognisable from a thumbnail. The hero adds a third CTA flavour — a frosted-glass pill (rgba(255,255,255,0.10)) that lets the green-black ground show through.
Atmospheric vocabulary that captures the feeling: warm-paper-light, forest-green-trust, full-pill-soft, enterprise-calm, institution-credible, GT-America-clean, cream-sectioned, restrained-confident, customer-led, considered. Every surface lands as if approved by a CMO who has sold to the Fortune 500 before.
Key Characteristics
- Light near-white
#ffffffcanvas — warm, paper-credible, never cold - Inverted deep forest-green hero (
#05351d) with a 65px white headline - Signature deep GREEN
#006838— the one chromatic note, on the primary CTA - Warm near-black
#302e2dbody ink — never pure#000 - GT America throughout — clean grotesque, set at weight 400/500, low drama
- Full-pill (9999px) geometry on every button, input, and tag
- Cream
#f6f5f3surfaces section the page without hard borders - A third “glass” CTA on the dark hero —
rgba(255,255,255,0.10)translucent pill - Restraint as a brand asset — one green, generous whitespace, no gradient
- Customer-led layout — logos and stories carry trust, not feature explosions
2. Color Palette & Roles
Primary / Canvas
- bg
#ffffff— the light near-white page canvas; the warm-paper ground for all body sections. - bg-cream / surface
#f6f5f3— warm cream; used for sectioned panels, cards, and the light secondary CTA fill. Lifts content off white without a border. - hero-bg
#05351d— the deep forest-green hero ground; the one inverted dark block on the page. - text
#302e2d— warm near-black, the primary ink; never substituted for pure#000. - text-heading
#222222— a slightly cooler heading ink used on light-section H2s.
Brand & Accent
- brand
#006838— the signature deep green. Primary CTA fill (“Customer stories”, “Get a demo”), links, focus rings. - brand-bright
#0a7d46— hover/lift variant of the green. - brand-deep
#05351d— pressed state and the hero ground; darkest green in the system. - on-brand / on-hero
#ffffff— white label on green fills and on the dark hero.
Interactive
- link
#006838— links carry the brand green on light surfaces. - link-hover
#05351d— deepens to the darkest green on hover. - glass-cta
rgba(255,255,255,0.10)— translucent frosted pill CTA on the dark hero; borderrgba(255,255,255,0.16). - selected-bg
#eef0ec— green-tinted selected/active ground. - disabled
#a39f99— muted warm grey for disabled controls.
Neutral Scale (warm grey off the #302e2d ink)
- text
#302e2d— primary copy and high-emphasis labels. - text-soft
#55524f— secondary copy, supporting paragraphs. - text-faint
#7c7873— captions, eyebrows, helper text. - text-muted
#a39f99— disabled, footer microcopy.
Surface & Borders
- surface-0 (page) —
#ffffffwhite. - surface-1 (panel/card) —
#f6f5f3cream. - surface-hero —
#05351ddeep green (inverted block). - border
#e4e0dc— default warm hairline on light. - border-strong
#d4cfc9— outlined buttons, emphasized rules. - border-subtle
#efece8— quietest division. - border-hero
rgba(255,255,255,0.16)— hairline on the dark hero.
Shadow Colors
Sierra’s shadows are warm-tinted and minimal. Cards lift off the white canvas mostly by the cream value-shift (#f6f5f3 on #ffffff); explicit shadows are soft and low-opacity, tinted with the warm ink (rgba(48,46,45,0.04–0.08)) rather than neutral grey. A green-tinted glow (rgba(0,104,56,0.18)) is reserved for the rare lifted brand surface. The brand never uses cool blue-tinted shadows — that would crack the warm temperature of the page.
Semantic
- success — bg
#e3efe7(pale brand-green tint), text#05351d. Success literally is the brand green at low saturation. - warning — bg
#f6ecd9(warm sand), text#6b531c. - danger — bg
#f6e4e1(warm clay), text#8a3a2e. - info — bg
#e6edf2(cool slate), text#2c4a5e.
Note the distinctive choice: success draws from the brand green rather than a generic green-500, keeping the page on a single chromatic family.
3. Typography Rules
Font Family
- Display & UI & Body:
"GT America", gtAmerica, system-ui, -apple-system, "Segoe UI", sans-serif— Grilli Type’s clean American grotesque, a single family across the whole site. Closer in proportions to Helvetica/Akzidenz than to a geometric sans; even, low-contrast strokes that read as trustworthy and neutral. - Mono:
ui-monospace, SFMono-Regular, "SF Mono", Menlo, monospace— system mono for the rare code or data label. - OpenType features:
ligaandkernalways on;tnumenabled in mono for tabular figures.
A single-family system is deliberate. Sierra never asks a second typeface to carry contrast; hierarchy comes from size, weight (400 vs 500/600), and colour, not from a serif/sans pairing. The headline weight stays low — the 65px hero ships at weight 400, an unusually light setting at that size that keeps the page calm rather than declarative.
Hierarchy
| Role | Font | Size | Weight | Line Height | Letter Spacing | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Display Hero | GT America | 80px | 400 | 1.02 | -0.02em | Largest editorial moment |
| Display LG | GT America | 65px | 400 | 1.05 | -0.018em | Hero headline (white on green) |
| H1 | GT America | 48px | 500 | 1.10 | -0.015em | Page title |
| H2 | GT America | 32px | 500 | 1.20 | -0.01em | Major section heading |
| H3 | GT America | 24px | 500 | 1.25 | -0.005em | Sub-section / card heading |
| H4 | GT America | 20px | 500 | 1.30 | normal | Inline emphasis heading |
| Body Large | GT America | 18px | 400 | 1.55 | normal | Lede paragraph |
| Body | GT America | 16px | 400 | 1.55 | normal | Default body copy |
| Body Small | GT America | 14px | 400 | 1.50 | normal | Captions, footnotes, sidebars |
| Eyebrow | GT America | 13px | 500 | 1.40 | 0.06em | Uppercase section pre-label |
| Label | GT America | 13px | 500 | 1.40 | normal | UI labels, button text |
| Caption | GT America | 12px | 500 | 1.40 | 0.02em | Smallest meta text |
| Link (body) | GT America | 16px | 400 | 1.55 | normal | Green underline-on-hover |
| Button | GT America | 16px | 500 | 1.0 | normal | Pill CTA label |
| Nav Link | GT America | 15px | 500 | 1.40 | normal | Top-nav |
Principles
- One family, contrast by size and weight. GT America carries everything; hierarchy never relies on a second typeface.
- Light headline weights. The hero ships at weight 400 even at 65px — calm over declarative. Section headings sit at 500; the brand rarely reaches 700.
- Negative tracking scales with size. -0.02em at 80px, -0.018em at 65px, -0.015em at 48px, easing to normal at body sizes — a subtle broadsheet compression on large type only.
- Warm-ink body. Body copy is
#302e2d, not black — it sits comfortably on both white and cream without harsh contrast. - Generous line-height for body. 1.55 at 16/18px keeps long enterprise copy readable; headings tighten to 1.0–1.25.
- White on the hero only. White type is reserved for the dark-green hero ground and green CTA fills; everywhere else type is warm near-black.
- Eyebrows in uppercase 13px / 0.06em. Section pre-labels use letter-spaced small caps in
#7c7873faint, never coloured. - Reading column capped at ~720px even on the 1280px page — comfortable enterprise prose width.
4. Component Stylings
Buttons
All buttons are full pills (9999px radius) — the brand’s defining geometry.
Primary (Green)
- Background:
#006838deep green. Text:#ffffff, GT America 500 / 16px. - Padding:
12px 24px. Radius:9999px(full pill). No border. - Hover: bg →
#0a7d46(brand-bright); transition240ms ease-standard. - Active: bg →
#05351d(brand-deep). - Use: Primary CTA — Customer stories, Get a demo, Talk to sales.
Cream (Light Secondary)
- Background:
#f6f5f3cream. Text:#302e2dwarm ink, GT America 500 / 16px. - Same pill shape and padding. No border.
- Hover: bg →
#eceae6. - Use: Secondary pill on light or dark surfaces — Learn more, Read more.
Glass (Hero Translucent)
- Background:
rgba(255,255,255,0.10). Text:#ffffff. Border:1px solid rgba(255,255,255,0.16). - Same pill shape and padding.
- Hover: bg →
rgba(255,255,255,0.18). - Use: On the dark-green hero only — frosted-glass CTA that lets the ground show through.
Ghost (Outlined Tertiary)
- Background: transparent. Text:
#302e2d. Border:1px solid #d4cfc9. - Same pill shape and padding.
- Hover: bg →
#f6f5f3; border →#006838(subtle green hint). - Use: Quiet third action on light surfaces.
Cards
Cream Card
- Background:
#f6f5f3. Border:1px solid #e4e0dc. Radius:16px. Padding:32px. - Shadow: none by default — the cream value-shift separates it from the white page.
- Hover: shadow →
standard(rgba(48,46,45,0.06) 0 4px 16px); transition240ms. - Use: Capability tile, customer-story card, content panel.
Hero Card (on dark)
- Background:
rgba(255,255,255,0.06). Border:1px solid rgba(255,255,255,0.16). Radius:16px. Padding:32px. - Use: Glass panel inside the dark-green hero block.
Badges, Tags, Pills
Status Pill — bg #e3efe7 (pale brand-green tint), text #05351d, radius 9999px, padding 4px 12px, GT America 500 / 13px. The default tag echoes the brand green at low saturation.
Eyebrow Label — no chrome, just type. GT America 500 / 13px / uppercase / 0.06em tracking, colour #7c7873. Sits above section headlines.
Semantic Pills — bg from semantic palette (success #e3efe7, warning #f6ecd9, danger #f6e4e1, info #e6edf2), radius 9999px, padding 4px 12px.
Inputs / Forms
- Background:
#ffffff. Border:1px solid #e4e0dc. Radius:9999px(full pill — matches CTA geometry). Padding:12px 20px. - Font: GT America 400 / 16px. Placeholder:
#a39f99. - Focus:
0 0 0 3px rgba(0,104,56,0.25)green ring; border →#006838. - Error: border →
#8a3a2e, ring →rgba(138,58,46,0.20). - Helper: body-small 14px text-faint below.
- Larger textareas relax to a 16px radius (the pill reads only on single-line fields).
Navigation
- Header height
64px. Background#ffffffcream-tinted on scroll; transparent over the hero (white links). - Logo: Sierra wordmark, warm near-black on light / white on hero.
- Nav links: GT America 500 / 15px, colour
#302e2d, padding8px 12px. Hover →#006838green. - Right-side CTA: a green primary pill (“Get a demo”) + a cream or ghost secondary.
- Mobile: full-screen sheet, links stack at 20px / 500; the hamburger right-aligns (matches the store’s nav fix).
Optional Components
Customer Logo Rail — a row of greyed customer wordmarks at #a39f99, 32px tall, on cream #f6f5f3; the trust device the brand leads with.
Quote / Testimonial — GT America 24px / 400, warm ink, with a customer attribution in 14px text-faint and a small green accent rule.
Tooltip — bg #302e2d, text #ffffff, radius 8px, padding 8px 12px, font 13px / 500.
Modal — bg #ffffff, radius 16px, shadow elevated, max-width 560px. Warm-ink backdrop overlay at 60% opacity.
5. Layout Principles
Spacing System
- Base unit: 4px.
- Scale: 4, 8, 12, 16, 24, 32, 48, 64, 96, 128.
- Density observation: Sierra is calm-density — generous but not as airy as a literary magazine. Section gutters run 96–128px; intra-section spacing uses 24–48px; content rows sit on 16–24px gaps.
Grid & Container
- Page max width:
1280px— the standard enterprise container, signalling familiarity over novelty. - Site gutter:
clamp(24px, 5vw, 64px)— comfortable on desktop, accommodating on mobile. - Grid: 12 columns with 24px gutters. Hero spans full bleed; capability rails span 8–12 columns; sidebars span 4.
- Hero treatment: full-bleed deep-green band, 65px white headline anchored left, body confined to a ~720px column, CTAs as a pill cluster below.
Whitespace Philosophy
Whitespace here is a credibility signal, not a flourish. Sierra under-fills relative to a typical SaaS landing so that headlines and customer logos have room to breathe — the page should feel like an institution that doesn’t need to crowd you. Cream #f6f5f3 sections do the heavy lifting of separation: rather than hard dividers, the page alternates white and cream bands so the rhythm reads as quiet zoning.
Section Cadence
- Hero (deep-green, inverted) → Customer Logo Rail (cream) → Capability Rail (white card grid) → Customer Story (cream, large quote) → Product Detail (white, 720px column) → CTA Band (green or cream) → Footer (cream).
- The dark-green hero is the single inverted block; everything below returns to light. A green CTA band may reprise the hero colour once near the page foot.
- Adjacent white/cream sections separate by spacing and value-shift alone — hard borders are rare.
6. Shapes & Radius Scale
| Tier | Value | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Micro | 2px | Decorative dividers, slim chip corners |
| Standard (sm) | 4px | Inline tags, compact chips |
| Comfortable (md) | 8px | Tooltips, small dropdowns, code blocks |
| Relaxed (lg) | 12px | Larger dropdowns, popovers |
| Featured (xl) | 16px | Cards, panels, modals, textareas |
| Pill | 9999px | Buttons, single-line inputs, status tags — the signature |
Sierra’s signature radius is the full pill (9999px) on every button, single-line input, and tag. The production site computes this as a 3.35e7px value that clamps to a capsule. Cards and panels use a softer 16px; there are effectively no sharp-cornered interactive surfaces. The system reads as a flat ladder of soft corners, with the pill as the loudest repeated shape.
7. Depth & Elevation
| Level | Treatment | Use |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | Flat — no shadow | Default page surface, hero, body sections |
| 1 | Value-contrast (cream card on white) | Cream content cards, capability tiles |
| 2 | rgba(48,46,45,0.04) 0 1px 3px | Sticky nav, small dropdowns |
| 3 | rgba(48,46,45,0.06) 0 4px 16px | Hover-lifted cards |
| 4 | rgba(48,46,45,0.08) 0 16px 40px -12px | Popovers, overlay menus |
| 5 | rgba(0,104,56,0.18) 0 16px 40px -16px | Rare green-glow brand lift |
Shadow Philosophy
Sierra’s depth is warm-tinted and minimal. Cards lift primarily by the cream value-shift (cream-on-white) rather than by explicit shadow. When shadows appear, they’re tinted with the warm ink (rgba(48,46,45,0.04–0.08)), never neutral grey and never cool blue — a blue shadow would crack the warm temperature of the page. The one chromatic shadow is a soft green glow reserved for a hero-adjacent brand surface. The brand reads as confident paper-light interface, not a heavily layered dashboard.
8. Interaction & Motion
Easing Curves
ease-standard:cubic-bezier(0.4, 0, 0.2, 1)— Material-style; default for hover, focus, colour transitions.ease-emphasized:cubic-bezier(0.2, 0, 0, 1)— punchier exit; used on modal/hero reveal.
Duration Buckets
- Fast (150ms) — colour transitions, focus rings, link hovers.
- Standard (240ms) — button hover, card hover, dropdown reveal.
- Slow (320ms) — modal enter/exit, section fade-in.
Per-Component Micro-States
- Button hover: bg colour shift only (green → brighter green) — no lift, no scale.
transition: background-color 240ms ease-standard. - Card hover: shadow fades from none to
standard; no border colour change. - Link hover: colour
#006838→#05351dover 150ms; underline thickens. - Input focus: 3px green ring (
rgba(0,104,56,0.25)) fades in over 150ms; border darkens to green. - Nav link hover: warm ink
#302e2d→ green#006838over 150ms.
Page Transitions
Calm reveals: hero text and below-fold sections fade in via IntersectionObserver at ~80% viewport, 320ms duration, with a small 16px translate-up. No parallax, no scroll-jacking — the brand’s restraint extends to motion.
Reduced Motion
@media (prefers-reduced-motion: reduce) — all transitions become opacity-only, durations halved. Translate animations are disabled; scroll-linked reveals snap to final state.
9. Accessibility & A11y
Contrast Pairs
#302e2dtext on#ffffffbg: 11.9:1 — AAA at all sizes.#302e2dtext on#f6f5f3cream: 11.1:1 — AAA at all sizes.#55524ftext-soft on#ffffffbg: 7.3:1 — AAA at body sizes.#7c7873text-faint on#ffffffbg: 4.0:1 — AA at large sizes only (≥18px or ≥14px bold); use for eyebrows/captions, not body.#fffffftext on#006838green: 6.0:1 — AA at all sizes, AAA at large; safe for buttons.#fffffftext on#05351dhero: 13.9:1 — AAA.#006838link on#ffffffbg: 6.0:1 — AA; underline-on-hover supplies a non-colour cue.
Focus Indicators
- Default focus ring:
0 0 0 3px rgba(0,104,56,0.25)green ring with 2px offset on light surfaces. - On the dark-green hero:
0 0 0 3px rgba(255,255,255,0.5)white ring. - Every interactive surface must have a visible focus state — no
outline: nonewithout a replacement.
ARIA Patterns
- Navigation:
<nav aria-label="Main">with a skip-link to main content. - Disclosure:
<button aria-expanded aria-controls>for collapsible FAQ/sections. - Dialog:
role="dialog" aria-modal="true" aria-labelledbywith focus trap and Esc-to-close. - Live regions:
aria-live="polite"for form-validation messages.
Keyboard Navigation
- Tab order matches visual flow: skip-link → nav → hero CTA → main content → footer.
- All buttons, links, inputs reachable via Tab; modals trap focus until dismissed.
Esccloses modals and dropdowns; arrow keys navigate within listboxes/tab groups.
Screen Reader Hints
- Decorative customer logos in rails carry
altwith the customer name; pure-decoration marks usearia-hidden="true". - Icon-only buttons carry
aria-label. - The dark-hero block is a normal landmark — colour inversion does not change semantics.
Reduced Motion
Honoured via the global media query: all translate/scale animations become opacity-only; durations halve.
10. Responsive Behavior
Breakpoints
| Name | Width | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Mobile | < 640px | Single column, full-bleed sections, stacked CTAs |
| Tablet | 640–1024px | 2-column rails, narrower gutters |
| Desktop | 1024–1280px | Full 12-col grid, 720px prose |
| Wide | > 1280px | Page locks to 1280, gutters expand |
Touch Targets
- Minimum tap target: 44×44px (WCAG AAA).
- Pill buttons: 48px minimum height on mobile (12px vertical padding × 2 + line-height).
- Nav link tap area: 44×44px even when visual padding is smaller.
Collapsing Strategy
- Header: full nav at ≥1024px; right-aligned hamburger sheet below.
- Hero headline: 65px → 48px → 36px across desktop/tablet/mobile.
- Capability grid: 3-up at desktop, 2-up at tablet, 1-up at mobile.
- CTA cluster: side-by-side pills on desktop; stacked full-width pills on mobile.
- Section spacing: 128px → 96px → 64px across sizes.
Image Behavior
- Customer logos use
srcsetfor crisp 1x/2x rendering; greyed via CSS filter, not baked-in assets. - Hero / product imagery uses
aspect-ratioto prevent layout shift. - Lazy-loading below the fold; eager on the hero.
Container Queries
Used inside capability cards to switch icon-left vs icon-top layout when card width crosses ~320px.
11. Content & Voice
Tone
Credible, calm, customer-led. Sierra writes like an enterprise vendor that already won — plain declaratives, customer proof over feature lists, no exclamation marks. Headlines state outcomes (“Better customer experiences”); subheads explain the agent platform without hype. The brand sounds like a board-level operator, because its founders are.
Microcopy Patterns
- Button verbs: “Customer stories,” “Get a demo,” “Talk to sales,” “Learn more,” “Read more.” Never “Sign up free!” never “Try it now →”.
- Error messages: “We couldn’t complete that request. Try again, or [contact us].” Specific, calm, no shame.
- Success confirmations: “Thanks — we’ll be in touch.” Brief and assured.
- Loading states: “One moment…” — quiet, never cute.
Empty States
What they say: explain the state and offer the next step. “No conversations yet — connect a channel to get started.” What they don’t say: “Oops!”, “Whoops!”, apologetic exclamations. The register is steady, not playful.
CTA Verb Conventions
- Primary on hero: “Get a demo,” “Customer stories”
- Secondary: “Learn more,” “Read the case study,” “Watch the keynote”
- Footer: “Read our research,” “View documentation,” “Contact sales”
The brand never trades in urgency or scarcity. The voice is invitational and assured — it assumes the reader is an enterprise buyer, not an impulse signup.
12. Dark Mode & Theming
Light-canvas with a single inverted dark-green hero block — no full dark theme offered. Sierra’s identity is the warm light canvas; the drama comes from one inverted band (the #05351d deep-green hero), not from a global dark mode. Re-keying the whole page dark would collapse the “established institution” register and waste the cream/white value-shift the layout depends on for elevation.
The inverted hero is itself the theming pattern: when a section needs weight, it drops to the deep-green ground with white type and the frosted-glass CTA, then the page returns to light. A green CTA band near the footer reprises that inversion once.
If a downstream surface ever needs a true companion dark theme, the rule would be: keep the green #006838 accent at full saturation, use #05351d as the dark ground, lift cards to #0c2a1c, and set body type to #e8e6e2 warm off-white — but this is not currently shipped.
13. Lineage & Influences
Sierra’s design DNA is enterprise institution rather than AI startup. The founders — Bret Taylor (ex-Salesforce co-CEO, ex-CTO of Facebook, OpenAI board chair) and Clay Bavor (ex-Google VP of AR/VR) — clearly briefed a page that signals incumbency, not insurgency. The warm light canvas, single trustworthy green, GT America grotesque, and customer-logo-led layout quote the visual language of mature SaaS and financial-services credibility far more than the purple-gradient AI-lab template.
What it inherits: Swiss/grotesque type discipline via GT America (one family, hierarchy by size and weight), the soft-pill geometry popularised by modern fintech and consumer apps, and the cream-and-warm-neutral register of brands that want to feel established. What it borrows from contemporaries: Linear’s tonal-stacking calm and Stripe’s hairline restraint — recast in warm light with a single green instead of cool monochrome. What it rejects: gradient meshes, neon accents, chrome-on-black drama, scroll-jacking hero animations, and “AI tech” iconography. The one chromatic green doing all the work is the most deliberate move on the page.
Named influences:
- Grilli Type (GT America) — the grotesque typeface that carries the entire site’s neutral, trustworthy voice. https://www.grillitype.com/typeface/gt-america
- Salesforce — Bret Taylor’s enterprise-credibility lineage; customer-logo-led trust layout. https://www.salesforce.com
- Stripe — hairline-border restraint, cool confidence translated into warm light. https://stripe.com
- Linear — tonal-stacking calm and disciplined motion restraint. https://linear.app
- Intercom — the conversational-support category aesthetic Sierra updates for the agent era. https://www.intercom.com
14. Do’s and Don’ts
Do
- Do lead with the light near-white
#ffffffcanvas and warm near-black#302e2dink — the calm, credible base. - Do invert exactly one block to the deep-green
#05351dhero with white 65px type — the single dramatic move. - Do reserve the green
#006838as the one chromatic note — on the primary CTA, links, and accents only. - Do make every button, single-line input, and tag a full pill (9999px) — the signature geometry.
- Do section the page with cream
#f6f5f3bands instead of hard dividers. - Do keep headline weights light (400 at the hero, 500 at section heads) — calm over declarative.
- Do use the frosted-glass CTA (
rgba(255,255,255,0.10)) on the dark hero, not a solid white button. - Do lead trust with customer logos and stories, not feature explosions.
- Do use warm-tinted, minimal shadows — value-shift over heavy elevation.
- Do keep motion quiet — fades and small translates, never parallax or scroll-jacking.
Don’t
- Don’t introduce purple, electric blue, or neon gradients. The single deep green is the whole chromatic story.
- Don’t use pure black
#000000for text — warm near-black#302e2dmatches the warm light canvas. - Don’t square off the buttons or inputs. Sharp corners break the full-pill signature.
- Don’t add a second accent colour. One green is the discipline; two greens or a green-plus-blue cracks the brand.
- Don’t turn the whole page dark — only the hero (and one footer band) inverts.
- Don’t use heavy or cool blue-tinted drop shadows; depth is warm and minimal.
- Don’t crank headline weight to 700 to “add impact” — Sierra’s confidence is quiet.
- Don’t ship urgent or breathless copy (“Sign up free!”, “Try now!”). The tone is invitational and assured.
- Don’t crowd the page; whitespace and customer proof carry the credibility.
- Don’t use a solid white pill on the dark hero — use the translucent glass CTA so the green ground shows through.
15. Agent Prompt Guide
Quick Color Reference
bg: #ffffff
bg-cream / surface: #f6f5f3
hero-bg: #05351d
text: #302e2d
text-soft: #55524f
text-faint: #7c7873
brand (green): #006838
brand-bright: #0a7d46
on-brand / on-hero: #ffffff
border: #e4e0dc
glass-cta: rgba(255,255,255,0.10)
Example Component Prompts
-
“Create a hero in Sierra style — a full-bleed deep forest-green
#05351dband, 65px white headline in GT America weight 400 with -0.018em tracking, a ~720px white lede below, and a CTA cluster of two full-pill (9999px) buttons: a solid green#006838‘Get a demo’ and a frosted-glassrgba(255,255,255,0.10)‘Customer stories’ with a white hairline border. No gradient, no animation.” -
“Design a customer-story card — cream
#f6f5f3background, 16px radius, 1px#e4e0dcborder, 32px interior padding, a 24px GT America 500 quote in warm near-black#302e2d, a 14px attribution in#7c7873, no shadow at rest, soft warm shadow on hover.” -
“Build a primary pill button — deep-green
#006838fill, white GT America 500 / 16px label, 9999px full-pill radius, 12px 24px padding, hover to#0a7d46, active to#05351d, 3px green focus ringrgba(0,104,56,0.25).” -
“Compose a customer-logo rail — cream
#f6f5f3band, a single row of customer wordmarks greyed to#a39f99at 32px tall, 96px vertical padding, an uppercase eyebrow ‘Trusted by’ in 13px / 500 / 0.06em#7c7873above.” -
“Render a pill search input — white
#ffffffbackground, 1px#e4e0dcborder, 9999px full-pill radius, 12px 20px padding, GT America 400 / 16px,#a39f99placeholder, 3px green focus ring with the border darkening to#006838.” -
“Create the top nav — 64px header, white background (transparent over the hero), Sierra wordmark left, links 15px / 500 in warm near-black with green-on-hover, right-aligned green primary pill ‘Get a demo’ plus a cream secondary pill.”
Iteration Guide
- Start light, invert once. If the whole page is dark, you’ve lost the brand — Sierra is light canvas with exactly one deep-green hero band.
- One green only. If you have a second accent, remove it.
#006838is the single chromatic note; everything else is warm neutral. - Round everything to a pill. Any squared button or single-line input is wrong — set radius to 9999px.
- Warm the ink. Replace
#000text with#302e2d; replace cool grey with the warm#55524f/#7c7873ladder. - Swap white CTAs on the hero for glass. On the dark ground, use the
rgba(255,255,255,0.10)translucent pill, not a solid white button. - Lighten the headline weight. Drop hero weight to 400 and section heads to 500 — the confidence is quiet.
- Section with cream, not borders. Alternate white and
#f6f5f3bands; drop hard dividers and heavy shadows in favour of value-shift. - Calm the verbs. Replace “Sign up free!” with “Get a demo”; replace “Try now →” with “Customer stories”. The voice is assured, never urgent.
Theme-toggle audit: score=0, signals=[none]
Drop sierra into your project, then ship the actual sections in an afternoon.
npx @webdesignhot/design-md add sierra npx agentkit init --design sierra