The Competition Room · v2 design competition · four concepts · three judges
Four independent directions competed to become the second branding package. Each was scored 0–10 on five criteria by a brand director, an outside-counsel/board skeptic, and a staff engineer–accessibility specialist. CODEX MERIDIAN won and was built; its strongest rivals were not discarded — their best ideas were grafted into the winner. Below, each losing direction is shown in its own palette and its own typefaces.
| Concept | Judge 1 (brand) | Judge 2 (counsel) | Judge 3 (a11y/eng) | Aggregate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CODEX MERIDIAN — winner, built as v2 | 43 | 44 | 44.5 | 131.5 |
| LAUDS — The Morning Office | 44.5 | 42.5 | 42 | 129 |
| THE DAYLIGHT ORDINAL | 41 | 39 | 40.5 | 120.5 |
| THE ENGROSSED CIRCUIT | 40 | 36.5 | 39 | 115.5 |
Second place · 129 · won the brand judge outright
Morning light on plaster; the register of an order that expects to be audited.
The web presence of a contemplative order that keeps immaculate records: iron-gall ink on paper, a stone arch whose seven voussoirs carry the Source Loop. Where the first two directions were night-cosmos spectacle and a ritual portal, LAUDS is the daylight register of the church itself — worship times above the fold, doctrine set like a prayer book, governance published like minutes. It looks like an institution that expects to be quoted and still standing in a hundred years.
Type — Libre Caslon Display · EB Garamond · Courier Prime
A church that keeps the morning office.
Doctrine set like a prayer book at a 68-character measure, with true italics for scripture and gloss.
REGISTER 04 · ENTERED THIS MORNING · THE PARISH VOICE
Palette — alabaster, iron-gall, verdigris, rubric, gilt
Signature interaction
The Archivolt Index: the seal's seven-stone arch rendered large as the doctrine library's table of contents. Each voussoir is a real link — hover lifts the stone, lights its mortar joints gilt, and sets the stage's gloss into the margin; the keystone is Source.
Third place · 120.5 · the most original single idea in the field
A rubricated book of hours that keeps canonical time — the page itself observes the liturgy.
A finely printed founding record whose paper cast shifts with the canonical hours — Lauds at dawn, Sext at midday, Vespers at evening, and a full ink-field inversion at Vigil. The lawful boundary is set in rubric red the way liturgical instruction has always been set. Its one AI feature, the Frontispiece Press, rests from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown: the site practices its own doctrine.
Type — Fraunces · Source Serif 4 · Spline Sans Mono
The page keeps canonical hours.
Prose in optical-size Source Serif, boundary instruction rubricated as liturgical books have always done.
DOCTRINE v0.1 · PENDING COUNSEL REVIEW · KEPT APPROXIMATELY, LIKE A PAPER ALMANAC
The hours — the page's four light states
Signature interaction
The Gnomon Rail: a horizon line with a single sun-dot that sits where the local hour puts it. Drag it — or arrow through it as a keyboard radiogroup — and the whole page's light turns with you. Opt-in "use my sky" computes real sunrise and sunset with no API and no geolocation prompt.
Fourth place · 115.5 · the boldest visual, the biggest counsel risk
A SCHEMATIC RELIQUARY IN COPPER, VERDIGRIS, AND VELLUM
The Fellowship's whole identity drawn as one consecrated master schematic: an engineer-monk's engrossed plate, where doctrine is set as numbered drawing notes, governance is a wired diagram, the week is a timing waveform, and the Source Loop is a literal operable circuit trace. "Engrossed" carries both meanings at once — the engraved plate and the final formal copy of a founding document. Light falls on the paper; nothing glows in the dark.
Type — Fraunces (540–620) · IBM Plex Sans · IBM Plex Mono
Drawn, checked, and consecrated.
Body copy in the drafting room's humanist sans; every plate carries a title block and revision letter.
SHEET 3 OF 7 · SOURCE LOOP, MASTER TRACE · REV A · DO NOT SCALE
Palette — vellum, iron ink, copper, verdigris, electrum
Signature interaction
Closing the Circuit: the master Source Loop plate is an operable schematic. Six junction nodes are real buttons (a keyboard radiogroup); selecting one sends a verdigris current pulse along the trace, the node oxidizes to patina, and its gloss types into the title-block readout. When all six are visited, the trace completes and the Source core takes light.