Straight talk about
retirement income. Finally.
"Light is the home theme — how the brand looks on the page a 62-year-old is reading before they decide. Calm off-white, deep-olive ink, and one lime button worth pressing."
The mark is the brand.
The lockup is an oval "AST" monogram beside the full wordmark, anchored by a line that does quiet, heavy lifting: "Licensed in all 50 states." It's a credential and a logo at once — keep the words and the license line together. The mark is navy on light; it sits perfectly on the off-white canvas.
On surface / #FFFFFFOn overlay / #EAF2CE
Clear space = 1× "AST" height
Lead with the full lockup
Use the complete wordmark + license line on light backgrounds. The "AST" oval stands alone only at tiny sizes (favicon, avatar) where the wordmark wouldn't read.
Minimum size
120px wide on screen, 30mm in print. Below that, "Licensed in all 50 states" stops being legible — and that line is the point.
Clear space
Keep clear space equal to the height of the "AST" oval on every side. Don't crowd it with headlines, badges, or other logos.
No alterations
Never recolor, stretch, skew, outline, or drop-shadow the mark. For dark backgrounds, use a proper reversed/white version — don't fake it with effects.
Misuse
No drop shadowsNot on saturated colorDark bg needs reversed variantNever stretchRed Hat Display for everything.
Red Hat Mono for the receipts.
One type family doing the work two usually do — Display for impact and reading, weight for hierarchy. Mono shows up only where there's a number, a label, or a spec to point at. Clean, modern, easy on a 60-something's eyes.
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
0123456789 & $%.,;:?!—
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
0123456789 & $%.,;:?!—
- Sentence case for headlines and body — let the words read like speech.
- Use weight (700 / 500 / 400) for hierarchy, not a second typeface.
- Keep body copy at 17px or larger — the audience is 50–75.
- Reserve Red Hat Mono for numbers, labels, and section markers.
- Don't set body copy in all-caps or title case.
- Don't mix more than two weights in one layout.
- Don't shrink body text below 17px to cram more in.
- Don't lean on italics like a serif brand — Red Hat's italic is subtle.
Off-white paper.
One lime worth pressing.
A calm canvas, deep-olive ink, and a single green accent. On the page, the bright lime is a button you want to press; the deeper chartreuse carries the accent wherever it has to read as text.
Neutral ramp
Print (CMYK)
| Color | CMYK | Primary use |
|---|---|---|
| Off-White Paper | 0 / 0 / 2 / 2 | Primary print background, document paper. |
| Deep Olive Ink | 15 / 0 / 73 / 82 | All body typography in print. |
| Field Chartreuse | 18 / 0 / 80 / 56 | Accent foil, spot UV on focus text only. |
The page should feel like paper.
Warmed off-white, the gentlest tint, a barely-there grain. The canvas recedes so the words — and the one lime button — do the talking.
Increase your net worth through retirement.
A pale lime wash up top, a soft sage at the base, over warmed paper — with grain at a whisper. The canvas never competes with content.
Warm paper
Off-white, never sterile white. The canvas has a hint of warmth so it reads like paper, not a screen.
Tint
A pale lime wash in one corner, a soft sage in the other. Both nearly subliminal.
Grain
Grain runs at ~2.5% on light — any more and it reads as dirt. A texture you feel, not see.
Lift
Cards are pure white on the off-white canvas. Depth is one step of tone plus a hairline, not a shadow.
Quiet surfaces.
One button worth pressing.
Friendly, rounded, unhurried. Pill buttons and soft cards. One accent CTA per screen — the rest of the interface gets out of the way.
The primary CTA is the signature lime pill with dark-ink text — the live-site button. One per screen, maximum.
Red Hat Mono, 0.12em tracking, UPPERCASE. The accent tag uses Field Chartreuse for legibility on light.
Focus lifts the border to the accent color. Inputs sit on the recessed surface, not above the canvas.
Accent is earned. Only the single headline number gets it; everything else is Deep Olive Ink.
AI bubbles carry a soft chartreuse tint. User bubbles stay on the recessed surface. Zero hype, zero pressure — the voice rules apply to bots too.
Elevation rules
| Layer | Treatment | Use |
|---|---|---|
| 0 — canvas | Off-White Paper + soft gradient + whisper grain | Page background, hero, section rests |
| 1 — surface | #FFFFFF + 1px hairline | Cards, panels, modals, chat bubbles |
| 2 — popover | #EEF1E2 + subtle shadow | Menus, tooltips, floating elements |
| 3 — focal | Lime fill / chartreuse stroke — single element only | Primary CTA, headline metric, active state |
Thin / Light strokes.
Deep Olive Ink. One accent exception.
Stroke width is consistent at ~1.5px across any layout. No filled icons unless depicting an actively selected state. Accent is reserved for the primary metric in a dense data view.
Negative space
is the headline.
An 8pt baseline grid. Generous vertical rhythm. Breathing room is a feature, not an accident — especially for readers who are 50–75.
Section padding
Default 140px vertical, 96px horizontal on desktop. Compresses to 80/32 on mobile.
Radii
Friendly and rounded. Buttons are full pills; cards and panels use 17px. Pick one radius family per layout and keep it.
Tap targets
Minimum 44×44px, enforced. Interactive elements are never cramped.
Hairlines
1px, rgba(38, 45, 12, 0.12). That's the entire border palette on light.
Plain-spoken. Calm. Honest. Educational. Unhurried.
⚠️ Provisional. The final voice profile is being built from Bryan's YouTube transcripts (see references/brand-voice.yaml). These bars reflect the voice as heard on the site and channel — directional, not final.
"An annuity is a tool, not a religion. Right for some people, wrong for others — and I'll tell you which."
"You're never locked in. If a strategy takes away access to your own money, I won't recommend it."
"Here's exactly how I get paid, and why I'm recommending this."
"Watch the free series, run the numbers, sit with it. There's no expiration date on this."
"Unlock a transformative, guaranteed path to financial freedom!"
"Act now — this exclusive opportunity won't last!"
"Our robust, holistic solution will help you beat the market."
"Leverage this game-changing strategy to supercharge your retirement."
Signature sign-off
Happy to give you the straight read either way.
— Bryan
AI that talks straight.
When Annuity Straight Talk shows up as a chatbot, an assistant, or AI-generated content, it keeps the same promise: educate first, never hype, and say "this isn't for you" when it's true.
Voice constraints
AI surfaces never sell. No hype words, no guaranteed-return language, no pressure. Plain answers, real numbers, honest caveats — the same rules people are held to.
Education first
A bot's default move is to teach and point to the right resource — a calculator, the FLEX series — not to push a booking. The call is offered, never forced.
Compliance & honesty
This is a regulated space. AI restates only what's substantiated, flags the unverified site stats (~41.8%, ~11.3%) rather than asserting them, and says so when it's unsure.
Logo & surface
On dark AI surfaces, use the reversed logo (once it exists) and the lime accent. On light, the navy lockup and the lime button. One accent per view.