Design system  /  Identity
Identity

Who we are.
Who we build for.

The verbal foundation of the brand: values, positioning, audience. The counterpart to the visual brand and components. This is how every page, deck, and contract should sound, beneath the typography and colour.

AudienceSMB-primary LanguagesNL + EN, equal weight VoiceDirect, concrete, short Sub-pages8 topics

Who we write for

SMB primary. Government secondary. Developer tertiary.

We write for the SMB decision-maker with a concrete problem and little time. Ten to five hundred employees, limited budget, decides in days.

  • Primary · SMB. Concrete problem, no roadmap. A direct route to "install from the Nextcloud app store".
  • Secondary · Government. The current customer base. Compliance signals where relevant, a discreet route to Services.
  • Tertiary · Developer. Direct links to GitHub, docs, and licence. Nothing else, don't try to convert them.

Deeper in Audience.

How we write

Direct, concrete, short. In Dutch and English, equal weight.

Subject = a person, not a system. Verb = action, not existence. One claim per sentence. Under 16 words.

  • Languages. Dutch and English are both required and equal in weight. Write both with the same care, no translation-as-afterthought.
  • "Je" / "jij" in Dutch, never "u". Plain, concrete English at the same level.
  • No em-dashes (—). Replace with a period, comma, or colon. Short sentences read faster anyway.
  • Sentence case in headings, no Title Case. One claim per bullet.
  • Banned words. No digital transformation, chain collaboration, state-of-the-art, the Solution.

Deeper in Voice.

01

Foundation

Who we are. What we build. The Conduction × ConNext × Nextcloud triangle. App ecosystem, not consultancy. Five Dutch values that show up everywhere.

ConNext
02

Audience

Three audience tiers. SMB primary (where we're going). Government secondary (where most of our customers still sit). Developer tertiary (who keeps the OSS alive).

SMB · GOV · DEV
03

Products

Apps versus solutions: terminology, the rule, and 11 NL+EN taglines. The 6-component architecture mapped onto apps.

A × S apps × solutions
04

Voice

Three registers, only one we use. Rewrite recipes from procurement language to SMB-direct. Seven golden rules. Nine banned words. Plus 14 editorial moves for opinion writing.

"The Solution offers…"
→ "Manage it in one place."
05

System rationale

Why cobalt and not navy. Why KNVB orange and not the Dutch government palette. Why Figtree and not Inter. Why pointy-top hexes and never flat-top. The reason behind every system choice.

70 / 20 / 8 / 2
06

Slogans

A working collection of strong lines. Positioning, products, app and solution heroes, CTAs, banned patterns. One claim, few words. "Conduction builds, partners deliver." as the anchor line.

Conduction builds.
Partners deliver.
07

Websites

Where we put what. Six domains, two hosting stacks: Docusaurus on GitHub Pages for docs and marketing, OpenCatalogi on Nextcloud for CMS and the app store. Including how to set up a new subdomain.

6 domains · 2 stacks
08

Personas

One voice for all of Conduction, different people who keep their own voice within it. For opinion pieces and blogs. First persona: Ruben van der Linde. Extensible.

R + 1 active · extensible