The canonical reference for Timberlea Consulting. Two modes: Coastal and Midnight Coastal. One voice: warm expert. One wordmark, one type pairing, one set of rules. Everything we ship — website, software, social, print — starts here.
Sixteen sections. Start at Foundation and Voice — those tell you who we are. The rest tells you how to make things look and feel like us.
This guideline is written for five audiences, in descending order of frequency.
Why we exist. What we do. Six values. A clear picture of who we're for and who we're not.
We help our partners do the things that inspire them.
That's the line Sree has used to describe his work for years. Timberlea Consulting is the structure built around it. The "partners" are Canadian small and mid-sized businesses. The "things that inspire them" are almost never their technology — they're their customers, their clients, their craft, their teams, the reason they started the business in the first place. Our job is to make the technology recede so they can spend their time on the work that called them.
For sales/positioning context: Enterprise technology decisions belong to small businesses too. We close that gap. For internal-compass context: Technology should give people more time and energy for the things they care about — not less. The full why-statement set lives in marketing/brand-v2-foundation.md § 3.
Timberlea Consulting is a dual-track consultancy based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. We do two things for Canadian small and mid-sized businesses:
The two tracks share a partner (the SMB owner or operator) and a core promise: "You hire the founder. Not a firm." Serious craft, plain language, people who answer the phone.
Enterprise-credibility technology decisions for Canadian small and mid-sized businesses without an IT leadership team — AI strategy, Microsoft governance, IT advisory, and modern web design, run by a practitioner who has shipped this work in production at enterprise scale, delivered in fixed-scope engagements at small-business scale and small-business pricing.
Public homepage H1 (gap-positioning, locked v2.1):
AI, Microsoft, and IT leadership for businesses without an IT department.
Founder tagline (small italic line under the H1, About page opener, supporting line — Sree's existing personal mission, anchored on his LinkedIn presence for cohesion with his network):
"I help my partners do the things that inspire them." — Sree
Tagline alternative (for Web Design hero or campaign-level use):
Modern IT and web design, run by people who answer the phone.
We're not for: venture-backed startups chasing hockey-stick growth, enterprises with procurement departments, or companies whose primary buying criterion is "cheapest."
Craft. We sweat the 5% nobody asks for. The tile that lines up. The button label that took twenty minutes. The work that still looks right in three years.
Clarity. No jargon. No "circle back." Plain language is the way we respect your time.
Commitment. Small-shop energy at any scale. We pick up the phone. We remember your dog's name. We finish what we start, on the day we said.
Canadian. Halifax is home. Atlantic Canada is the backyard. We work coast-to-coast in Canadian dollars (no exchange-rate surprises), with Canadian data residency awareness, Canadian privacy and compliance context (PIPEDA, provincial laws like Quebec's Law 25), and Canadian SMB economics. The technology questions don't change at provincial borders — but the regulatory, financial, and accountability context does. Local in-country, accountable in-country.
Care. We work with non-profits and community organizations through a capacity-bound program — one reduced-fee or pro-bono project slot reserved per quarter. We pay attention to the people in the work — yours and ours. Outside the paid work we volunteer in our communities, but we'd rather live the ethic than list it. Giving back is structural here, not seasonal — and bounded enough to be sustainable.
Candour. We tell you when something isn't your strength. We tell you when something isn't ours. We tell you when the right answer is "wait" or "hire someone else for this part." Honesty is what makes the other five values worth anything.
If Timberlea Consulting were a person, that person is Sree Roy. The persona is written in Sree's own first-person voice because — for now — Timberlea Consulting is him. Nineteen-plus years of enterprise IT across Canadian healthcare, federal government, telecom, and banking. Production AI for a 20,000-person workforce. Microsoft 365 Copilot for 500 users. GitHub Advanced Security and Copilot for a 100-developer organization. Outside the paid work: parent, kids' soccer coach, community member of the IWK Health Children's Hospital Research Ethics Board.
The full first-person persona block — used as the About page voice — lives in marketing/brand-v2-foundation.md § 2.
We reserve one reduced-fee or pro-bono project slot per quarter for a non-profit, NGO, or community organization. The principle is simple: generosity that's bounded enough to be sustainable, and explicit enough to be honored. If a non-profit's budget doesn't fit our advertised pricing, we ask them to tell us what they're trying to do — if a quarterly slot is open, we work it out together. If the slot is taken, we recommend the smallest useful scope that fits, or point them to a community resource that does.
It aligns with our Care value and with the volunteer ethic Sree carries into every other part of his life. It is not a marketing tactic. The bounded program protects capacity, dignity, and clarity — for the non-profit and for us. We let the work speak for itself.
The canonical service-block welcome line: Non-profit or NGO? We reserve one reduced-fee or pro-bono slot per quarter — tell us what you're trying to do.
Think of a tradesperson explaining the work to a neighbour — someone who's been doing this a long time and cares how it turns out. They explain what they're doing and why. They tell you when you're about to make a mistake. Nothing to prove. A lot to deliver.
Plain language, always. If a ten-year-old couldn't follow the sentence, rewrite it. This is not dumbing down — it's respecting the reader's time.
Specific over general. Not "we boost performance," but "we got a 4.2-second page load down to 0.9s."
Short sentences earn long ones. A paragraph of crisp, short sentences gives a long sentence room to breathe and do work.
Warm, not performative. Contractions: yes. Exclamation marks and emoji-as-punctuation: no.
Confidence without arrogance. State what you know. Acknowledge what you don't.
Honest about limits. Tell the partner when something isn't your strength. Name who you'd refer them to instead. Trust compounds when you protect the partner from yourself.
Generous as a default. The free 30 minutes. The lead magnet. The NGO carve-out. The answer to a stranger's question. These aren't tactics — they're how we operate.
Earn the maritime reference. One per long-form piece. Two is over-rotated. Three is parody.
we · you · help · build · rebuild · ship · run · fix · measure · practical · plain · grounded · durable · quiet · careful · over time · in the long run · from the ground up · worth doing right
disruptive · cutting-edge · transformative · revolutionary · synergy · synergistic · leverage (as a verb) · best-in-class · world-class · enterprise-grade · game-changing · rockstar · ninja · guru · 10x · unlock · supercharge · empower · seamless · holistic · turnkey · next-gen · low-hanging fruit · move the needle · at the end of the day · absolutely · solutions (as a stand-in noun) · AI-powered · senior (when describing Timberlea Consulting's judgement, expertise, billing, or work — use practitioner, working, careful, or a concrete time anchor like "nineteen years" instead)
Modern IT and web design, run by people who answer the phone.
Based in Halifax, serving businesses across Canada. We help small and mid-sized companies think through their systems and ship websites that actually do the job.
Most Halifax small-business owners I talk to are paying 3× what they should for hosting — and don't know it. Here's what's usually happening behind the scenes.
Rebuilt a partner's booking flow this week. Old: 4 screens, 3.8s load. New: 1 screen, 0.6s. Booking completion: 3% → 7.5%. Same copy, same prices. Most of the fix was about not doing things.
Hi James — I help run an IT and web design shop out of Halifax. Noticed your site's taking about 8s to load on mobile, mostly from an unoptimized hero image. Thought you'd want to know. Fix would take about 30 minutes if you'd like me to send over the specifics. No sales pitch — just a heads-up from another Canadian business. — Sree
Hey Sarah — caught your ticket from this morning. Two quick things before I dig in: (1) can you confirm you're seeing this on mobile or desktop? (2) when did it start? If this weekend, I already have a suspicion. — Sree
Run every piece of copy through these six checks before shipping:
Two assets, one identity. A TC monogram for compact contexts (favicons, social avatars, nav icons), and a full horizontal logo (the wordmark TIMBERLEA — with the final A drawn as an evergreen pine — over CONSULTING) for everything else. Both are single-ink, vector, and source-of-truth SVG. Locked May 2026.
Look at the wordmark. The final letter of TIMBERLEA isn't an A — it's a small evergreen pine. The name Timberlea literally means timber + lea — a woodland meadow. The tree is the name, drawn into the typography. FedEx-arrow cleverness, executed quietly.
assets/brand/Logo/Timberlea_Brand_SVGs/Timberlea_Full_Logo_Vector.svg and Timberlea_Monogram_Vector.svg_currentColor.svg. These are what the live wireframe and this guide use.#1A6B5C#25C9B0<img>Coastal (light) and Midnight Coastal (dark). Neither is "the main one with the other as an afterthought." The site, products, and marketing all support a user toggle plus prefers-color-scheme. Use the sun/moon icon in the top-right of this page to switch between them and preview.
Hero gradient: linear-gradient(135deg, #061E2C 0%, #0C3547 50%, #1A6B5C 100%)
Hero gradient: linear-gradient(135deg, #020B14 0%, #061F33 45%, #0D3D4A 100%)
Across any composition: roughly 60% background, 30% content and surface, 10% accent. The accent should feel intentional — never ambient. A page where every other word is brand-green is a page where nothing stands out.
All shipped combinations must pass WCAG 2.1 AA (4.5:1 for normal text, 3:1 for large text and UI). We aspire to AAA (7:1) for primary text where feasible.
| Combination | Ratio | Rating |
|---|---|---|
#0D0D0D on #F8F4EE (light body text) | ~17.7:1 | AAA |
#1A6B5C on #F8F4EE (light accent) | ~5.9:1 | AA |
#EAF7F3 on #02111E (dark body text) | ~17.2:1 | AAA |
#25C9B0 on #02111E (dark accent) | ~8.4:1 | AAA |
#7DE8D4 on #02111E (dark highlight) | ~13.1:1 | AAA |
accent with accent-2 directly as foreground/background — they're too close in luminance. And never rely on text-muted for UI a keyboard or screen-reader user needs to find.
Source Serif 4 for display. Inter for body. No third font. No Georgia. No Playfair. The restraint is part of the brand.
Headlines, hero text, page titles, pull quotes, the wordmark. Weights used: 400, 600, 700. Italic used sparingly, for emphasis inside a display line.
Body text, UI labels, navigation, buttons, forms, microcopy. Weights used: 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800 (rare).
<em>. Never body paragraphs wholesale.<br> between paragraphs.<link rel="preconnect" href="https://fonts.googleapis.com">
<link rel="preconnect" href="https://fonts.gstatic.com" crossorigin>
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Source+Serif+4:ital,wght@0,400;0,600;0,700;1,400&family=Inter:wght@300;400;500;600;700;800&display=swap" rel="stylesheet">Consistent spacing is the quietest signal of care. Use multiples of 8 everywhere. The only exception is 4px for icon-plus-label gaps.
| Token | Value | Use |
|---|---|---|
micro | 4px | Icon + label gap |
xs | 8px | Tight paddings |
s | 16px | Default small spacing |
m | 24px | Paragraph spacing, card padding |
l | 32px | Section inner spacing |
xl | 48px | Between related sections |
2xl | 64px | Between major sections |
3xl | 96px | Hero sections, top-of-page breathing room |
| Token | Value | Use |
|---|---|---|
sm | 4px | Small UI (inputs, small buttons) |
DEFAULT | 8px | Buttons, inputs, small cards |
md | 12px | Cards |
lg | 16px | Large cards, hero panels |
xl | 24px | Featured elements |
full | 9999px | Pills, badges, round buttons |
Buttons, cards, forms, badges, navigation, theme toggle. Apply consistently across every Timberlea Consulting surface — site, product UI, proposals, decks.
Primary: accent → accent-2 gradient. Secondary: transparent with border. Ghost: accent text only, for less-important actions.
localStorage['timberlea-theme'].background-color and color. Nothing more.The wireframe at timberlea-wireframe.html is the living reference implementation. Highlights:
Future Timberlea Consulting SaaS products (and any internal tools) inherit this brand. Drop these at the root of any new product.
:root {
/* Coastal (light) — default */
--bg-primary: #F8F4EE;
--bg-secondary: #EFE9E0;
--bg-card: #FFFFFF;
--bg-card-hover: #F5F0E8;
--accent: #1A6B5C;
--accent-2: #25927E;
--accent-glow: rgba(26, 107, 92, 0.12);
--text-primary: #0D0D0D;
--text-secondary: #404040;
--text-muted: #6A7A88;
--border: #D8D2C8;
}
[data-theme="midnight-coastal"] {
--bg-primary: #02111E;
--bg-secondary: #061F33;
--bg-card: #0B2B44;
--bg-card-hover: #0F3A58;
--accent: #25C9B0;
--accent-2: #7DE8D4;
--accent-glow: rgba(37, 201, 176, 0.22);
--text-primary: #EAF7F3;
--text-secondary: #B8D4CC;
--text-muted: #7A928C;
--border: #123048;
}// tailwind.config.js
module.exports = {
theme: {
extend: {
colors: {
bg: {
primary: 'var(--bg-primary)',
secondary: 'var(--bg-secondary)',
card: 'var(--bg-card)',
},
accent: {
DEFAULT: 'var(--accent)',
2: 'var(--accent-2)',
glow: 'var(--accent-glow)',
},
text: {
primary: 'var(--text-primary)',
secondary: 'var(--text-secondary)',
muted: 'var(--text-muted)',
},
},
fontFamily: {
display: ['"Source Serif 4"', 'Georgia', 'serif'],
body: ['Inter', 'system-ui', 'sans-serif'],
},
},
},
};prefers-reduced-motion respectedLimited but defined. Uncoated stock. Quiet confidence. Restraint.
Not corporate stock. Not trend-chasing lifestyle. Halifax, real hands, real weather.
Every button label, error message, empty state, and confirmation passes through the Warm Expert filter.
Every CTA on every Timberlea Consulting surface uses one of six canonical wordings, locked in marketing/brand-v2-hero-cta.md § 2. No improvisation. The system:
Killed wordings (kill-list-grade violations): Click here, Learn more (without verb-and-object suffix), Submit, OK, Get started, Get in touch, Contact us, and the v1.0 Book a fit call (replaced by Book a free 30-min call).
Booking CTAs link to Cal.com (placeholder URL pending Sree's account setup; may switch to Calendly later — both are valid, Cal.com is the current choice).
No projects yet. Your projects and their current status will show up here. Start one when you're ready.
[Button: Start a project]
If you're an LLM, Claude agent, or developer picking up this brand to apply to a new surface, this is your TL;DR.
{
"theme": {
"coastal": {
"bg": { "primary": "#F8F4EE", "secondary": "#EFE9E0", "card": "#FFFFFF" },
"accent": { "primary": "#1A6B5C", "secondary": "#25927E", "glow": "rgba(26,107,92,0.12)" },
"text": { "primary": "#0D0D0D", "secondary": "#404040", "muted": "#6A7A88" },
"border": "#D8D2C8"
},
"midnightCoastal": {
"bg": { "primary": "#02111E", "secondary": "#061F33", "card": "#0B2B44" },
"accent": { "primary": "#25C9B0", "secondary": "#7DE8D4", "glow": "rgba(37,201,176,0.22)" },
"text": { "primary": "#EAF7F3", "secondary": "#B8D4CC", "muted": "#7A928C" },
"border": "#123048"
}
},
"typography": {
"display": { "family": "'Source Serif 4', Georgia, serif", "weights": [400, 600, 700] },
"body": { "family": "'Inter', system-ui, sans-serif", "weights": [300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800] }
},
"radius": { "sm": 4, "md": 8, "lg": 12, "xl": 16, "2xl": 24, "full": 9999 },
"spacing": { "base": 8, "scale": [4, 8, 16, 24, 32, 48, 64, 96, 128] }
}A brand document is only useful if people actually update it. Here's how.
Owned by Sree Roy / Timberlea Consulting. Updates happen via Pull Requests on the timberlea-consulting-website repo. The canonical version is whatever's on main.
You can for: a one-time campaign with a specific creative angle (return to standard after), a platform constraint (document the exception), a co-branded partnership.
You can't for: personal preference, "I think this looks better," trend-chasing.
Open an issue on the repo titled brand: <short description>. Include: what you're proposing, why, what it breaks if we do it, what it breaks if we don't. Sree reviews.