The brand
Tone of voice
How entre-espace writes: make people feel before making them understand, then connect. Two voices, one typography, a set of rules.
Make people feel before making them understand, then connect what habit makes us look at separately.
The characteristic movement goes from an experience, an object or a cultural reference towards a design question, then towards its human, collective and ecological consequences. A vinyl record, a headset, a place, a conversation are ways into the idea: the concrete is not decoration added after the argument, it builds it.
Two voices
- Corey: the essayist register. A situated “I”, an argued position, a critique that names a mechanism rather than a person.
- Coreygraphe / Denis Giraudon: the data-fiction register. Factual on the surface; the tension lies in how the figures are put together. Every figure is sourced.
Same idiolect, different speaking positions. The two are not mixed in the same text.
The tone, dimension by dimension
| Dimension | Keep | Avoid |
|---|---|---|
| Embodiment | A situated “I”: I observe, I have felt, I propose. | The all-knowing guru, the fake confession. |
| Relationship | A reader invited to look and discuss. | The lecture from above. |
| Sensitivity | Precise images when they carry the point. | Generic lyricism in every paragraph. |
| Critique | A position you stand by, a mechanism named. | Limp neutrality or indignant one-upmanship. |
| Teaching | A distinction, an example, the conditions in which it applies. | Stacked jargon, a lesson with nothing at stake. |
| Humour | The wink, self-mockery, the occasional pun. | The advertising slogan, sarcasm aimed at people. |
| Certainty | Assert when you stand by it, hold back when you must. | Turning a doubt into a verdict. |
| Rhythm | Fluid in structure, with tension in the narrative. | Smoothing out the rough edges by default. |
Typography of the writing
Do
- Quotation marks ”…” to highlight a word or an expression.
- Guillemets « … » for a quotation in French; “…” in English.
- A colon, a comma, brackets or a new sentence where a dash would be tempting.
- In French, non-breaking spaces before ; : ! ? and inside « » (the site adds them on its own).
Avoid
- The em dash, except at the start of a line of dialogue.
- Prestige capitals, and English loanwords in French without a professional need for them.
Form of address
Formal “vous” in articles; informal “tu” in Novum’s tools and interfaces. In English, “you” covers both. A text chooses its reader: designers, product teams, data and AI people, or a wider audience.
Lexicon
Recurring fields: links, collective, context, focus, complexity, experience, consequences, measure. Structuring images: map, route, path, bridge, hearth, weaving. One guiding image per movement of a text; “systemic” or “complexity” are not sprinkled about to sound the part.
Status. The signature (make people feel, understand, connect) and the two voices are approved. The tone table and the lexicon come from version 0.1 of the editorial brand book and remain proposals.