One firefly. One set of rules.
This page is the single source of truth for the Tosa Marketing brand across web, print, and everything after: tokens, type, components, motion, voice, and the booth. Point any designer, any tool, or any AI here — a plain-text version lives at /brand.md.
Wauwatosa means firefly.
The town’s name comes from the Potawatomi word for firefly, and the whole brand is that one image: a small, precise light that makes itself seen at dusk.
The scene behind every design decision is a southeast Wisconsin owner checking their site after closing time — shop lights off, tomorrow’s calls on their mind. The default surface is night. The glow is the business being findable in it. Day sections exist for contrast: pricing, lists, proof. The tagline is “Built to be seen.” and it is never reworded.
Night is the canvas. Luciferin is the light.
The web palette lives as CSS variables in app/globals.css — the swatches below render from the live tokens, so this page cannot drift from the site. Two laws above all: never introduce cream or beige, and luciferin is the only saturated hue on night surfaces. On day surfaces the accent is a night-sky indigo; lime stays a night color.
Night tokens
Day tokens
Print scene
Print artwork (cards, booth) runs the firefly scene deeper and bluer than the screen: a night-sky navy instead of charcoal. Values sampled from the canonical print files; for production, the CMYK PDFs in section 08 are the reference, not hex conversions.
The working parts, as they ship.
Everything below is the production component or class, not a picture of one. If it looks different here than on a page, the page is wrong.
Buttons on day
On night
The section head is the site’s wayfinding device: serif index numeral, tracked label, hairline rule with a firefly node, italic meta. Every section gets exactly one.
List & chips
- Inclusion rows carry a firefly bullet and a hairline
- They are the standard list treatment sitewide
Night and day, in bands.
Pages alternate night and day sections in asymmetric editorial grids. Night sells the feeling; day carries the facts.
Every section must cite a module from the reference library (tosa-module-library.html) — sections are never invented from taste. New section ideas require a new captured reference first. The following patterns are banned outright, in any medium:
- Text-left / paragraph-right hero with no other idea
- Item rows with arrows pinned far right
- FAQ accordions with a plus on the right
- Three equal cards with icons above titles
- White headline over black gradient scrim on a photo
- Centered header + centered subhead + centered grid, repeated
- Ghost outline numerals, neon italic accents, particle confetti
- Cream or beige anywhere in the palette
- A second saturated hue competing with luciferin
Plain, priced, and signed.
Write like a person explaining work to a neighbor. Every term a customer might not know gets defined, not deployed.
Numbers appear in copy before anyone has to ask. Vagueness about cost is off-brand.
No punching at peers, no naming competitors, no "unlike other agencies." The work argues for itself.
No guaranteed rankings, no promised outcomes we don’t control. Measured language survives scrutiny; hype doesn’t.
The work has a person behind it: Joel Kelly, Wauwatosa. Bylines, real photos, a real phone number.
“Built to be seen.” — never reworded, never extended, never punned on.
