The style guide
Identity, type, palette, and ornaments — at a glance
This page is the brand reference for alexandria.kingst.com — a working spec that the site itself uses. Everything below is live: the colors are the actual CSS variables, the typefaces are the ones the page is set in, the marks are inlined SVG. A printable PDF version is available for prepress at the foot of the page.
Plate I.
The mark
A 1749 plat-compass rose, engraved-line. Single ink color (currentColor), accent-red center dot. Eight points at full detail; four points at favicon scale. A filigree ring rings the rose at 128px and above.
Clear space equal to one cardinal-point length on every side; no other element may invade that envelope. Minimum size is 24 px; below that the rose loses legibility and the compass card reads as a dot.
Plate II.
The wordmark
Set in Fraunces small caps, weight 540, letter-spacing 0.18em. The
.kingst.com segment in accent red; the rest in ink. The
compass mark sits 0.5em above the wordmark in the broadsheet lockup.
Est. MMXXVI · Alexandria, Virginia · The Mount Vernon Corridor
Plate III.
The type
- Fraunces — the broadsheet face
- Newsreader — long-form text, optical-size aware.
- Libre Caslon Text — pull-quotes & flourishes.
- JetBrains Mono — meta-labels, citations.
Used for headlines, section titles, the wordmark, and place-page H1s. Variable font; weights 400–700.
Used for prose throughout. Optical sizing 6–72.
Used for italic dek lines and the homepage pitch.
Used for taglines, meta-labels, code, and oldstyle small caps.
Plate IV.
The palette
Web is the source of truth. CMYK builds and Pantone equivalents are derived for prepress on uncoated text stock; verify with a press proof before a long run.
| Swatch | Name | CSS var | HEX | sRGB | CMYK | Pantone ≈ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ink | --color-ink | #1a1a1a | 26,26,26 | 0 0 0 90 | Black 7 C | |
| Ink soft | --color-ink-soft | #2a2520 | 42,37,32 | 0 12 24 84 | Black 4 C | |
| Muted | --color-muted | #6b6b6b | 107,107,107 | 0 0 0 58 | Cool Gray 9 C | |
| Rule | --color-rule | #d9d0c2 | 217,208,194 | 0 4 11 15 | Warm Gray 1 C | |
| Paper | --color-paper | #fafaf7 | 250,250,247 | 0 0 1 2 | 11-0107 TPG | |
| Paper-2 | --color-paper-2 | #f2eee6 | 242,238,230 | 0 2 5 5 | Warm Gray 1 C — 30% | |
| Accent | --color-accent | #8b2635 | 139,38,53 | 0 73 62 45 | 201 C | |
| Accent ink | --color-accent-ink | #5a1820 | 90,24,32 | 0 73 64 65 | 1815 C |
The eight-color era stripe used in the OG share card and at the head of the streets-map legend.
Plate V.
The ornaments
VII.The chapter heading
King Street the river the corridor
Plate VI.
The voice
The editorial voice is documented in two existing references on the site. Both are part of the brand and treated as canonical.
The methodology page
How sources are cited, how living persons are handled, how corrections work, what the platform does and does not do.
The photographer's brief
Aspect ratio (16:9), framing rules, light, lens choice, vertical correction, the policy on people in frame, credit lines, file naming.
A letter-paper PDF of this page is available at /style/alexandria-kingst-style-guide.pdf. Generated on 2 May 2026. Recommended stock: 100 lb uncoated text or 80 lb cover; black on cream.