Ten ways the homepage could look.
Each direction is a complete proposal — palette, fonts, layout, voice. Brand red and brand green appear in every one. Every page sells the free trial of the Uncovered course series and contains a "What Your First Lesson Looks Like" mechanics section that pre-empts the beginner objection. Click through fully. Take notes on what makes you lean forward.
- 01Direction 1 · Fraunces + Roboto Slab
The Mountain Letter
Editorial personal letter. Validation-first H1 in heavy Fraunces italic with a hand-drawn brushstroke underline. Mechanics section uses Caveat marginalia arrows + a brush-underlined cognate sentence. Mountain story lives in About Olly.
Most-Olly translation of the brand voice. Scene-first language, validation-first hero, course-clear conversion.
→ - 02Direction 2 · DM Serif Display + Roboto Slab
The Story Cinema
Cinematic dark direction. Letterboxed widescreen hero with DM Serif italic. Sections introduced as chapters with roman numerals. Mechanics rendered as filmstrip frames; cognate sentence as a film subtitle with spotlight-red highlights.
The homepage IS a story, in a cinema. Brand red is the spotlight; brand green is the exit-sign accent.
→ - 03Direction 3 · Newsreader + Roboto Slab
The Travel Almanac
Vintage travel almanac. Hand-drawn world map hero. Postage-stamp language pins (each a clickable trial-start). Mechanics shown as waypoint stamps; cognate demo rendered on a vintage postcard with ink-circled cognates.
The avatar is literally an expat or traveller. The almanac metaphor sells the romance of place without becoming a tech app.
→ - 04Direction 4 · Cormorant + Roboto Slab
The Quiet Library
Bookish, library-quiet — but explicit that this is a COURSE, not a book. Drop caps, justified columns, folio page numbers, marginalia. Cognate demo on a book page with red-pen circles and Caveat margin glosses. Book-spine language picker.
For the 72-year-old who used to read for pleasure. The book-page metaphor frames a modern course in a trusted, calm format.
→ - 05Direction 5 · Lora + Roboto Slab
The Open Door
Calm, hopeful, wellness-adjacent. Refined founder photo right, validation-first headline left, small pill testimonial floats over the hero. Mechanics rendered as 6 leaf-icon beats with a soft-cream cognate card. Pill CTAs in brand green.
WellNest-inspired. Most premium-calm direction in the set — for the bruised audience that wants a soft chair, not a pitch.
→ - 06Direction 6 · Bricolage Grotesque + Roboto Slab
The Café Sketchbook
Hand-illustrated, warm, faintly playful. Organic blob shapes in brand red and green float behind the hero. Doodle-illustrated 6-beat mechanics; cognate sentence in chunky Bricolage with hand-drawn green doodle-circles + Caveat glosses.
Two of Olly's most-loved emails are set in cafés. The blob shapes work here as coffee foam. Warm without being childish.
→ - 07Direction 7 · Big Shoulders Display + Roboto Slab
The Anti-Parrot Manifesto
Opinionated protest poster. Hero pivots to "FINALLY. A METHOD THAT ACTUALLY WORKS." Mechanics section reads as a triumphant counter-manifesto in massive condensed type; cognates highlighted with a brand-green diagonal slash (inverse of the crossed-out parrot motif).
Olly already names the villain. This direction commits. Talks to the 68-year-old furious after 620 days of Duolingo.
→ - 08Direction 8 · Manrope + Roboto Slab
The Spotify of Stories
Contemporary audio-app aesthetic, dark. Hero is a now-playing panel. Mechanics rendered as 6 bespoke app-UI cards (cognate panel, lesson tree, mouth-shape illustration, world panel, replay state). Album-tile language picker with hover trial-start.
Proves StoryLearning can look as current as Duolingo without becoming a quiz app. Best fit for the mechanics demo.
→ - 09Direction 9 · Crimson Pro + Roboto Slab
The Postcard Stack
Tactile collage of postcards on a desk. Tilted polaroids, masking tape, paperclips. Each of the 6 mechanics beats lives on its own postcard. Hero reframed as a sealed welcome packet — "7 DAYS FREE TO START YOUR COURSE."
Every surface signals 'not another piece of software' — exactly the message for a software-burned audience.
→ - 10Direction 10 · Playfair Display + Roboto Slab
The Course Behind The Books
The homepage as a course presented as a book jacket. Cover: "The Course Behind The Books — The Course Olly Wrote After The Books." Cognate demo as a "page from the course material" with brand-green foil-stamp circles and dictionary footnotes.
Olly is an actual published author of 30+ books. This direction borrows that credibility for the course — 'this isn't a startup, this is a body of work.'
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