# stripe-press — Stripe Press

- **School**: Warm Humanist (with editorial bones)
- **Vibe**: Books as objects, cream + ink, warm photography, the kind of design only a successful infrastructure company funds
- **Best for**: Editorial / publishing, longform features, "books and ideas" products
- **Touchstone**: press.stripe.com, the physical Stripe Press books (cloth-bound, foil-stamped)

**Palette**
- Ground: `#F1ECDE` (warm bone)
- Surface darker: `#E6DCC4`
- Ink: `#1A1A18` (very warm near-black)
- Secondary text: `#736D5A`
- Foil-stamp accent: deep teal `#1B4B5A` or burnt sienna `#A04A2A` (book-cover-specific colors)
- Hairline: `#C8BEA4`

**Typography**
- Display: a refined transitional or modern serif — GT Sectra, Domaine Display, Italian Old Style. Italic everywhere.
- Body: an old-style serif at 18–19px, line-height 1.65 — Source Serif, Lyon Text, ITC Galliard
- Sans for UI only: a humanist sans at small sizes for nav and captions — Söhne or GT America
- Often pairs a wide display serif with a slim body serif

**Spacing**: 4 / 8 / 16 / 24 / 32 / 48 / 96. Editorial breathing room.

**Radius**: 0 throughout (books don't have rounded corners)

**Shadow**: present on book objects — `0 24px 48px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.18)` to make books feel three-dimensional on the page

**Motion**: slow, slow, slow. Crossfades over 1–2 seconds. Books rotate gently in 3D on hover (~15° max). Ken Burns on hero photography (~20s).

**Signature moves**
- Book-cover photography as hero — the actual physical object photographed on cream paper with a warm raking light and an honest shadow
- Wide-set serif italic for emphasis, set 1.5–2× body size
- Author / chapter quotes in oversized italic serif, hung against a wide margin
- Cloth-textured backgrounds for section breaks (subtle textile pattern at low opacity)
- A single foil-stamp color per book / chapter (gold, deep teal, burnt sienna) — never combined

**Avoid**
- Pure white grounds (the warm cream is part of the recipe)
- Sans-serif body type (the editorial serif is the signature)
- Card grids of books — Stripe Press lays each book out as a feature, not a tile
- Cold neutral gray — every gray here has a warm cast

**AI prompt seed**
> Hardcover book photographed on warm cream paper #F1ECDE, raking afternoon window light, deep soft shadow, single book object, cloth-bound spine visible, foil-stamped title in burnt sienna, 4:5, editorial product photography.

**Don't use when**
- The deliverable has no editorial / book / publication content
- The brand voice is light or playful (Stripe Press is sincere and considered)
- The audience won't sit for longform — recipe rewards reading

---

> **Same school — Warm Humanist**: [`mailchimp-freddie`](./mailchimp-freddie.md) · [`headspace-meditation`](./headspace-meditation.md)  
> **Browse all 25 recipes**: [INDEX.md](./INDEX.md)