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Identity

Voice & tone

The style guide we write with, the filter that checks it against your text, and the words that never get published.

At Arcasiles Group we write the way we talk: close to the reader, with no jargon that is not needed. Below is the style guide we write with, each rule next to an example so you can see what changes. Examples stay in Spanish; explanations are translated.

Our style guide

Six rules, and none of them is style for its own sake: each one fixes something that reads worse without it.

  1. We write in the first person plural

    We sign what we decide. The impersonal —se hace, se ha optado por— hides who decides, and in a brand manual that is exactly what has to be shown.

    Elegimos este marco de trabajo over Se ha optado por este marco de trabajo

  2. Present tense, active voice

    The present locates the action and the active voice says who performs it. What we avoid is not compound tenses —the Spanish present perfect is the ordinary past in Spain— but overwrought periphrasis: llevar a cabo, proceder a, tener la posibilidad de.

    Analizamos los datos cada semana over Los datos son analizados semanalmente por el equipo

  3. One idea per sentence

    Chained subordinates and long asides force a second read. If a sentence needs two commas to breathe, it is almost always two sentences.

    Lanzamos la actualización. Ahora la app carga más rápido over Lanzamos la actualización que, tras varios ajustes en el servidor, permite que la app cargue más rápido

  4. Second person, always

    Neither usted nor el usuario. Whoever reads this is one person with something to do, and the third person leaves them outside their own task.

    Encuentra lo que necesitas en el menú over El usuario podrá encontrar lo que necesite en el menú

  5. Every figure with its source

    A number with no origin is not data, it is an opinion with digits. Empty adjectives —increíble, revolucionario— take the place where the figure should be.

    Reducimos los errores un 15 % (informe del segundo trimestre) over Logramos una mejora drástica e inigualable en el sistema

  6. It must not sound like a machine

    Template copy gives itself away by its texture: inflated clichés, lists whose items all open the same way, and the sentence that performs the rule it is stating. Write it the way you would tell someone on the team, and read it aloud before publishing.

    Probamos tres soluciones y esta fue la que mejor nos funcionó over En el dinámico entorno actual, hace falta desplegar soluciones que cambien nuestros procesos

How we write

  1. Reservamos plazas hasta el 30 de junio.

    Active verb in the present

  2. 42 eventos este año, 18 más que en 2024.

    Data + context

  3. The scale has four neutrals, and Paper stays separate.

    Varied rhythm Most sentences between 8 and 20 words; this one has 9. A short one lands the point.

  4. Si necesitas un color de énfasis, lo eliges en la tabla.

    Close tone We address the reader as “tú”, and never in the impersonal.

  5. Compra entradas

    Concrete CTA over “Descubre más”.

Text is set, not dumped

Bold for what leads, italic for the nuance, a quote for what comes from elsewhere.

A flat paragraph makes you read all of it to find out what matters; one or two marks give you a way in. Marking everything is the same failure from the other side: with half a sentence in bold, bold says nothing.

The manual publishes 12 chapters and a component kit; the emphasis color arrives per component, never as a page signature.

one or two marks per paragraph, not one per sentence.

How the rest is set —the measure, the hierarchy, the rhythm— lives in the Typography chapter.