Proposal 001 · open for review · 72-hour lazy consensus

I. Use. This.

The expert · the practice · the object

iusethis is a claim, and an entry is a review in the fullest sense: a love story, a historical tale, of an expert and the tools. One man and his trainset, not a survey of train gauges. This proposal sets the editorial identity, the article format, the site-wide color system, the logo, and how we find the people who can write this way.

1.The mark

I. Use. his. his.

The seal carries all three elements — I. / Use. / This. struck in coin relief, ringed the way a © circles its C — and the arrow-T's shaft breaks through the rim, so the seal points at whatever it is affixed to. Official mark and copyright seal in one: © iusethis.org. Wordmark colors: I in gold, Use in green, This in mahogany. Shipped as assets/logo.svg with its own dark-theme colors and a one-time load action: the wordmark's arrow strikes downward into place (pure CSS, honors reduced motion). In running text, "This" stays plain text — the arrow lives in the marks only.

The arrow-T. The T of This is a downward arrow — crossbar and stem descending through the baseline into an arrowhead. The mark points at whatever it is affixed to; that is the grammar of the logo. Which makes the brand meta: put it on a device, a case, a sticker on a crockpot, and the mark itself testifies this is used. Wherever it sits, the arrow supplies the object.
I. Use. his.

The Bearer — the second depiction: a graduate holding the mark to their chest the way a diploma is held in the commencement photo. I got it, I worked for it, I use it, it got me a job. /s
Posed in deliberate meta irony, and the /s belongs to the caption: the Reddit sarcasm tag, born as a fake closing HTML tag (Know Your Meme: Fake HTML Tags) — a fitting citation for a static-HTML archive. The joke is load-bearing: we know exactly how proudly professing a crockpot reads, and we mean every word anyway. Irony opens the door; sincerity furnishes the room. The pose is the editorial stance in one image — ownership and earned competency, journalist and expert at once. The write-up is the diploma. Uses: author badges beside bylines, the About page, merch. Shipped as assets/bearer.svg.

2.The three words

I

the expert

Intimate, not cursory, knowledge — a professor professing: publicly, named, open to peers. The author's years are the credential.

Use

the practice

Operated daily, bought over again. The cadence of locking in and losing time — the repetition musical instruments make honorable.

This

the object

A specific item in the catalog. Not the category, not the market — this one, with its wear patterns and its provenance.

3.What the research found

4.Seven ways to use the entries

  1. The Archive framing — "primary sources for the history of everyday tools." Every article is testimony.
  2. The iusethis Carnival — quarterly themed call; writers post on their own sites, we syndicate by permission into the catalog.
  3. Direct commissions — an invite-wishlist issue label of writers whose devotion is already visible, invited personally.
  4. Interview fallback — a structured interview an editor transcribes into the format, for experts who don't write.
  5. Records as scouting — any register record saying "since 2009" earns a write-up invitation. Longevity of use is the editorial signal.
  6. Multi-owner biographies — a "still in use by" footer lets inheritors link their own story to the same object over decades.
  7. Entries as credentials — an entry is a public certificate of mastery; authors cite their entries the way a professor cites publications. A CV line that proves ten years of practice, not a claimed skill.

5.The ledger format — long-form, five images

Magazine structure: each image opens a section and gives it context. Template shipped as article.html. The Register data block is required — it is what makes this an archive, not a blog.

ImageSectionCarries
FIG. 1Title & Register The hero: the object in its place of use. Then the data: in use since · hours logged · hours to fluency · expected remaining years · provenance · care ritual.
FIG. 2The Meeting How it entered your life; what it replaced; the first sign it was different.
FIG. 3The Practice The cadence of locking in; a session minute by minute; the pull quote.
FIG. 4The Expertise The iron-core-glaze analysis only years of use can teach. The professed knowledge.
FIG. 5The Care & the Years Maintenance, lifecycle, succession — commercialism become stewardship. Then the appendix: what the object makes (the recipe, the score, the config).

Hard rules: first person; the Register numbers are a merge requirement; no affiliate links ever; at least one passage a newcomer couldn't write.

6.The color system — four palettes, light & dark

Trust colors of an opulent old bank: deep green, burnished gold, dark mahogany, veined marble. One gold token threads all four. Shipped as assets/tokens.css; this page is set in Marble and follows your OS theme.

Marble — default

reading · articles
light
bg#F6F1E5
surface#FDFAF2
ink#2B2416
accent#175A43
gold#A67C1F
dark
bg#201B12
surface#2A2418
ink#EDE4D0
accent#4FA47E
gold#D4AF37

Vault

chrome · covers · home page
light
bg#EDF3EE
surface#F8FBF7
ink#14291F
accent#0F4D38
gold#B08D2A
dark
bg#0C1F18
surface#143026
ink#DDEBDF
accent#6FC79E
gold#D9B84A

Coin

features · celebration
light
bg#F7EFD8
surface#FCF7E8
ink#33260C
accent#8C6D1F
gold#C9A227
dark
bg#241C09
surface#31280F
ink#F0E5C4
accent#E0BE4E
gold#C9A227

Teller

archive · history pages
light
bg#F2EAE2
surface#FAF5EF
ink#2A1D12
accent#5C3A24
gold#B08D2A
dark
bg#1D130C
surface#291B11
ink#EBDFD3
accent#C08A5F
gold#D4AF37
Open sub-question for review: the register page currently wears the greenbar printout look. Proposer leans: keep greenbar for the register — the printout is the ledger, the catalog room inside the bank — and use the four palettes everywhere else.

7.SOP additions if this passes