TheColab.ai Brand Skill

Use this with pptx whenever a deck, presentation, workshop pack, pitch deck, proposal, event recap, or client-facing visual should look and sound like The Colab.

Brand Snapshot

The Colab is a New Zealand AI consultancy and community helping businesses move from AI demos to operational capability.

• Positioning: practical AI operators, not ivory-tower consultants.
• Core promise: model-agnostic AI strategy + implementation that turns pilots into production workflows.
• Audience: NZ business leaders, founders, operators, councils, associations, and technical teams.
• Founders: Simon Conroy (strategy/commercial) and Adam Holt (technical/agentic systems).
• Community: Claude Code Meetups NZ and hands-on AI education/events.

Voice

• Direct, useful, sharp, warm.
• Confident without corporate theatre.
• Prefer concrete verbs: build, ship, automate, measure, integrate, operate.
• Use light NZ flavour when appropriate; do not overdo slang.
• Avoid generic AI waffle: "unlock potential", "leverage synergies", "future-proof your business", "cutting-edge solutions".

Message Pillars

1. AI that works in the business — not another strategy PDF that dies in SharePoint.
2. Humans + agents together — the practical operating model is collaboration, not magic replacement.
3. Fast pilots, real constraints — prove value quickly, with privacy, integrations, and workflow ownership considered early.
4. Model-agnostic by design — OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and open-source models are tools, not religions.
5. Community-backed learning — meetups, demos, and shared practice keep the work grounded.

Visual Direction

Use the live thecolab.ai website as the brand source of truth. The look is editorial, premium, warm, and sparse — not neon SaaS sludge.

Site-Derived Palette

Use these as defaults unless a client brand overrides them:

• Ink / near black: #171412 — headings, primary CTAs, footer/dark sections.
• Warm off-white: #F8F7F4 — main canvas/background.
• White card: #FFFFFF — cards and content panels.
• Deep navy: #31465F — large stat cards and trust/depth blocks.
• Colab blue: #1688C7 — headline emphasis, links, metric accents.
• Bright blue: #19A7E0 — gradient/high-energy accents.
• Kea orange: #C94A0A — sparing metric emphasis/warnings.
• Charcoal body: #4F4943 — paragraph copy.
• Muted stone: #6E6861 — captions/supporting text.
• Soft border: #DDD8D0 — card outlines.

Recommended balance: 65–75% warm off-white/white, 15–20% ink/navy, 5–10% blue, tiny orange accents.

Type & Components

• Headings feel like editorial serif: Georgia / Times-style, heavy, tight tracking.
• Body copy is clean sans-serif: Inter/system sans, generous line height.
• Primary CTAs are black rounded rectangles with white text.
• Cards are rounded white panels with soft borders/shadows.
• Metrics use big bold sans numerals with blue/orange accents.
• Dark community/event sections use near-black backgrounds with white text and blue accents.

Deck Rules

When creating HTML→PDF decks, proposals, or presentation-style outputs:

1. Start with the story: audience, decision, one-line takeaway, slide spine.
2. Use the thecolab.ai visual system: warm canvas, black serif headlines, blue emphasis, rounded cards, restrained orange.
3. Every slide should have a visual structure: cards, timeline, callout, process flow, comparison, quote block, or metric panel.
4. Keep text tight: one idea per slide, 3–5 bullets max, no paragraph sludge.
5. Include proof/receipts when making claims: metric, example, source, or operational implication.
6. Treat first-pass decks as editable working drafts unless the user asks for polished final art.

Layout Motifs

• Website-style hero: centered editorial serif headline with blue emphasis word.
• Cream content slides with rounded white cards and sparse blue accents.
• Navy-to-blue metric panels for headline statistics.
• Before/after columns for transformation stories.
• Three-card operating model: Discover → Build → Operate.
• Timeline/process flows for pilots and implementation plans.
• Dark near-black community/CTA sections with white text and blue CTA accent.

Slide Copy Patterns

Use these phrases as anchors, not mandatory copy:

• "From demo to operating rhythm"
• "Practical AI capability, built with your team"
• "Pilot fast, integrate deliberately"
• "Agents where they help; humans where judgment matters"
• "The model is not the strategy — the workflow is"

Clawd / Community Mascot

For community and playful outputs, Clawd is a mischievous kea: curious, clever, occasionally chaotic, stealing unattended API tokens and pecking at bad prompts. Use him for warm humour, not for serious enterprise collateral unless the brief invites it.

Files & Validation

This is a documentation/brand skill. Use scripts/cli.py palette --json for machine-readable colours or scripts/cli.py skill for the full guide. The scripts/smoke_test.py file validates that the brand guidance remains present for CI.