How we look,
how we sound.
A working reference for everyone who writes for, designs for, or represents Celva. Internal & partner use.
This is how Celva looks, sounds, and feels. In one place.
Celva is a physician-led regenerative medicine clinic in Tijuana, built for U.S. patients who want a third option between “wait and see” and surgery. The brand is clinical credibility wrapped in human warmth. Premium without being cold. Confident without being academic. Mayo Clinic crossed with a great independent magazine.
This book exists so anyone working on our behalf (a writer, a designer, a contractor, a partner agency) can stay in voice and on brand without having to ask. It is not a style guide for every decision. It is a reference for the ones that matter most: the logo, the palette, the typography, the way we talk about what we do, and the things we never say.
If you find yourself unsure between two options, pick the quieter one.
Read it once.
Everyone who touches the brand should read the voice section in full. It is short, and it is the difference between sounding like Celva and sounding like a wellness clinic.
Reference the rest.
Use the logo, color, and type sections as lookups. The hex values, clear-space rules, and type sizes are authoritative. When in doubt, copy directly from this book.
Ask when stuck.
If something is not covered here (a new kind of asset, an edge case, a question of tone in a sensitive moment), ask. The contact is on the last page.
Seven chapters. One reference.
The brand book is organized from least concrete to most concrete. It starts with how we think about Celva, moves through the way we sound, and ends at the precise hex values of our color palette. Read the chapters in order; reference any section out of order.
The brand.
Before any pixel or page, the answer to: what is Celva, who do we serve, and what is the one thing we want a patient to feel when they meet us for the first time.
A third option, between wait and see and surgery.
Celva is a physician-led regenerative medicine clinic, regulated by COFEPRIS, operating inside Hospital Angeles in Tijuana. We deliver mesenchymal stem cell therapy to U.S. patients who have been told their two options are to wait, or to cut.
Everything we make (a homepage hero, a patient-story video, an out-of-office email) should trace back to that sentence. We are not a wellness center. We are not a stem cell mill. We are not a hospital. We are the third option. The one the orthopedist did not mention.
What we are
A clinic, not a clinic-academic.
Physician-led care inside a real hospital. We use the regulator's name (COFEPRIS) and the facility's full name (Hospital Angeles) on first reference because both earn trust.
What we sound like
Premium without being cold.
Confident without being academic. We are warm in our welcome, plain in our medicine, and unflinching in our compliance. Mayo Clinic crossed with a great independent magazine.
What we are not
Not your wellness brand.
No journeys, no unlocking, no revolutionary protocols, no cures. We turn down roughly one in three inquiries. That is part of how we earn the trust of the ones we say yes to.
Three doors. One standard of care.
Most patients arrive through one of three doors. Whichever one, they receive the same evaluation, the same lab, and the same physician in the room.
The surgery avoider.
Chronic joint pain. An orthopedist has said replacement or repair. They want a legitimate alternative before committing to recovery.
“I want my body back. Without cutting for it.”
The longevity optimizer.
Performance-oriented, proactive, already dialed-in on their health. Early wear, slower recovery, aging biology. Wants to act before a crisis.
“My body is the asset. I want to perform at the top of it.”
The last-hope seeker.
Has tried everything. Neurologic, complex chronic, a surgery that did not hold. Standard care has said there is nothing more to do.
“I don’t want false hope. I want an honest read.”
Writing rule
Every piece of copy (ad, landing page, email, video script) is written to one audience. Never all three. The clearest tell of off-brand copy is a sentence that tries to speak to a surgery avoider and a longevity optimizer in the same paragraph.
Voice & tone.
The longest chapter in this book, and the one that matters most. The visuals can be borrowed; the voice cannot. Read it in full before you write a single sentence as Celva.
Three writers in the room.
Celva’s voice is a composite of three writers, picked for what each one does well. None of them sound like a clinic on their own. Together, they sound like Celva.
One-word puns, short-form wit, earned humor. Roach gives us the discipline of a headline that does a lot of work with very few syllables. And the nerve to be funny about a serious subject.
Physician credibility paired with plain, slightly dry endings. Hamblin is the voice that explains a mechanism without showing off, and lands a paragraph with a quiet sentence that earns trust.
Analogical reasoning and alliterative titles. Sapolsky is what we reach for when a paragraph needs scale: when we have to make a small idea about a cell feel like a big idea about a life.
The composite, in one sentence
Premium clinic ad copy. Professional, human, playful when it earns it, medically safe. Never cute when it shouldn’t be.
The most important voice rule in this book.
The Roach/Sapolsky register is for headlines and openers. Everywhere else, drop to plain Hamblin: no wit, no puns, no rhetorical setup. If a sentence could run in a regulator filing without edit, it is in the right register.
Roach & Sapolsky.
Use only in: hero headlines, section openers, persona card titles, non-transactional CTA copy, editorial patient-story intros.
Hamblin.
Use in: pricing, FAQ answers, compliance and safety language, trust strip, form labels, errors, contraindications, candidacy.
| Context | Wrong register | Right register |
|---|---|---|
| Hero headline | “Unlock your body’s healing potential today.” | “Regeneration, carefully.” |
| FAQ answer | “Absolutely! Every patient is a perfect candidate for our revolutionary therapy.” | “We turn down roughly one in three inquiries.” |
| Compliance | “Stem cells: the cutting-edge of tomorrow’s medicine, today.” | “Autologous cell therapies of the kind we perform are regulated by COFEPRIS in Mexico.” |
| CTA button | “Begin your wellness journey” | “Book consult” |
Casing, person, punctuation, length.
Sentence case is the house style.
“Book consult” not “Book Consult.” Title case for treatment names and proper nouns. Small caps (DM Sans 11–12 px, 0.15 em tracking) for eyebrows and labels.
We for the clinic. You for the patient.
Never “your journey to wellness.” Never “wellness” at all. “Patient,” not “client.” Physicians named with their real title: “Dr. García,” not “our providers.”
The period is the house punctuation.
No em dashes. Ever. They are the punctuation of AI-written copy and of writers reaching for a rhythm they have not earned. Use a period, a colon, a comma, or parentheses instead. One-word sentences when they land. Avoid exclamation marks and the rhetorical question hero.
Short, short, medium, long, short.
Paragraphs of two or three sentences. Hero headlines of two to four words. Section openers: eyebrow, one-line serif headline, one supporting paragraph. Resist the second.
“Regeneration, carefully.”
Two-word, comma, period. Lets the adverb do the work.
“Three careful protocols. Not a menu.”
Short, short. The pun earns its place because a real distinction follows.
“The orthopedist gave me two options. Celva gave me a third one I could live with.”
Patient voice. No hype. The brand promise stated as a patient fact.
“We turn down roughly one in three inquiries.”
Hamblin-dry credibility. The fact does the persuading.
Words we use. Words we do not.
If you find yourself writing one of the phrases in the left column, stop. They are tells of a different brand (usually a wellness brand), and they will undo the credibility everything else in this book is trying to build.
Never. Words we don’t use.
- cutting-edge
- world-class
- state-of-the-art
- revolutionary
- unlock your potential
- your journey to wellness
- wellness (in any sentence)
- cure, cured, healed, fixed
- FDA approved (we are not)
- guarantee, guaranteed results
- before/after (medical claims)
- emoji of any kind
- em dashes (any kind, ever)
- the rhetorical question hero
Always. The framings we prefer.
- experience: I felt, I noticed, I was surprised
- process: screening, monitoring, follow-up
- regulated by COFEPRIS
- inside Hospital Angeles
- cGMP-compliant laboratory
- physician-led
- candidacy, evaluation, fit
- protocol (we have three; not a menu)
- consult (the CTA outcome we offer)
- autologous cell therapy
- mesenchymal stem cell (MSC)
- third option (between wait and surgery)
- patient (never “client”)
The default-ChatGPT cadence
One specific tell: sentences that begin with “Imagine a world where…” or end with a tidy three-part list. Both are signatures of generic AI-assisted copy. If you used a model to draft, edit the cadence out before you ship.
In compliance language, we are plain.
When the subject is safety, regulation, or candidacy, the wit register is off.
“Autologous cell therapies of the kind we perform are regulated by COFEPRIS in Mexico. In the U.S., most fall outside the FDA’s approved-product pathway. We say this clearly because we’d rather you hear it from us.”
Names the regulator. States the limit. Closes with credibility instead of a softener.
| Topic | Instead of | Say |
|---|---|---|
| Outcome | “This treatment cured my back pain.” | “I’m feeling so much better. I can put on my socks in the morning again.” |
| Diagnosis | “This fixed my arthritis.” | “I’ve noticed a real difference in my mobility.” |
| Effectiveness | “It works.” | “In my experience, I noticed improvements within a few weeks.” |
| Regulator | “FDA approved” / “clinically proven” | “regulated by COFEPRIS” / “in a regulated clinical setting” |
| Candidacy | “Right for anyone with joint pain.” | “We evaluate fit before recommending a protocol.” |
When a patient steps over the line, redirect: “Can you tell me what you’ve personally noticed?”
The logo.
The Celva mark is built from a cluster of soft, organic forms (the visual cue of cells), set against a wordmark in a custom serif. It is the most-used surface of the brand. Treat it as such.
Three approved configurations. The horizontal lockup is the default. The mark-only is reserved for tight surfaces (favicons, app icons, social avatars, signage at scale). The inverted horizontal is the only configuration used on navy or photography.
Give the logo room.
The clear space rule keeps the mark legible and the brand calm. No other element (type, image, button, edge of frame) may sit inside the clear-space boundary.
Clear space equals the cap height of the “C” in the wordmark (x). Maintain this margin on all four sides.
Minimum sizes.
Below these sizes, the wordmark loses fidelity. When you must go smaller than the minimum, switch to the mark only.
28 px tall · digital
120 px wide · 0.6 in print
16 px · digital
0.25 in print. Favicons and app icons excepted.
No upper limit
At very large sizes (signage, full-bleed cover), use the mark only and let the wordmark live elsewhere on the surface.
The logo never sits over a busy or low-contrast image. If the imagery is dark or active, the inverted (white) lockup is placed on a darker zone of the image or on a small white pill caption card, the same pill we use for image captions. Never on a gradient overlay or a translucent scrim.
Six things never to do to the logo.
If a logo treatment is not pictured elsewhere in this book, assume it is not allowed. The six below are the most common temptations.
A patient landing from a Google ad should feel like they have stumbled onto a Mayo-tier institution. Not a wellness landing page.
The palette.
White-first. Navy for heft. A restrained blue accent. That is the entire system. Do not introduce new hues.
C 95 · M 86 · Y 49 · K 60
C 99 · M 86 · Y 35 · K 32
C 98 · M 82 · Y 31 · K 21
C 75 · M 56 · Y 33 · K 11
An all-blue accent system. One discipline.
Accent-blue means action. CTAs. Success states. The single decorative rule that introduces a section headline. If accent-blue appears in resting decoration (numerals, icons, dots, ornament), it stops meaning action, and the CTAs lose their pull.
The accent discipline rule
Counter numerals are navy, never blue. Numerals are editorial, not actionable, and they are set in DM Sans (not the serif). Decorative icons are navy on white, ice on navy. Never accent-blue. The accent rule (the 56 px / 2 px line that introduces a headline) is the one decorative use of accent-blue allowed; it counts as a visual cue toward the CTA below it.
Accent-blue is accent only. It is never a page background. Navy is only for inverted sections. If a third accent is ever needed, derive it from the navy or accent-blue families. Do not invent.
Whites, hairlines, and one warm tint.
Beyond the navy and the accent, only four supporting tones. They handle borders, alternating surfaces, and the soft concave shape that introduces sections.
The four combinations that read on-brand. Everything else should be checked before shipping.
The typography.
Two families. One that carries emotional weight, one that does the work. Never use one for the job of the other.
Cormorant Garamond.
A contemporary cousin of Garamond. Used for every H1, H2, H3, every hero, every section opener, every numeral that needs to feel editorial. Weight 300 for the largest sizes. Light and airy.
DM Sans.
Geometric, contemporary, unfussy. DM Sans handles the work of the brand: body, UI, buttons, captions, eyebrows, every numeral that is a stat rather than an editorial number. Never used for headlines.
The pairing rule
Cormorant carries emotional weight. DM Sans does the work. Never use Cormorant for body or buttons. Never use DM Sans for an H1 or a pull quote. The contrast between the two is the typography of the brand.
A single scale. Top to bottom.
All Celva typography ladders against the scale below. The size column is the desktop ceiling; sizes fluid-clamp down on smaller surfaces.
104 px · 0.98
tracking −0.02em
64 px · 1.04
tracking −0.015em
36 px · 1.12
tracking −0.01em
22 px · 1.2
19 px · 1.55
17 px · 1.6
15 px · 1.5
11.5 px · 0.15em
Cool-toned, clinical, human.
A photograph is earned. If we cannot make an image specific to Celva (a real patient, a real room, a real doctor), we use a placeholder. A navy-gradient block beats a stock shot of hands cupping a pill.
- Faces. Persona cards at 45% width, 4:5 aspect.
- Real clinical settings inside Hospital Angeles.
- Hands: on a knee, on a chair, on a wedding ring.
- Honest reaction shots. A pause, an exhale, a quiet smile.
- Hospital hallway and lobby B-roll in natural light.
- Personal objects the patient brought with them.
- Stock hero shots of hands cupping a pill.
- Other patients, charts, labels, consent forms, PHI in frame.
- Operating rooms or restricted clinical areas.
- Before-and-after pairs. Ever.
- Full-bleed lifestyle photography by default.
- Grain, texture, heavy filters, or dramatic crops.
Cool grade pulled slightly toward the Celva teal/ink palette. Navy-tinted shadows in hero photography. Captions sit in a small white-pill caption card top-left of the image. Never a dark gradient overlay across the bottom.
Three placeholder gradients with the approved caption-pill treatment. Replace with real imagery as we shoot it.
Spacing, radii, the few components that matter.
An 8-point grid extended into a long rhythm. A short list of radii, mostly square. Buttons, eyebrows, credential pills, and the resting card.
Section padding lives at 96–160 px vertical. Card padding lives at 24–32 px.
2 / 4 / 8 / 14 / 999. The pill is reserved for credential pills only.
The resting card.
14 px radius. Hairline border. Soft navy-tinted shadow. Inner padding 22–32 px.
When in doubt, pick the quieter one.
The brand we are building is hard to fake and easy to overplay. Patients arriving at Celva are often skeptical, often hurting, and almost always coming from someone who has already promised them more than they could deliver.
Every design decision in this book exists so that, at the moment a patient meets us (in a hero, in an ad, in a video, in a waiting-room sign), we sound like a serious clinic that takes itself seriously about design. Not a wellness landing page. Not a stem cell mill. A clinic. With doctors. Inside a hospital.
If a piece of work would not be improved by removing one more word, one more color, or one more piece of decoration: it is finished. If it would: cut it. Quiet beats clever, every time, in this brand.
“Does this make a patient landing from a Google ad think they have stumbled onto Mayo Clinic, or a wellness landing page?”
If the answer is “wellness landing page,” the work is not done. Strip a layer. Try again.
In doubt? Reach out.
If a question is not answered in this book, it is not a stupid question. It is a missing page. Tell us, and we will write it.