Advanced Redesign Protocol

• Greenfield: no existing site, or a full overhaul is approved. Use the dial baselines in core-design-read.
• Redesign, preserve: modernise without breaking the brand. Audit first, extract brand tokens, evolve.
• Redesign, overhaul: new visual language over existing content. Treat visuals as greenfield, but keep content and information architecture.

If ambiguous, ask once: should this preserve the existing brand, or start visually from scratch?

Audit before touching

Document the current state first: brand tokens (colors, type, logo, radii), information architecture and nav, content blocks that do real work vs filler, signature patterns to keep, slop and broken layouts to retire, the current dial reading, and the SEO baseline. SEO migration is the top redesign risk.

Modernisation levers (in order)

Apply in order, stop when the brief is satisfied:

1. Typography refresh (biggest lift per unit of risk).
2. Spacing and vertical rhythm.
3. Color recalibration (desaturate, unify neutrals, keep the brand accent).
4. Motion layer appropriate to the MOTION dial.
5. Hero and key-section recomposition.
6. Full block replacement (only when a block is unsalvageable).

Rule of thumb: if IA, content, and SEO are sound, prefer targeted evolution (levers 1 to 4): about 70% of the value at 40% of the risk.

Never change silently

Do not modify these without explicit approval: URL structure and route slugs, primary nav labels, form field names or order (breaks analytics and autofill), brand logo or wordmark, and legal, consent, or cookie copy.