Content style guide

How we write.

Three principles, then the mechanics. If a sentence sounds like a consultant wrote it, it isn't Loopwork.

01The voice

Three principles.

Readers are heads of profession and senior practitioners. Busy, literate, unimpressed by performance.

  1. 01

    Spare.

    Short sentences. Common words. Active voice. The page does the least it needs to do. The reader does no more work than the page demands. Less is the discipline, not a flourish.

    Eighteen years in UCD, eight in UK central government.

  2. 02

    Warm.

    Warm by being interested in the reader's situation. Not warm by performing warmth at them. No slogans, no exclamation marks. Read the reader seriously and the warmth follows.

    If the engagement might fit, the practitioner will send a calendar link. If it doesn't fit, you'll be told that.

  3. 03

    Dry.

    A dry remark earns its place when it names the thing the reader was already thinking. Never wit for its own sake. The reader spots try-hard from a mile off.

    Nobody asked their government for a chatbot.

02Worked examples

The same idea, two voices.

Real Loopwork on the right. A consultant rewrite on the left.

  1. Not Loopwork

    A bespoke advisory engagement leveraging AI capabilities to transform user-centred design outcomes for forward-thinking departments.

    Loopwork

    An embedded consultancy programme for AI user-centred design.

  2. Not Loopwork

    A holistic framework for evaluating optimal automation opportunities across your end-to-end user experience workflow.

    Loopwork

    Read your profession's work for automation fit, task by task.

  3. Not Loopwork

    Our comprehensive data governance framework ensures appropriate handling across multiple categorisations to enable a robust privacy posture.

    Loopwork

    Five small kinds of data, each with one purpose.

03House style

The mechanics.

Small rules that keep the voice consistent across surfaces.

Sentence case
Every heading, label, button, link. Never Title Case. ALL CAPS only for the sans uppercase letter-spaced eyebrow register.
Semicolons sparingly
A full stop usually does the job. Two short sentences read warmer than one with a semicolon holding them together.
"Loopwork", never "The Loopwork"
The the lives in the URL only. In speech, signatures, slide titles: just Loopwork.
Italics for emphasis
Italic is the brand's emphasis register. Bold is reserved for definitional terms inside running prose.
Dates, times, numbers
14 May 2026. 9am. Numbers below ten spelled out, except in tables and code.

04Practical rules

How copy fills the design.

Length and balance. The constraints are what give the page its weight.

Headlines
Three lines maximum at the page's default size. If a heading goes to four, cut, don't shrink.
Sentences
Under 25 words. Long sentences are usually two ideas joined by an "and".
Paragraphs
Up to five sentences. Two short paragraphs almost always read better than one long one.
Row-balanced descriptions
Items in the same row should sit within plus or minus 20% of each other on character count. If one has to be long, lengthen the others to match.
Line length
Body 60 to 75 characters. In CSS that's 56ch to 65ch. Marginalia narrower, around 32 characters.

Aligned with the GOV.UK style guide and the GDS Design Principles.