Starvard1
theme, written down
Starvard · Our Theme
A free university should look like one you can trust.
Starvard runs two themes, and this page is where both are written down. Clear is the website theme: sans serif, navy and gold, crisp and uncluttered, for everything you do here. Reading is the second theme, built only for books and long articles, where the words are the whole point. The template page holds the exact frame and specs; this page holds the thinking, so anyone can talk about our themes, question them, and help them get better.
Theme 1 · Clear
The website theme: very clear
Every page of the website wears Clear: the homepage, courses, catalogs, tools, and this page. Sans serif everywhere, nothing decorative standing between a visitor and what they came for. Six ideas hold it together:
01
A real university, free forever
Starvard is a university that charges nothing, permanently. The design carries that dignity: calm, serious, and generous, never cheap looking and never selling.
02
Interesting first
A page must earn its place. Books people still love, courses worth a stranger's minute, no filler dressed up in nice type. If the content is dull, no layout will save it.
03
One voice, sans serif
Everything in Clear is set in a clean system sans serif: headlines, buttons, labels, and short text. Paper white and ivory surfaces keep the warmth, the sans keeps it crisp, modern, and easy on the eyes at any size, in any language. Long reading gets its own theme, below.
04
Navy for trust, gold for value
Navy carries structure and patience. Gold marks the one thing that matters most on the screen, and appears only there. Restraint is what makes it read as valuable.
05
Same welcome in every language
Starvard speaks 17 languages, and a translated page is the same design, not a lesser one. The theme travels with the words.
06
Honest and fast, as respect
No popups, no ads, no dark patterns, an accuracy note in every footer. And speed: 0.75 seconds is the house target, 0.5 on a good day, because readers everywhere pay for slow pages with their attention.
The Clear palette, with jobs
Navy #16233F
Structure, headings, buttons. The color of ink and institutions that plan to be around in fifty years.
Navy Deep #0E1830
The footer, the darkest ground on the page.
Gold #B58520
The one thing that matters: the key action, the eyebrow label, the seal. One gold thing per screen.
Gold Soft #E8D9B0
Callout borders and quiet fills, gold at a whisper.
Ivory #FAF7F0
Cards and warm surfaces, paper with a little sun in it.
Ink #1D1D1F
Body text on paper white.
One voice of type, and no downloads: a clean system sans serif for everything in Clear, headlines, buttons, labels, and short text. It already lives on your device, so pages load instantly and look native everywhere. Zero webfonts, ever. Serif appears nowhere in Clear; it lives only in the Reading theme, below.
Theme 2 · Reading
The reading theme: books and long articles
When a visitor comes to read for a long while, chapters of a classic from the library, or one of our long articles, the page switches to Reading. The frame stays Clear, same header, footer, and navigation in sans, so the site never feels broken. Only the reading surface changes, and every choice in it serves one thing: eyes that can stay on the words for an hour.
A book face, big enough
Georgia serif at 20 to 21px for the text itself. Serif lives here and only here, because for long reading it is still the kindest face we know.
Air between the lines
Line height 1.8, and real space between paragraphs. Crowded text tires eyes; air is what makes page ten feel like page one.
A short line
The column is about 680px wide, roughly 65 characters a line, so your eye lands at the start of the next line without hunting for it.
Paper, not glare
A warm ivory ground (#FAF7F0) and soft ink (#242424) instead of pure black on pure white. Paper has had centuries to learn how to be read.
Quiet by design
No sidebars, no cards, no popups competing with the text. Chapter navigation sits at the top and bottom, and audio and PDF stay within one tap, never in the way.
Help waits its turn
Finn and the tools stay in their boxes before or after the text. Nothing interrupts a reader mid-chapter.
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.
Specimen: the Reading theme, set the way every book chapter at Starvard is set. Opening lines: Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, from our own library.
Which theme wins? If a visitor came to DO something, Clear. If they came to READ for a long while, Reading. A page never mixes the two on the same surface: the frame is always Clear, the long text, when there is one, is always Reading.
One family, two moods
Starvard belongs to E2, and the family resemblance is deliberate: the same honesty, the same speed, the same refusal to trap a reader. But the moods differ. E2 is the sunny town square, gold and bright blue, faces everywhere. Starvard is the library inside that town: quieter, bookish, navy and gold. Cousins, not twins.
One open question, parked on purpose: whether one single primary color should rule every site in the family. For now each site keeps its palette above. When we agree an official cross-site theme, it will be written down on these theme pages first.
Talk about it
Agree?
Say what works
If a page feels like Starvard to you, or a page feels off theme, come tell us in the Commons on Discord. Theme feedback is real feedback.
Building?
Start from the template
New pages start from the master template and follow the themes above. Content is yours, the frame and the mood are shared.
Changing it?
Here first, then everywhere
When the theme changes, we change it here first, then restamp the template and the pages. No quiet drift, no page inventing its own look.
0
tuition, popups, ads
0.75s
house speed target