Steady Ground

Why it looks this way.

Typography

Castoro is an old-style serif drawn by Tiro Typeworks with soft, open curves; it reads like a paperback you'd lend a friend, which is the tone a first-time client needs. We set it at a modest 1.2 scale and never in capitals. Hanken Grotesk carries the forms and fee tables at 18px, because the person filling them in may be reading through anxiety or tears.

• Castoro headlines
• Hanken Grotesk body text

Color

The palette comes from the Huron River on a gray March morning: spruce-green water, pale lichen paper and a lamp-amber accent used sparingly for links and highlights. There is no clinical white and no alarm red anywhere, including on the crisis page. The dark theme deepens the river rather than inverting it, so evening visitors get the same quiet room.

• Page #EEF1EC
• Cards #FAFBF8
• Text #1C2523
• Brand #2F5D62
• Accent #9A6B2C

Layout

A centred masthead with the pages underneath feels settled and unhurried, like the sign on an established practice. Seven pages, each named for the question a client is actually asking: what will it cost, who will I see, what happens at the first visit, and what do I do if it can't wait.

Pages: Home, Fees, Clinicians, Groups, First visit, Help now, Give

Hero

The first screen is the appointment request itself, kept to four fields. Most people who look up a counselor have rehearsed the phone call several times and still not made it; a short form they can finish on the bus lowers that bar. Beside it sit plain promises about callbacks, cost and privacy.

Calls to action

The nav action is "Ask for a first appointment" because asking is the hard part and booking comes later. "Work out your fee" answers the second fear directly. "I need help right now" appears on every page, set in the same calm style as everything else.

Photography

No staged therapy-couch photos and no clients' faces. The hero is a boardwalk through wet woodland, which is what the center's name means, and the river and lake pictures elsewhere are all within a short drive of Packard Street. Clinicians appear in real portraits, and groups are shown as empty chairs or from a distance.

Accessibility

Body text is 18px with long line height and every form field has a visible label and an optional tag rather than asterisks. Contrast is checked in both themes. Crisis numbers are plain text links that work with a screen reader and a single tap.