Guidelines
The rulebook for Conor's Clubs — positioning, personality, audience, and the lines we don't cross. Hand this page to anyone creating on the brand's behalf.
Positioning
Essence & personality
Values
Audience
Voice rules
Full voice samples live in Voice & MessagingConor's Clubs speaks with the warm, direct cadence of a family shopkeeper who knows their craft—equal parts knowledgeable guide and welcoming host. The voice blends Old World reverence for quality and tradition with unpretentious, modern accessibility, using conversational rhythm, selective Irish inflection, and storytelling that makes every club feel like an heirloom worth passing down.
Do
- Lead with warmth and personal address
- Use family and heritage language naturally
- Speak in second person to customers
- Tell origin stories for individual clubs
- Drop casual golf wisdom mid-sentence
- End with invitations, not hard sells
Don’t
- Use corporate golf jargon or buzzwords
- Start sentences with 'We believe'
- Apologize for being second-hand
- Write in bullet points or lists
- Use exclamation marks for excitement
- Say 'vintage-inspired' or similar hedging
Creative constraints
Don’t
- Visual: Generic stock golf photography with perfect green fairways and white male golfers in polos
- Visual: Corporate swooshes and metallic gradients typical of golf equipment brands
- Visual: Overly slick product photography on sterile white backgrounds
- Visual: Literal Irish clichés like shamrocks, leprechauns, or Celtic knots
- Visual: Modern sans-serif minimalism that strips away warmth and character
- Visual: Artificial aging effects or heavy distressing that feels manufactured
- Visual: Glossy magazine-style layouts
- Visual: Digital-first brutalism or tech startup aesthetics
- Tonal: Corporate golf speak and equipment jargon (swing speed, MOI, forgiveness ratings)
- Tonal: Luxury brand exclusivity language ('members only', 'elite performance')
- Tonal: Hard-sell tactics and aggressive promotional copy
- Tonal: Overly reverent nostalgia that feels museum-like rather than lived-in
- Tonal: Ironic detachment or hipster self-awareness
- Tonal: Geographic pandering or forced Irish stereotypes
- Tonal: Technical product descriptions that read like spec sheets
- Tonal: Sustainability virtue signaling common in resale markets
These constraints preserve the delicate balance between vintage authenticity and contemporary relevance—avoiding the trap of either sterile modernism or precious nostalgia while maintaining the warm, family-table intimacy that makes both golf clubs and bagels feel like heritage crafts passed between generations.