Session 2026-06-25 (continued): Website design exploration and three full builds

What was decided

The friend picked us up at "5 design directions" and "2 final builds." We delivered:

• Five website design directions written to research/website-design-directions.md (Field Notebook, Woven Cloth, Quiet Verandah, Village Voice, Earth Archive)
• Two finalized as full e2e static sites: Village Voice (D) and Woven Cloth (B)
• Quiet Verandah (C) preserved as a third reference build (was the original index.html)

What was built

Four HTML files in C:\Learn\Projects\jabalpur-ecotourism\site\:

• index.html - Directory landing page that presents all three designs side-by-side with reading notes (which to pick for which guest profile, what they share, what's next)
• 01-quiet-verandah.html - The Quiet Verandah design (single column 760px, cream paper, Georgia throughout, minimal photo placeholders, daily time table, plain lists)
• 02-village-voice.html - The Village Voice design (documentary magazine aesthetic, dark mode hero-tag, asymmetric grids, numbered sections I-IX, italic pull-quote portraits for people, dark inquire block at end)
• 03-woven-cloth.html - The Woven Cloth design (terracotta+indigo+madder+turmeric palette, geometric pattern dividers, colored "tiles" for activities, double-bordered frames for people, season color blocks)

All four files use Indian Earth palette, Georgia for headings, system-ui for body, no Google Fonts, no Tailwind defaults, no emoji in UI, zero em dashes per project rule.

Decisions made along the way

• Reference build preserves the original Quiet Verandah aesthetic. It was the first thing we built and it is the premium, restrained option. Keeping it as a third option gives the friend a fallback if Village Voice and Woven Cloth feel too far from his comfort.
• index.html is a directory, not a destination. Three cards, three notes sections. The friend (or his designer) can click into each design and compare directly without building a new comparison page.
• All three designs share the same content. site/content.md is the source. Each HTML has the same nine sections, the same pricing, the same people, the same seasons. The visual treatment differs; the substance does not.

Confidence notes

• High confidence: Design choices for each (palette, typography, layout decisions). Indian Earth palette. Zero-em-dash rule.
• Medium confidence: Photography demand. All three designs assume strong documentary photography exists. The friend has not run a photography trip yet. Without good photos, Village Voice (D) suffers most; Quiet Verandah (C) and Woven Cloth (B) are more forgiving.
• Medium confidence: Pricing figures (Rs 2,500-4,000 day visit, Rs 15,000-22,000 weekend, etc). Based on similar Tier 3 properties in central India. Real pricing to be set with friend.
• Low confidence: The contact info placeholders (WhatsApp number, email). To be filled in by friend.

What is next

• Pick one design as the live site (most likely Village Voice, possibly Woven Cloth for differentiation)
• Photography trip in good light (post-harvest or post-monsoon)
• Final pricing and contact details
• Push to Cloudflare Pages
• Build the Instagram strategy file (still to do — referenced in digital-assets/instagram.md but only as a brief; the spec doc is light)

Files touched

• site/01-quiet-verandah.html (created, 23 KB)
• site/02-village-voice.html (created in earlier part of session, 38 KB)
• site/03-woven-cloth.html (created, 37 KB)
• site/index.html (rewritten as directory, 11 KB)
• research/website-design-directions.md (already created earlier in session)
• brain/pages/projects/jabalpur-ecotourism-friend.md (timeline entry added)