11 · Rules and Checklist
What is fixed, what is yours to move, and the seven checks
A brand book that says everything is important protects nothing. So this is the short list of what genuinely cannot move, and permission to change everything else as you learn.
Fixed · changing these breaks the brand
- The name, Elena Daenen, and the method name, The Seven Gates
- The ethical line: you hold the space, she does the work
- The promise: she already carries it
- The claims table. Nothing goes public that is not true and countable
- The language rules: plain words, one idea per sentence
- The logo, its two versions, its colours and its proportions
- The number of points in the mark. Seven, with the fourth in gold.
Yours to move · change these as you learn
- Product names, prices and formats
- Posting rhythm, if three a week turns out to be too much or too little
- Which pillar you lean on in a given month
- Photography style as you get better at it
- The order of the site
- Any rule in here that makes something feel less like you
The seven checks, before anything goes out
Is there one idea per sentence?If you had to read a line twice, she will not read it once.
Would you say it out loud, in your own voice?If it sounds like a caption instead of like you, rewrite it as a message to one person.
Is there a word that needs a dictionary?Take it out. There is always a plainer word, and it is usually stronger.
Are you promising something you cannot control?Describe what happens in the room. Never what it will do to her.
Is every claim in it true and countable today?Check the claims table. A number nobody can verify is worse than no number.
Is there exactly one thing for her to do next?Two calls to action are the same as none.
Does it look like you, or like a template?One arch, one gold rule, linen background, your typefaces. If none of those are present, it is not yours yet.
What happens next
| # | What | Who | When |
|---|---|---|---|
| ✓ | Send your written feedback on this Brand Book | Elena | Done, 18 August. Two documents, twenty nine questions on the brand and about forty language corrections on the method. Both are answered: section 01 here, and section 01 of the Method dashboard. |
| ✓ | Take elenadaenen.com and .be | Elena | Done, 18 August. Both in your own name and your own email, 23,17 euros for the first year. Do not configure anything on them, we connect them when the site exists. Check the renewal price before year two, it is higher than the first year promotion. |
| 1 | Rename the Instagram account to @elenadaenen, put in the bio and the name field | Elena | The only thing left that someone else can take from you while you are away. Ten minutes. Bio and name field are in Verbal Identity, exactly as written. |
| 2 | Film the garden practice you want for the winter months | Elena | The priority list of five is now in section 07. One afternoon, last two hours of light, six to eight clips. The garden has a season and your room does not. |
| 3 | Ask the Tenerife students and the Belgian studio for testimonials | Elena | One message each, and it can be sent while walking. It unlocks the prices. Ask everyone, men included. Publish women, and the reasoning is in Verbal Identity. |
| 4 | Shoot the portrait looking at camera, plus the hands on the bowls | Elena | After 1 September, with a phone, following the protocol and the wardrobe rules in section 07 |
| 5 | Build Which Gate Is Speaking as a form with a one page result | Lucas and Ana | While you are walking, so it is ready when the content phase starts. It is now the lead magnet in the method too, which was the error you caught. |
| 6 | Decide how many workshops and retreats you can hold in a year | Elena | Bring the number to the meeting on 4 September. It is the only number the calendar and the revenue plan both wait on. |
| 7 | Decide whether First Gate keeps its name | Elena | Say First Gate, The Root Session and One Gate, One Evening out loud once each, and keep the easiest. Costs nothing now, costs a rename later. |
| 8 | Plan the content calendar together | All of us | 4 September, 2 PM. That session is the content phase, and this document is what it is built on. Nothing has to be posted before it. |
| 9 | Ask the designer for the real vector files. The SVG delivered on 11 August is a picture inside an SVG wrapper, not a drawing. Full mark, small mark, horizontal and stacked lockup, each in colour, one colour and reversed, as SVG, PDF and EPS | Elena and designer | Before anything goes to print, and before any white version is needed. One email. |
| 10 | Check the name as a trademark in Belgium | Later | Does not block anything digital. Do it before the first retreat is sold. |
The last word
A brand is not what this document says. It is what a woman feels in the first ten seconds of your class, and whether everything around it agreed with that feeling.
Everything in here exists to make those two things match. Where it fails to, tell us, the way you told us on 6 August, and we will change it. That round of feedback made the method better than we could have made it alone, and the same will be true of this.