Internal reference
How to write about, and design for, American Legion Post 233. Written for anyone producing Post materials — flyers, social posts, letterhead, or pages on this website.
The Post has a formal name and an everyday one. Both are correct; the difference is register. Getting the capitalisation wrong is the most common mistake in Post materials.
| Correct | Not this | Note |
|---|---|---|
| American Legion Post 233 | Post 233 Legion Hall | Everyday short form — use this in most copy |
| Barrett-Davis-Watson Post No. 233 | Barrett Davis Watson Post | Formal name. Hyphenated, "No." abbreviated |
| The American Legion | the American Legion | Capital "The" is part of the organisation’s name |
| Sons of The American Legion | Sons of the American Legion | Capital "The" here too |
| Patriots' Grill | Patriot’s Grill | Apostrophe after the s — plural possessive |
| Legion Family | legion family | The collective term for Post, Auxiliary, SAL and Riders |
Barrett, Davis and Watson were three Loganville men who did not come home. The naming committee chose them in 1948 "for the ones who did not come back". The formal name is not decoration — use it in full on anything ceremonial, official, or memorial.
The American Legion emblem is a registered trademark of The American Legion. Its use is governed by national policy, not by this document — including how it may be altered, what it may be placed next to, and whether it can appear on merchandise or commercial material.
Before using the emblem on anything that leaves the Post, check the current national emblem guidance at legion.org or with the Department of Georgia. When in doubt, ask rather than adapt it.
A Legion post serves veterans of every branch, so the core palette must not read as any one service. The unifying choice is gold: every U.S. branch carries gold or golden yellow in its official colours, which makes it the one accent that belongs to everyone.
Gold sits on field-uniform neutrals — olive drab and khaki — which read "military" without claiming a branch, with flag red reserved for calls to action.
Hex values are screen approximations. Official service colours are specified in uniform and heraldry documents (Pantone and cable numbers), not hex.
Structure — headers, dark bands, borders
Surfaces — page and section backgrounds
The unifier — emphasis, and Bingo specifically
Calls to action, and the flag reference
Each service has its own official colours, available as an extended palette. Use them only to identify a specific service — branch birthday observances, honor guard details, memorial notices, member service tags. Never as general decoration, or the neutrality of the core palette is lost.
Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard blues are nearly identical, which is why each branch also has a secondary colour. Pair the two and the services separate instantly. The branch name is always written out as well — colour never carries the meaning alone.
Headings
Bitter
A slab serif — sturdy and institutional, reading like stencilled crate markings and memorial lettering. Used at 700 weight with slightly tight tracking and balanced line wrapping.
Body & interface
Source Sans 3
Neutral and highly legible, with the plainness of a service document. Used at 400 for body, 600–800 for labels and buttons.
Bingo at Post 233
Weddings, receptions, parties
Robert Boss Pavilion
Sundays & Wednesdays · Open to the public
Body copy sits near 65 characters per line for comfortable reading. Uppercase labels get generous letter-spacing so they stay legible at small sizes.
Both faces load from Google Fonts with real fallback stacks — Georgia for Bitter, system sans for Source Sans 3. If a page renders in the fallback, the font link is missing.
These principles are drawn from how the Post already writes — its flyers, its older pages, and its memorial content. They are a description of the Post's voice, not an invention.
Say what a thing is, when it happens, and what it costs. The Post’s own flyers do this well: "First ball drops 7:30 PM", "$10 admission", "Doors open at 6".
Do Bingo runs Sunday at 2:00 p.m. and Wednesday at 7:30 p.m.
Don't Join us for an exciting evening of gaming entertainment!
The Post repeats this constantly and it matters commercially — bingo, the Grill, dances and rentals are open to the public. Say so explicitly; people assume a Legion post is members-only.
Do Open to the public — no membership required.
Don't Members and their guests are invited.
Every flyer ends with a version of "supporting our veterans and community". Money spent here funds programmes, and saying so is the strongest reason to choose the Post over a commercial venue.
Do Rentals directly fund scholarships and veterans assistance.
Don't Competitive rates available.
Promotional copy can be loud. Anything touching service, sacrifice, POW/MIA, or the Post’s namesakes is written plainly and without exclamation marks. Compare the Missing Man Table page to a bingo flyer — that gap is deliberate.
Do Until the day they return home, or find eternal peace, we will remember.
Don't Check out our AMAZING memorial display!
This site was rebuilt after years of stale information went unnoticed — including bingo nights that had stopped running. If a detail is not confirmed, leave it out rather than guess.
Do Call (770) 466-4728 to confirm holiday hours.
Don't Open every day, year round!
The Post's flyers have their own look — navy grounds, gold and green display type, high energy. That is deliberate and it works. Promotional material competes for attention in a Facebook feed; a website does not.
Treat the flyer style as a promotional sub-brand. It does not need to match the website's quieter field palette. Gold is the bridge between them, which is why a navy flyer sits comfortably inside a brass-accented card on this site.
Descriptive, lowercase, hyphenated —bike-night-dj-scottie.jpg, not IMG_4821.jpg. Flyers live in public/images/events/.
These are not optional polish. The first rule is the single biggest failure of the previous website.
The previous site had event pages that were a single JPG and nothing else. Search engines, screen readers, and anyone on a slow connection got nothing at all. Flyers are artwork; the facts must also exist as text beside them.
Describe what is in the picture, not the filename. For a flyer, summarise the key facts it carries.
Many of the Post’s members are older. Run node _capture/tools/contrast.mjs after any colour change — CI fails the build on a regression.
Branch colours identify a service, but the branch name is always written out too. Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard blues are nearly identical.
"Rental details" tells you where you are going. "Click here" does not.
Things this document cannot settle on its own. Post leadership should ratify each.
Questions about this document or the website: adjutant@gapost233.com.
