Header lab

Idea board only — mock bars, not live site chrome. Round 2: D, H and I are the shortlist, with eight new two-tier variations under I. Everything else is parked at the bottom for reference.

Every mock now uses the real beehive logo in the same 268×85 box the live header uses. Heads up on what that box does: the logo file is 400×320, and object-fit: contain fits it by height, so it draws about 106px wide × 85px tall with roughly 80px of empty space on each side. That dead space is why the nav links sit further out than they need to.

Shortlist

The three still in the running from round 1.

D — Bloom lavender wash

Vince purple energy — soft bloom tint bar · ink type · honey active

H — Sage leaf quiet

Sage-tinted band · organic / workshop · Barlow medium weight not ultra-caps

I — Two-tier: phone strip + main

Thin gold utility strip · then ink nav — keeps “call us” without competing with logo

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I variations — two-tier explorations

Same bones as I: a thin utility strip carrying phone / service promises, then the real nav. What changes is strip color, what the strip says, and how the nav below behaves. I3 and I4 fold in the D and H palettes you liked.

I1 — Inverted: ink strip over cream nav

Dark strip on top, light catalog bar below — brightest of the family, and the logo sits on cream the way it does on the label

I2 — Working strip: phone left, promise center, account right

Strip earns its height — three jobs instead of one, and Account/Cart move out of the nav row

I3 — Bloom strip (D palette in two tiers)

Lavender utility strip over the bloom-wash nav from D — the purple in the logo badge gets picked up twice

I4 — Sage strip (H palette in two tiers)

Deep sage strip over the quiet H band — workshop calm, softest contrast of the set

I5 — Footer echo: gradient seam between tiers

Honey strip, ink nav, and the bloom→honey→gold ribbon from the new footer sitting between them — top and bottom of the page rhyme

I6 — Two-tier with logo left, nav right

Strip stays centered, nav row goes asymmetric — the logo anchors the corner and the dead space in its box stops splitting the menu in half

I7 — Whisper strip + editorial nav

Hairline cream strip in small caps, then sentence-case Cormorant links — the quietest, most expensive-feeling option

I8 — Sticky behavior: full at top, slim on scroll

Not a new palette — a behavior. Strip scrolls away and the logo shrinks to about 52px tall so shoppers keep the menu without losing screen height on phones.

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How to pick

Reply with a letter or number — mash-ups welcome (e.g. I5 strip + H nav colors, or I2 utility row on I4). I8 is a behavior and can ride on top of any of the others. We’ll lock one and ship it to the real header parts.

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Parked (round 1 rejects)

Kept for reference in case a detail is worth stealing — A is the current live control.

A — Current (control)

B — Deep ink + gold whisper

C — Cream paper + ink (light)

E — Cormorant nav (editorial)

F — Split: logo left / nav right

G — Honey ribbon under cream