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ARTSABERS — Era Category · Prequel Trilogy · Rebalanced · Build Brief

BBAS42 Category Page ARTSABERS

ARTSABERS — Era Category · Prequel Trilogy · Rebalanced · Build Brief

Purpose

The era-category template, with its editorial and commerce reweighted. Two designs for this page type exist and each fails in the opposite direction. MAS46 was built as a PPC landing page: its editorial is the best writing the brand has — a Jedi & Sith duality band that reads as prose and functions as two doors into the catalogue, a Story of the Era that is genuinely worth reading — and it shows three hilts. MAS99 carries the product density, two six-up grids, and pays for it with 461 words of atmosphere wedged between them and a browse-plus-trust preamble that delays the first hilt to 149 words in.

This brief takes the editorial from MAS46, the density from MAS99, and fixes what neither got right: editorial on this page must route into the catalogue, not sit beside it. The Jedi & Sith band is the model — it is written in voice, and every element in it is a way in, with a real count attached. The Story of the Era survives at full length because a category page competing on search needs substantive unique copy in the document and thin category pages are the ranking risk; it simply stops standing between the visitor and the hilts.

The measure of success is distribution, not volume. Total copy lands near where both sources already sit, around 1,350 words. What changes is that six bands carry product or route to it, against two in MAS99 and one in MAS46, and the pure-editorial load is one band plus the hero.

Catalogue facts — verified live 2026-09-04

Read-only check against artsabers.com at authoring time. Re-derive every number before this template ships; prices move and the terms below are known to be imperfect.

  • There is no era taxonomy on the live catalogue. Top-level product categories are Lightsabers (1,053), Characters (434), Design Theme (400), Star Wars Inspired Lightsabers (361), Parts & Accessories (87), Cosplay Helmets (21). The era axis exists on dev only — By Era, term 398, seven children holding three products between them. Design against the character terms, which are real and populated; the era grouping is an editorial construct over them, and how it is resolved at build time is not this brief’s business.
  • Character terms are the populated axis — 57 of them on live, well filled.
  • BLOCKING DATA FLAG — character terms carry foreign products. Querying the Anakin Skywalker term by price returns Luke Skywalker Graflex and plain Graflex hilts in its top four. BBAS41 recorded the same fault: the term holds 34 products of which 17 are Anakin’s. Every count below is therefore an upper bound. Do not design around the pollution and do not invent corrected numbers — design against the shape, and raise term cleanup as catalogue work.

Prequel-era characters, by live term count

Jedi-aligned: Anakin Skywalker 34 · Obi-Wan Kenobi 22 · Ahsoka Tano 14 · Youngling 14 · Temple Guard 9 · Mace Windu 8 · Depa Billaba 5 · Yoda 5 · Qui-Gon Jinn 4 · Even Piell 2 · Ki-Adi-Mundi 2 · Kit Fisto 2 · Plo Koon 2 · Quinlan Vos 1. Indicative total 124.

Sith and dark-side: Darth Maul 22 · Asajj Ventress 13 · Count Dooku 11 · Emperor Palpatine 2 · Savage Opress 2. Indicative total 50.

Indicative era total 174. MAS46’s “84 hilts” and MAS99’s “42 hilts” were both design-time inventions and neither matches the catalogue. Use the figures above, described as approximate in the brief’s own copy locks below.

Real hilts available for the product bands

  • Obi-Wan Kenobi EP4 Lightsaber — Proffie 2.2 · 549.99 · post 78227
  • Weathered Obi-Wan Kenobi EP3 Lightsaber — Proffie 2.2 · 459.99 · post 78765
  • Anakin Skywalker EP3 Lightsaber — Proffie 2.2 · 439.99 · post 78641
  • Weathered Darth Maul Double-Bladed Lightsaber — Proffie 2.2 · 529.99 · post 79102
  • Asajj Ventress and Darth Maul Double-Bladed Lightsaber — Proffie 2.2 · 599.99 · post 79005
  • Count Dooku Jedi Lightsaber — Proffie 2.2 · 579.99 · post 79056
  • Count Dooku Lightsaber — Xenopixel V3 · 479.99 · post 74758
  • Clone Wars Ahsoka Tano Lightsabers — Xenopixel V3 · 659.99 · post 75950
  • Curved Ventress Double-Bladed Lightsaber — Proffie 2.2 · 719.99 · post 85679
  • Master Yoda Lightsaber — Xenopixel V3 · 399.99 · post 76015
  • Qui-Gon Jinn Lightsaber — Proffie 2.2 · 389.99 · post 78582
  • Qui-Gon Jinn Duelling Lightsaber — RGB-X · 249.99 · post 74417

The template

Page type: era-category. A curated landing that funnels into the standard product archive; the archive owns filtering, sorting and grid density. This page’s job is to make the era legible, give the visitor two or three good ways in, and get them there.

Subject: Prequel Trilogy, Episodes I–III including the Clone Wars. Chosen because both source designs used it, so the rebalance is judged like-for-like.

Voice: fan-to-fan, service-proud. Editorial in the Story band, the duality band and the chapter heads; plainly commercial everywhere else. The brand sources and ships — it does not forge, build, machine or hand-test. MAS46’s Story band says “our factory partners tool these hilts”, which is the correct construction; anything stronger is a false claim.

Delivery language: “Ships in 7-10 days” everywhere it appears. MAS99’s trust strip currently reads “SAME-DAY DISPATCH” and must not survive into this design. Also banned, brand-wide: “in stock”, “USA warehouse”, “2-3 days”, “free express”, “fastest shipping”.

Chrome: standard utility bar, standard sticky main nav, standard breadcrumb strip, standard footer. Not designed here.

Sections, top to bottom

Eleven designed bands. Band count is higher than either source, but two of the additions are 25 and 36 words — band count is not weight, and the point of both is to place a small thing at the right moment.

1. Era hero

Ground: carbon over an era photograph at heavy dark overlay, fading to carbon at the bottom edge.

Take MAS99’s discipline over MAS46’s. The hero names the era and hands off — it does not carry the proposition, and it does not need to, because band 2 is one scroll away.

  • Eyebrow — ember, chrome font, uppercase and letter-spaced: “BY ERA · EPISODES I–III”.
  • Display headline, upright Orbitron, two lines, the era named and nothing else.
  • Subline — one sentence, body font. What the era is, not what is for sale.
  • Two CTAs, both on-page anchors. Primary ember ombre down to the roster; ghost down to the Story band. Neither leaves the page. These are anchors and must not be tokenised when this becomes a pattern.
  • Descriptor strip along the bottom edge, chrome font, small, chrome-dim, middot-separated. Facts at the size facts deserve.

2. Defining hilts

Ground: charcoal-warm. Product appears here, one band in.

MAS46’s framing — the hilts that define the era, a curated few rather than a grid — carried at four across rather than three. This is the page’s first commercial moment and it arrives before any prose. Cards carry image, name, Saber Core tier, price. No spec rows: band 3’s job is to state what they share.

3. Trust strip

Ground: carbon, tight. Roughly 25 words. Rewritten from scratch — MAS99’s version cannot be reused.

Four chips in the chrome font: factory-direct sourcing, ships in 7-10 days, 30-day returns, warranty. It sits immediately after the first price on the page because that is the moment the question is asked. Icons may be used; they are decorative and carry no text.

4. Jedi & Sith

Ground: void. The strongest band on either source design, carried close to intact from MAS46.

Two panels, editorial in voice and functional in every element. Each carries an eyebrow, a title, a three-word attribute run, a paragraph of real writing, a stat block, and a CTA into that side of the catalogue.

  • Guardians of the Republic / Jedi — Order · Guardians · Balance. Stats: hilts, characters, blade colours (blue, green). CTA: Browse the Jedi.
  • Rule of Two / Sith — Shadow · Dominion · Fall. Stats: hilts, characters, blade colours (red). CTA: Browse the Sith.

This band is structural, not decorative. Its own copy promises the collection re-orders itself when you pick a path, and MAS46 never delivered that. Band 5 is ordered by these two paths so the promise is kept.

5. The roster

Ground: charcoal-warm, unbroken. The page’s density, and the band MAS46 lacks entirely.

Two headed rows rather than MAS99’s two undifferentiated grids, ordered by the paths band 4 just set: the Jedi hilts, then the Sith hilts. Each row takes a heading, one descriptive line, a row of hilts, and an “All N →” link to that side. The heading does the editorial work inline — this is where editorial and commerce stop being separate bands.

Six across per row at 1440. Do not exceed two rows; the archive is one band below.

6. Archive door

Ground: carbon, tight. Roughly 36 words. Carried from MAS46, which had it and MAS99 did not.

One line stating the era’s full extent and one primary CTA into the archive. The roster shows a curated subset and this band is what tells the visitor so.

7. Explore by character

Ground: charcoal. One character-routing band, replacing three.

MAS46 runs both a “Faces of the Prequel Era” cluster and an “Explore by character” grid — 210 words doing one job twice — and MAS99 adds a third version. This is the survivor: six deep-links, each a character with a hilt count and a one-line arc, routing into the per-character catalogue.

The six, by real live count: Anakin Skywalker 34, Obi-Wan Kenobi 22, Darth Maul 22, Ahsoka Tano 14, Asajj Ventress 13, Count Dooku 11. Three Jedi-side and three dark-side, which echoes band 4 without restating it. Do not use MAS46’s six — Padmé Amidala has no term on live and Palpatine has two hilts.

8. The Story of the Era

Ground: charcoal-warm, with the page’s one panel seam at its top edge. Carried from MAS46 at full length — roughly 250 words. It is not cut.

The best writing on either source design, and the page’s search asset: a category page competing for era-level queries needs substantive unique copy in the document, and thinness is the real ranking risk. The only change is position — it sits here, after the visitor has seen the catalogue, rather than at band two where it stood between them and the hilts.

Content: the era’s design language, why the machining reads the way it does, and why fidelity matters to a collector. Keep MAS46’s sourcing construction — “our factory partners tool these hilts” — and keep the pull-quote.

MAS46’s band opens with the line “Photograph brief · Jedi Temple silhouette, Coruscant twilight”. That is art direction and must not render as copy. Art-direction text has shipped as body text on this brand before, on four sections of the product page. Set the photograph; do not print its brief.

9. Owner proof

Ground: charcoal. Carried from MAS46’s reviews band.

Three quote cards plus a service line — first-response time, and how messages are handled. See the placeholder rules below; they are contractual.

10. Adjacent eras

Ground: void, tight. Roughly 74 words.

Cross-browse to the eras either side, framed as movement through the saga rather than as a related-products rail.

11. Newsletter capture

Standard ember capture band, carried unchanged from the brand’s existing pages.

Copy locks — verbatim

  • Hero eyebrow: BY ERA · EPISODES I–III
  • Trust strip: Factory-direct · Ships in 7-10 days · 30-day returns · Warranty included
  • Duality band title: Jedi & Sith
  • Jedi panel title: Guardians of the Republic
  • Sith panel title: Rule of Two
  • Roster row one heading: The Order’s blades
  • Roster row two heading: The Rule of Two
  • Character band title: Explore by character
  • Story band title: The Story of the Era
  • Proof title: What owners say
  • Adjacent band title: Move through the saga
  • Delivery language everywhere: Ships in 7-10 days
  • Counts described as approximate wherever they appear in prose — “around 120 Jedi-side hilts”, never a false precision the polluted terms cannot support.

Placeholder content — MUST NOT SHIP

The owner quotes in band 9 are fabricated. No reviews platform is installed and the catalogue holds no reviews, so no real quote exists at design time. They are present to prove the card layout and the three-across rhythm. Two requirements follow, both contractual and both carried forward verbatim from BBAS41:

  • Every placeholder quote card carries div.testimonial-card[data-placeholder="true"]. The attribute is what makes fabricated proof greppable in the mockup and in anything walked from it. It is not decorative and must not be dropped for tidiness.
  • No visible annotation may appear anywhere in the rendered design. No “placeholder” label, no “must not ship” notice, no editorial aside explaining what was omitted. A design-time note walks into template code exactly as fabricated content does, and it walks in looking official. The marker attribute is the only permitted trace, because it does not render.

When band 9 becomes a block, the block’s default content is empty — an empty state inviting the operator to add reviews, never the placeholder quotes as defaults. Placeholder text baked in as a block default is how fabricated proof reaches production.

Precedent, stated so it is not repeated: the brand’s homepage carries three fabricated five-star testimonials with invented names and invented delivery outcomes, walked verbatim out of an earlier mockup into template code, where they remain. Invented customer reviews are prohibited outright under the UK Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act. Nothing from band 9 may reach a live storefront.

Styling notes

  • Zero border radius across the page — hero, cards, tiles, panels, stat blocks, quote cards, CTA buttons, all rectangular.
  • Three faces, all three used. Orbitron for titles, upright, never italic. Onest for body copy, where italic is permitted. Space Grotesk for chrome — eyebrows, stats, chips, labels, buttons, counts. Do not reach for the display face below 14px.
  • Grounds top to bottom: carbon hero, charcoal-warm defining hilts, carbon trust strip, void duality, charcoal-warm roster unbroken, carbon archive door, charcoal character routes, charcoal-warm Story, charcoal proof, void adjacent, then the standard ember capture band and carbon footer.
  • One panel seam on the whole page, at the top edge of the Story band. Seams sit at section boundaries only and never through the vertical middle of a band carrying text — text always wins.
  • Hull-plate texture is the brand’s default ground and tiles at any band height. Reach for it before any raster.
  • Chapter-style rhythm on the roster: a wide gap between the two rows, a tight one inside a row. Equal gaps and the rows stop reading as two paths.

Deliberately not included

  • MAS99’s sideways “other eras” browse near the top. Its job is done by band 10, at the back, where cross-browse belongs.
  • MAS99’s mid-page CTA between the two grids. The archive door at band 6 replaces it and does not interrupt the roster.
  • MAS46’s “Faces of the Prequel Era” cluster. Merged into band 7; the page routes to characters once.
  • A filter or sort control. The archive owns those. This page routes into it.
  • Any Saber Core tier ladder. That belongs to the product-type page, not here.

Success criteria at 1440px

  • The first hilt is visible within one scroll of the hero — under 60 words of copy precede it, against 149 in MAS99 and 326 in MAS46.
  • Six of eleven bands carry product or route into the catalogue.
  • Exactly one band is pure editorial with no route out of it, and it sits below the roster.
  • Total copy lands between 1,250 and 1,450 words — the same weight as both sources, differently distributed.
  • No band contains the words “same-day”, “in stock”, “express” or any delivery claim faster than 7-10 days.
  • No art-direction or photograph-brief text renders anywhere.
  • Every fabricated quote card carries the placeholder attribute, and no annotation about it is visible.