taste:
id: arcadia
name: Arcadia
summary: >-
A light comfortable UI with sharp corners, flat surfaces, and a vivid warm brand built for
highly scannable financial environments.
app_type: WEB_APP
project_types:
- fintech
styles:
- bold
- playful
- minimal
industry: finance-banking
aesthetics:
- bold
- playful
- minimal
tags:
- bold
- playful
- minimal
theme:
default_mode: LIGHT_MODE
palette_note: Only the 500 anchor is provided per palette; the full 17-step ramp is derived from it.
palettes:
neutral:
'500': '#767676'
description: Arcadia structural neutral scale derived from scanned interface facts.
brand:
'500': '#FFF67F'
description: Vivid warm yellow primary brand anchor.
danger:
'500': '#D9383A'
description: High-contrast functional red for errors and destructive actions.
warning:
'500': '#F5A623'
description: Functional warm amber for warnings.
success:
'500': '#6EEB9D'
description: Optimistic mint green for positive states.
info:
'500': '#ACF8F5'
description: Bright ice-blue for information status elements.
accent:
'500': '#ACF8F5'
description: Observed neon ice-blue for brand accents.
colors:
background:
light: '#F7F7F7'
dark: '#0A0A0A'
foreground:
light: '#1E1D1D'
dark: '#E2E2E2'
card:
light: '#FFFFFF'
dark: '#1E1D1D'
card-foreground:
light: '#1E1D1D'
dark: '#FFFFFF'
popover:
light: '#FFFFFF'
dark: '#1E1D1D'
popover-foreground:
light: '#1E1D1D'
dark: '#FFFFFF'
primary:
light: brand/500
dark: brand/500
primary-foreground:
light: neutral/800
dark: neutral/800
secondary:
light: neutral/150
dark: neutral/700
secondary-foreground:
light: neutral/800
dark: neutral/100
muted:
light: neutral/150
dark: neutral/700
muted-foreground:
light: neutral/700
dark: neutral/400
accent:
light: accent/500
dark: neutral/700
accent-foreground:
light: neutral/800
dark: neutral/100
destructive:
light: danger/700
dark: danger/700
destructive-foreground:
light: neutral/100
dark: neutral/100
border:
light: neutral/200
dark: neutral/700
input:
light: neutral/200
dark: neutral/700
ring:
light: neutral/500
dark: neutral/400
chart-1:
light: brand/500
dark: brand/500
chart-2:
light: success/500
dark: success/500
chart-3:
light: accent/500
dark: accent/500
chart-4:
light: neutral/500
dark: neutral/400
chart-5:
light: neutral/800
dark: neutral/100
sidebar:
light: neutral/100
dark: neutral/900
sidebar-foreground:
light: neutral/800
dark: neutral/100
sidebar-primary:
light: brand/500
dark: brand/500
sidebar-primary-foreground:
light: neutral/800
dark: neutral/800
sidebar-accent:
light: accent/500
dark: neutral/700
sidebar-accent-foreground:
light: neutral/800
dark: neutral/100
sidebar-border:
light: neutral/200
dark: neutral/700
sidebar-ring:
light: neutral/500
dark: neutral/400
radius:
base:
value: 0rem
description: Strictly sharp corners as measured across all controls.
shadows:
xs:
value: none
sm:
value: none
md:
value: none
lg:
value: none
xl:
value: none
gradients:
brand_wash:
value: linear-gradient(90deg, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%, rgb(172, 248, 245) 50%)
fonts:
sans:
family: IBM Plex Sans
description: Technical and clear UI body text.
display:
family: IBM Plex Serif
description: Editorial display headings for high visual contrast.
mono:
family: IBM Plex Mono
description: Precise numerical data and transactional metrics.
typography:
hero:
font: display
size_px: 62
line_height_px: 68
weight: 700
letter_spacing_em: -0.04
transform: none
title:
font: display
size_px: 36
line_height_px: 43
weight: 700
letter_spacing_em: -0.03
transform: none
heading:
font: display
size_px: 21
line_height_px: 30
weight: 500
letter_spacing_em: 0
transform: none
body:
font: sans
size_px: 18
line_height_px: 28
weight: 400
letter_spacing_em: 0
transform: none
caption:
font: sans
size_px: 12
line_height_px: 18
weight: 400
letter_spacing_em: 0
transform: none
label:
font: sans
size_px: 12
line_height_px: 19
weight: 700
letter_spacing_em: 0
transform: none
overline:
font: sans
size_px: 12
line_height_px: 19
weight: 700
letter_spacing_em: 0.08
transform: uppercase
style_guidelines:
visual_direction:
title: Visual Direction
recommendations:
- >-
Embrace an unapologetic flat aesthetic with absolute zero-radius sharp corners, solid
boundaries, and warm yellow color blocks.
hierarchy:
title: Hierarchy
recommendations:
- >-
Use dramatic typographic scale shifts to command attention, anchoring pages with bold
sixty-two pixel serif titles.
- >-
Distinguish interactive states with flat color fills rather than elevation, utilizing
high-contrast background highlights.
layout:
title: Layout
recommendations:
- >-
Organize interfaces using a strict structural grid bounded by thin one-pixel borders,
eliminating all drop shadows.
- >-
Balance dense financial data columns with generous whitespace margins to maintain peak
readability and effortless scanning.
components:
title: Components
recommendations:
- >-
Render primary action buttons as flat rectangular blocks with thin borders, relying on
high-contrast hover states instead of depth.
typography:
title: Typography
recommendations:
- >-
Set financial metrics and UI labels in sans-serif to ensure absolute legibility at compact
scales.
- >-
Apply tight tracking to large-scale serif headings to give editorial prominence to section
titles and key summaries.
color_and_effects:
title: Color & Effects
recommendations:
- >-
Deploy a restrained palette of vivid yellow and mint accents against neutral gray
backgrounds to highlight critical actions.
- >-
Incorporate the measured horizontal split-scrim linear gradient exclusively for subtle
content transitions or hero illustrations.
quality_bar:
title: Quality Bar
checks:
- id: sharp-corners
label: Absolute Zero Radius
recommendation: >-
Ensure absolutely no elements use rounded corners; buttons, cards, inputs, and dropdowns
must feature 0px border radius.
- id: flat-elevation
label: Zero Shadow Elevation
recommendation: >-
Verify that no shadows are used for elevation; rely entirely on 1px borders and
high-contrast background fills to define boundaries.
- id: text-contrast
label: Action Fill Readability
recommendation: >-
Confirm that text overlaid on the primary yellow or mint green background uses the dark
ink color to maintain a contrast ratio of 4.5:1 or higher.
active_remix:
mode: light
brand: '#FFF67F'
display_font: IBM Plex Serif
shape: system
depth: system
spacing: system
spacing_value: null
craft: >
# Craft (universal core + conditional craft)
How to apply this design system well. These rules contain no brand look of their own — all
per-system character comes from the tokens and taste notes above; this section only governs
how they are composed. **Precedence:** the design system above is the authority on how things
look — where its own notes conflict with a rule here, the design system wins. And the user's
request is the authority on what the screen IS — notes above that describe the source
product's screens (workspaces, dashboards, panels) are its aesthetic heritage, not an
instruction to build that kind of screen.
## Universal — applies to every screen (screen-agnostic craft)
- **Surface definition.** Every container is visually separable from what it sits on — at least
one
honest edge cue: a hairline border, a ≥4% tonal step from its parent, or a real shadow. Never a card
whose fill matches its section with no border; never nested surfaces that dissolve together.
- **Accent discipline.** The brand/primary color is a scalpel, not paint: spend it on the primary
action, the active/selected/focused state, and at most **one** brand or data highlight per screen.
Everything else rides neutral background / card / muted / border tokens. A screen flooded with brand
color reads unfinished, not bold.
- **Restraint ledger.** Beauty is also what you don't do: at most one glow and two gradient
directions
screen-wide; decoration only where content doesn't reach; no ornament between a heading and its own
action. Every decorative element must answer "what does this make clearer or more felt?" — if the
answer is "nothing," remove it.
- **Type with intent.** The measured faces/scale are fixed; character comes from *usage*, and the
move
must fit the surface — a marketing page earns a dramatic display move; a working screen earns a
crisp, tight, legible hierarchy at UI scale (display-hero type on a dense tool is a smell). Chrome
and wayfinding are never display type; data numerals are tabular (mono or sans), never the
decorative face. Headings stay roman — italics live as emphasis inside running text, not as
display styling (unless the system's own type says otherwise).
- **Anti-default.** If the screen could pass for a generic template with the colors swapped, it is
not
done. Make the brand unmistakable through the accent's *use*, the type, the radius + density, and
**one** signature detail — never by importing another surface's clichés.
- **Honest content.** Never invent proof — no made-up adoption counts, growth percentages,
testimonials, client logos, or awards. Use the user's real content, a neutral placeholder, or
leave the element out and let the layout carry it. Never hand-draw fake browser bars, phone
frames, or editor chrome around content — show the content itself, or nothing.
- **Interaction integrity.** Buttons, links, tabs, and nav labels never wrap to two lines; display
headlines wrap cleanly, never clipping mid-word; nothing overflows horizontally at any width;
keyboard focus gets an instant, clearly visible ring.
- **Token fidelity.** Every design value comes from a token: colors, radii, shadows, and fonts
from
the system's variables — never a literal hex, a hand-picked shadow, or a substitute font. For a
translucent or composited value (a scrim, a glow, a hairline over a fill), derive it from a token
(an opacity modifier or color-mix), never a literal rgba. If the system specifies square corners and
a hard shadow, the screen shows square corners and that hard shadow — not a rounded, soft substitute.
## Conditional — apply ONLY the layer that matches the screen the user asked for
**First name the screen honestly from the user's prompt.** Then apply the matching guidance. Do
not
cross layers, and **do not add elements from a layer the screen doesn't call for** — a screen that
is
not a data view must not sprout KPI tiles, charts, filter bars, or data tables to satisfy a
template.
- **If it's a data / dashboard / admin / table view:** density done well (comfortable rows, tight
control clusters, one spacing rhythm); a populated working state (real rows/cards, not empty feature
boxes); tables with aligned tabular numerals, status as badges, row hover, one visible selected row,
and control states that agree with the data shown. KPI tiles, *if the screen has them*, are
value + label + delta. **At most one** chart, of a real metric for this domain, token-colored and
axis-labeled — never a decorative sine wave or filler sparkline. Exactly one unambiguous primary
action.
- **If it's a focused task / tool / player / capture / monitor / form / wizard (not a data
view):**
the screen's real job dominates the frame; chrome recedes. Honor the screen's own nature — a player
looks like a player, a monitor like a monitor, a form like a form — with the design system's color,
type, radius, and depth applied to *those* elements. **No dashboard furniture**: no KPI tiles, no
charts, no data tables, no filter chrome unless the task itself is about that data. Real-time or
safety-critical readouts get calm, unambiguous, high-legibility treatment over decoration.
- **If it's a marketing / landing surface:** editorial art direction belongs here — section rhythm
(modulate surface temperature, density, and scale; one oversized moment; at least one full-bleed
band) and considered visual treatments. Never put this on a working app screen.
- **Mobile:** follow the platform's native idioms for the screen's type (e.g. an app screen:
compact
top bar, one focused column, a bottom tab bar, ≥44px targets, safe areas) — the same conditional
rules above still decide what content belongs.
## Imagery (universal)
- **Imagery is content, not decoration** on working screens: images are data (covers, products,
avatars, places) in purposeful containers, one consistent treatment across siblings — never a lone
photo floating in a box, never marketing's decorative fades on a work screen. When a moment needs
atmosphere, build it from the token system (tinted panels, token gradients, geometry).
