taste:
id: coral-gazette
name: Coral Gazette
summary: >-
A light, comfortable editorial UI combining rounded flat surfaces with a vivid warm brand
identity.
app_type: WEB_APP
project_types:
- saas
styles:
- minimal
- bold
industry: software
aesthetics:
- minimal
- bold
tags:
- minimal
- bold
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': '#747474'
description: Observed neutral gray ramp from light page background to dark ink text.
brand:
'500': '#FA5D29'
description: Vivid warm coral primary brand anchor.
danger:
'500': '#E03131'
warning:
'500': '#FFF083'
success:
'500': '#2EA85C'
info:
'500': '#1C7ED6'
accent:
'500': '#FFF083'
colors:
background:
light: '#F8F8F8'
dark: '#0A0A0A'
foreground:
light: '#222222'
dark: '#F8F8F8'
card:
light: '#F8F8F8'
dark: '#0A0A0A'
card-foreground:
light: '#222222'
dark: '#F8F8F8'
popover:
light: '#F8F8F8'
dark: '#0A0A0A'
popover-foreground:
light: '#222222'
dark: '#F8F8F8'
primary:
light: brand/500
dark: brand/500
primary-foreground:
light: neutral/900
dark: neutral/900
secondary:
light: neutral/150
dark: neutral/800
secondary-foreground:
light: neutral/800
dark: neutral/100
muted:
light: neutral/150
dark: neutral/800
muted-foreground:
light: neutral/700
dark: neutral/400
accent:
light: accent/500
dark: accent/500
accent-foreground:
light: neutral/800
dark: neutral/800
destructive:
light: danger/500
dark: danger/500
destructive-foreground:
light: neutral/900
dark: neutral/900
border:
light: neutral/150
dark: neutral/800
input:
light: neutral/200
dark: neutral/700
ring:
light: brand/500
dark: brand/500
chart-1:
light: brand/500
dark: brand/500
chart-2:
light: accent/500
dark: accent/500
chart-3:
light: neutral/600
dark: neutral/400
chart-4:
light: success/500
dark: success/500
chart-5:
light: info/500
dark: info/500
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/900
dark: neutral/900
sidebar-accent:
light: neutral/150
dark: neutral/800
sidebar-accent-foreground:
light: neutral/800
dark: neutral/100
sidebar-border:
light: neutral/150
dark: neutral/800
sidebar-ring:
light: brand/500
dark: brand/500
radius:
base:
value: 0.875rem
description: Corresponds to the measured 14px large corner radius.
shadows:
xs:
value: none
sm:
value: none
md:
value: none
lg:
value: none
xl:
value: none
gradients:
brand_wash:
value: 'linear-gradient(135deg, #FA5D29 0%, #FFF083 100%)'
edge_scrim:
value: >-
linear-gradient(to right, rgb(34, 34, 34) 0px, rgb(34, 34, 34) 10%, rgba(255, 255, 255, 0)
10%)
fonts:
sans:
family: Source Serif 4
description: High-legibility serif for body copy and editorial reading.
display:
family: Fraunces
description: Characterful display face for expressive, high-contrast headings.
mono:
family: JetBrains Mono
description: Clean monospace for numerical data, status indicators, and codes.
typography:
hero:
font: display
size_px: 42
line_height_px: 50
weight: 600
letter_spacing_em: -0.01
transform: none
title:
font: display
size_px: 32
line_height_px: 40
weight: 600
letter_spacing_em: 0
transform: none
heading:
font: display
size_px: 15
line_height_px: 28
weight: 400
letter_spacing_em: 0
transform: none
body:
font: sans
size_px: 14
line_height_px: 28
weight: 300
letter_spacing_em: 0
transform: none
caption:
font: sans
size_px: 12
line_height_px: 18
weight: 300
letter_spacing_em: 0
transform: none
label:
font: sans
size_px: 14
line_height_px: 28
weight: 400
letter_spacing_em: 0
transform: none
overline:
font: sans
size_px: 12
line_height_px: 18
weight: 600
letter_spacing_em: 0.08
transform: uppercase
style_guidelines:
visual_direction:
title: Visual Direction
recommendations:
- >-
Combine flat, high-contrast surfaces with a vivid coral primary accent and warm yellow
highlights to create an editorial, award-winning atmosphere.
- >-
Emphasize content through stark, thin borders and sharp spacing instead of soft drop
shadows or dimensional lighting.
hierarchy:
title: Hierarchy
recommendations:
- >-
Anchor layouts with an oversized, high-contrast display serif headline to immediately
capture editorial intent.
- >-
Use generous, airy leading and a compressed type scale to establish clear reading lanes
and scannable visual blocks.
layout:
title: Layout
recommendations:
- >-
Align elements to a strict 4px grid with consistent outer page padding to maintain an
organized, newspaper-like rhythm.
components:
title: Components
recommendations:
- >-
Style primary interactive buttons with a comfortable 60px height and subtle 8px rounded
corners to offer a tactile, easy-to-target interactive area.
typography:
title: Typography
recommendations:
- >-
Apply the Fraunces display face exclusively for large headings to inject a literary,
humanistic personality into the interface.
color_and_effects:
title: Color & Effects
recommendations:
- >-
Confine the highly saturated coral and yellow brand tones to interactive states, active
indicators, and critical highlights to avoid visual noise.
- >-
Deploy the signature linear edge-scrim transition to smoothly blend image backgrounds into
dark neutral content blocks without harsh boundaries.
quality_bar:
title: Quality Bar
checks:
- id: editorial-serif-dominance
label: Editorial Serif Dominance
recommendation: >-
The primary screen heading must be set in 42px Fraunces with a 600 weight, ensuring the
brand's literary, high-contrast voice is immediate.
- id: button-tactility
label: Button Tactility
recommendation: >-
Ensure secondary buttons maintain the measured 60px height, 8px corner radius, and flat
light-neutral background fill to preserve tactile consistency.
- id: contrast-integrity
label: Contrast Integrity
recommendation: >-
Verify that all text on the vivid coral primary background uses high-contrast dark neutral
text to meet accessibility standards.
- id: scrim-blend-purity
label: Scrim Blend Purity
recommendation: >-
Use the hard-to-soft edge-scrim gradient only on image boundaries to seamlessly transition
photography into the flat text zones.
active_remix:
mode: light
brand: '#FA5D29'
display_font: Fraunces
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).
