taste:
id: gradient-horizon
name: Gradient Horizon
summary: >-
A premium, light, and comfortable ecommerce UI characterized by fully rounded pill interactions,
vivid warm red accents, soft-shadow surfaces, and dense photography.
app_type: WEBSITE
project_types:
- ecommerce
styles:
- minimal
- premium
industry: retail-consumer
aesthetics:
- minimal
- premium
tags:
- minimal
- premium
theme:
default_mode: LIGHT_MODE
palette_note: >-
Only the 500 anchor is provided per palette; the full 17-step ramp (100-900) is derived from
it by the system's heuristic shade tool.
palettes:
neutral:
'500': '#808080'
description: 'Measured neutral anchor balancing crisp #0A0A0A text and #FFFFFF surfaces.'
brand:
'500': '#EE0000'
description: Vivid warm red serving as the signature brand anchor.
danger:
'500': '#DC2626'
warning:
'500': '#F59E0B'
success:
'500': '#16A34A'
info:
'500': '#0284C7'
colors:
background:
light: '#FFFFFF'
dark: neutral/900
foreground:
light: '#0A0A0A'
dark: neutral/100
card:
light: '#FFFFFF'
dark: neutral/900
card-foreground:
light: '#0A0A0A'
dark: neutral/100
popover:
light: '#FFFFFF'
dark: neutral/900
popover-foreground:
light: '#0A0A0A'
dark: neutral/100
primary:
light: brand/600
dark: brand/600
primary-foreground:
light: '#FFFFFF'
dark: '#FFFFFF'
secondary:
light: neutral/100
dark: neutral/800
secondary-foreground:
light: '#0A0A0A'
dark: neutral/100
muted:
light: neutral/100
dark: neutral/800
muted-foreground:
light: '#6A6A6A'
dark: neutral/400
accent:
light: neutral/100
dark: neutral/800
accent-foreground:
light: '#0A0A0A'
dark: neutral/100
destructive:
light: danger/600
dark: danger/600
destructive-foreground:
light: '#FFFFFF'
dark: '#FFFFFF'
border:
light: '#000000'
dark: neutral/700
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: info/500
dark: info/500
chart-3:
light: warning/500
dark: warning/500
chart-4:
light: success/500
dark: success/500
chart-5:
light: neutral/500
dark: neutral/500
sidebar:
light: neutral/100
dark: neutral/900
sidebar-foreground:
light: '#0A0A0A'
dark: neutral/100
sidebar-primary:
light: brand/600
dark: brand/600
sidebar-primary-foreground:
light: '#FFFFFF'
dark: '#FFFFFF'
sidebar-accent:
light: neutral/200
dark: neutral/800
sidebar-accent-foreground:
light: '#0A0A0A'
dark: neutral/100
sidebar-border:
light: '#000000'
dark: neutral/700
sidebar-ring:
light: brand/500
dark: brand/500
radius:
base:
value: 1rem
description: >-
Standard 16px radius for cards and surfaces, complementing the 999px fully rounded pill
buttons.
shadows:
xs:
value: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5) 0px 1px 1px 0px
sm:
value: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3) 0px 2px 4px 0px
md:
value: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.15) 0px 4px 8px 0px, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.05) 0px 1px 2px 0px
lg:
value: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 0px 8px 16px 0px, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.05) 0px 2px 4px 0px
xl:
value: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.08) 0px 12px 24px 0px, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.04) 0px 4px 8px 0px
gradients:
hero_scrim:
value: linear-gradient(to bottom, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3) 0%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 100%)
brand_wash:
value: 'linear-gradient(135deg, #EE0000 0%, #AF0000 100%)'
fonts:
sans:
family: DM Sans
description: Highly legible, modern sans-serif for body copy and navigational UI.
display:
family: Bricolage Grotesque
description: Distinctive, expressive face driving hero typography and primary headings.
mono:
family: Roboto Mono
description: Used sparingly for pricing metrics, SKUs, and data.
typography:
hero:
font: display
size_px: 32
line_height_px: 38
weight: 700
letter_spacing_em: 0
transform: none
title:
font: display
size_px: 22
line_height_px: 26
weight: 400
letter_spacing_em: 0
transform: none
heading:
font: display
size_px: 18
line_height_px: 24
weight: 600
letter_spacing_em: 0
transform: none
body:
font: sans
size_px: 13
line_height_px: 17
weight: 400
letter_spacing_em: 0
transform: none
caption:
font: sans
size_px: 11
line_height_px: 13
weight: 400
letter_spacing_em: 0
transform: none
label:
font: sans
size_px: 14
line_height_px: 18
weight: 400
letter_spacing_em: 0
transform: none
overline:
font: sans
size_px: 11
line_height_px: 13
weight: 700
letter_spacing_em: 0.05
transform: uppercase
style_guidelines:
visual_direction:
title: Visual Direction
recommendations:
- >-
Pair dense, high-quality retail photography with fully rounded pill shapes to balance
premium aesthetics with approachability.
- >-
Use the vivid brand red sparingly as an anchor for primary conversion points, letting the
stark white backgrounds and crisp black text do the heavy lifting.
- >-
Employ a text-on-image hero composition utilizing a soft transparent scrim to ensure the
editorial headline remains legible without muting the photography.
hierarchy:
title: Hierarchy
recommendations:
- >-
Give primary emphasis to product and lifestyle imagery, allowing the relatively compact
typography scale to serve as confident, quiet support.
- >-
Maintain clear distinction between the expressive Bricolage Grotesque headings and the
straightforward DM Sans body copy to guide the user's eye naturally down the page.
layout:
title: Layout
recommendations:
- >-
Adhere to generous 32px section gaps and 16px card padding, creating a rhythmic and
uncrowded flow across the 12-column grid.
- >-
Alternate section background colors only when it actively serves the narrative flow of the
storefront, otherwise lean on consistent white surface space.
components:
title: Components
recommendations:
- >-
Enforce 999px fully rounded radii on all buttons to maintain the signature pill shape,
ensuring they stand out against the 1rem rounded product cards.
- >-
On dark hero imagery, utilize a 95% opaque frosted white primary button to draw focus
while harmonizing with the background.
typography:
title: Typography
recommendations:
- >-
Embrace the specific measured scale, relying on the 32px display weight for high-impact
promises and the 13px body size for dense descriptive text.
- >-
Keep leading tight across all heading tiers to maintain a solid, cohesive block of text
that feels intentional and premium.
color_and_effects:
title: Color & Effects
recommendations:
- >-
Apply the signature pure black (#000000) hairline border to define interactive elements
and form fields sharply against the soft-shadow surfaces.
- >-
Restrict the use of fading gradients exclusively to image scrims or edge-fades; never
apply them as standalone decorative bands.
quality_bar:
title: Quality Bar
checks:
- id: hero-image-density
label: Photography Presence
recommendation: >-
Ensure the design honors the brand's image density by populating hero and card slots with
high-quality, realistic lifestyle or retail photography.
- id: pill-button-integrity
label: Pill Button Shape
recommendation: >-
Verify that all primary calls to action utilize the fully rounded 999px pill shape at the
designated 44px height.
- id: text-on-scrim-contrast
label: Scrim Contrast
recommendation: >-
Check that any text placed over hero imagery is backed by the linear-gradient scrim,
maintaining a minimum 4.5:1 contrast ratio.
- id: typography-scale-fidelity
label: Type Scale Adherence
recommendation: >-
Confirm the exact measured scale is in use, particularly the 32px bold display and the
13px normal body, avoiding the urge to inflate sizes.
- id: crisp-border-usage
label: Hairline Borders
recommendation: >-
Ensure borders strictly adhere to the 1px thin pure black (#000000) specification to
provide crisp contrast against the soft #FFFFFF surfaces.
active_remix:
mode: light
brand: '#EE0000'
display_font: Bricolage Grotesque
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).
