taste:
id: sunday-editorial
name: Sunday Editorial
summary: >-
A premium, image-dense editorial system that combines classic high-contrast literary typography
with sharp, flat modern framing.
app_type: WEBSITE
project_types:
- editorial
styles:
- editorial
- premium
industry: media-telecom
aesthetics:
- editorial
- premium
tags:
- editorial
- 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': '#727272'
description: The primary neutral anchor, seeding a high-contrast ink-and-paper scale.
brand:
'500': '#326891'
description: A cool, sophisticated editorial blue that adds a calm, cerebral tone.
danger:
'500': '#D9383A'
warning:
'500': '#E2B13C'
success:
'500': '#2E7D32'
info:
'500': '#2F80ED'
accent:
'500': '#567B95'
colors:
background:
light: '#FFFFFF'
dark: '#121212'
foreground:
light: '#121212'
dark: '#FFFFFF'
card:
light: '#FFFFFF'
dark: neutral/900
card-foreground:
light: '#121212'
dark: neutral/100
popover:
light: '#FFFFFF'
dark: neutral/900
popover-foreground:
light: '#121212'
dark: neutral/100
primary:
light: brand/600
dark: brand/400
primary-foreground:
light: '#FFFFFF'
dark: neutral/900
secondary:
light: neutral/100
dark: neutral/800
secondary-foreground:
light: neutral/900
dark: neutral/100
muted:
light: neutral/200
dark: neutral/800
muted-foreground:
light: neutral/700
dark: neutral/400
accent:
light: brand/100
dark: brand/800
accent-foreground:
light: brand/900
dark: brand/100
destructive:
light: danger/600
dark: danger/400
destructive-foreground:
light: '#FFFFFF'
dark: neutral/900
border:
light: neutral/900
dark: neutral/300
input:
light: neutral/200
dark: neutral/700
ring:
light: brand/500
dark: brand/400
chart-1:
light: brand/600
dark: brand/400
chart-2:
light: accent/500
dark: accent/400
chart-3:
light: neutral/700
dark: neutral/300
chart-4:
light: brand/400
dark: brand/600
chart-5:
light: accent/300
dark: accent/700
sidebar:
light: neutral/100
dark: neutral/900
sidebar-foreground:
light: neutral/900
dark: neutral/100
sidebar-primary:
light: brand/600
dark: brand/400
sidebar-primary-foreground:
light: '#FFFFFF'
dark: neutral/900
sidebar-accent:
light: brand/100
dark: brand/800
sidebar-accent-foreground:
light: brand/900
dark: brand/100
sidebar-border:
light: neutral/200
dark: neutral/800
sidebar-ring:
light: brand/500
dark: brand/400
radius:
base:
value: 0.1875rem
shadows:
xs:
value: none
sm:
value: none
md:
value: none
lg:
value: none
xl:
value: none
gradients:
brand_wash:
value: linear-gradient(to right, rgb(255, 255, 255), rgba(0, 0, 0, 0))
fonts:
sans:
family: Source Serif 4
description: Classic high-legibility serif for editorial body text and UI controls.
display:
family: Fraunces
description: Dramatic display serif used for striking, high-impact headings.
mono:
family: Courier Prime
description: Monospaced serif for metadata, issue numbers, and editorial dates.
typography:
hero:
font: display
size_px: 44
line_height_px: 44
weight: 900
letter_spacing_em: -0.01
transform: none
title:
font: display
size_px: 23
line_height_px: 25
weight: 400
letter_spacing_em: 0
transform: none
heading:
font: display
size_px: 16
line_height_px: 16
weight: 400
letter_spacing_em: 0
transform: none
body:
font: sans
size_px: 11
line_height_px: 12
weight: 500
letter_spacing_em: 0
transform: none
caption:
font: sans
size_px: 10
line_height_px: 12
weight: 500
letter_spacing_em: 0
transform: uppercase
label:
font: sans
size_px: 14
line_height_px: 20
weight: 400
letter_spacing_em: 0
transform: none
overline:
font: sans
size_px: 10
line_height_px: 12
weight: 500
letter_spacing_em: 0.08
transform: uppercase
style_guidelines:
visual_direction:
title: Visual Direction
recommendations:
- >-
Emphasize high-contrast editorial structures using hairline borders and an ultra-dense,
image-rich newspaper layout.
- >-
Keep surfaces completely flat and avoid soft drop shadows to anchor the print-inspired
tactile aesthetic.
- >-
Use generous whitespace between content blocks to let large-scale serif typography breathe
naturally.
hierarchy:
title: Hierarchy
recommendations:
- >-
Establish dramatic contrast by pairing massive 900-weight display titles with clean,
compact body columns.
- >-
Anchor the top of every major section with an uppercase caption category tag to structure
reader exploration.
- >-
Differentiate secondary stories using a clear weight transition from heavy display titles
to light body descriptions.
layout:
title: Layout
recommendations:
- >-
Design around an multi-column editorial grid, filling pages with structured modular text
blocks and image frames.
- >-
Maintain a tight 40px gap between sections to present a unified, continuous stream of
literary content.
- >-
Implement split-screen heroes on key landing areas to balance rich photography with
prominent literary headlines.
components:
title: Components
recommendations:
- >-
Style primary action buttons with sharp 3px corners, a white background, and a solid 1px
dark border.
- >-
Format cards using a strict 21px padding, separating content categories with clean 1px
rules rather than background fills.
- >-
Incorporate prominent image captions directly below illustrations using small, uppercase
text styled with monospaced accents.
typography:
title: Typography
recommendations:
- >-
Render all main headings in Fraunces, utilizing tight line-heights to capture the feel of
physical broadsheet headlines.
- >-
Set editorial paragraphs in Source Serif 4 at a compact 11px size to maximize readability
within dense column formats.
- >-
Ensure dates, issue numbers, and content tags are styled in monospaced serif to reference
classic publication mastheads.
color_and_effects:
title: Color & Effects
recommendations:
- >-
Utilize a crisp paper-white canvas punctuated by solid black text and subtle cool blue
highlights.
- >-
Apply soft linear transitions that fade to transparent only for image overlays and subtle
section edge-fades.
- >-
Maintain high-contrast color pairings ensuring all text remains completely legible against
both light and dark backgrounds.
quality_bar:
title: Quality Bar
checks:
- id: hero-headline-scale
label: Hero Headline Scale
recommendation: >-
Verify that the primary hero headline renders at exactly 44px with a 900 weight to secure
an immediate editorial impression.
- id: flat-aesthetic-enforcement
label: Flat Aesthetic Enforcement
recommendation: >-
Ensure zero drop-shadows are used across cards, buttons, or navigation bars to preserve
the flat print feel.
- id: border-and-corner-fidelity
label: Border and Corner Fidelity
recommendation: >-
Check that all card and button corners use a sharp 3px radius and borders are kept to a
clean, hair-thin 1px thickness.
- id: image-density-standard
label: Image Density Standard
recommendation: >-
Confirm pages feature dense photographic layouts with explicit image frames to replicate a
high-end physical magazine.
- id: contrast-compliance
label: Contrast Compliance
recommendation: >-
Confirm all text colors meet or exceed a 4.5:1 contrast ratio against their respective
background surfaces.
active_remix:
mode: light
brand: '#326891'
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).
