# Visual Identity Audit Source material for developing a fixed house style — pieced together from [[Obsidian]] appearance settings, the [[Style Settings]] plugin, enabled CSS snippets, and the [[frontend-slides]] and [[presentation-formatter]] skills. Not yet a codified style; raw signals to draw from. See also [[aesthetic-preferences]] and [[nick-voice]] for the taste underpinning these choices. ## 1. Core typography - Text + interface font: [[iA Writer Duospace]] - Monospace: [[iA Writer Mono S]] - Chat / agent surfaces swap to [[iA Writer Quattro S]] (more proportional) - Base size: 25px in vault, 20–21px in chat panes - Line-height: 1.5 vault, 1.3–1.36 chat - Line-width: 39rem readable, max 88 - No Inter/Roboto/Helvetica; no generic sans defaults ## 2. Palette ([[Flexoki]], warm-biased) Headers and accents: - `#AF3129` red — H1, primary accent - `#942822` deep red — dark accent, folder L1 - `#DFB431` gold — H2, external links, bold/italic emphasis - `#AD8301` gold-dark — folder L2, agent headings - `#3AA99F` teal — H3/H4, internal links, active file, tags - `#A2DECE` light teal — hover - `#66800C` green — blockquote border, folder L3 - `#205EA6` / `#4385BE` blue — code borders, agent messages - `#DA702C` orange, `#CE5D97` magenta, `#5E409D` purple — sidebar tab icons and light-mode H2/H3 Warm greys (the backbone): - `#100F0F`, `#191817`, `#1C1B1A` — backgrounds - `#575653`, `#6F6E69`, `#878580`, `#A09F97` — secondary/tertiary text - `#CECDC3`, `#AEB3B9`, `#F2F0E5` — body and emphasis Functional split: warm red/gold for expression, teal for interaction, warm green for quoting, blue for code. ## 3. Heading system - Size ladder: H1 2.35em · H2 1.7em · H3 1.3em · H4 1.25em - Weight: H1 500, H2 400 - Letter-spacing shrinks as level descends: 0.08em → 0.04em → 0.01em (airy → tight) - Top-margin generous: 2.5em / 2em / 1.6em - Inline title sits deliberately dark (`#1C1B1A`) — embossed rather than bright - Chat headings use small-caps + lowercase + 0.05em tracking in red `#D14D41` — a different register ## 4. Spacing and rhythm - Paragraph spacing: 1.2em (vault), 1.3em (chat) - Horizontal rules centered, 40% width, teal gradient, opacity 0.5, 2.5em margin - Blockquotes: 2px left border `#66800C`, text `#575654` - Callouts: outlined style, icons removed - Tags pill-shaped: teal wash, `border-radius: 1em`, 0.85em, 0.5em/0.15em padding ## 5. Code treatment - Block: 2px left border `#205EA6`, 6% blue wash background, border-radius 3px - Inline: 8% blue wash, border-radius 2px, tight 0.1em/0.3em padding - Agent diff colors: added `#101F1D`/`#3AA99F`, removed `#241E08`/`#AD8301` ## 6. Navigation / chrome - No view header, no ribbon — stripped chrome - Sidebar background `#100F0F`; nav text `#6F6E69` at 0.95em, 0.01em tracking - Active file marked by 3px teal left border + teal 12% wash - Folder levels cascade in color: red → gold → green - Tab icons polychromatic (green/blue/orange/yellow/etc.) rather than monochrome - Vault title tiny, uppercase-feeling: 0.75em, 0.04em tracking, `#575653` ## 7. OpenType / micro-typography - `ss01` + `ss02` turned on in chat for single-story *a* and *g* - Register-shift CSS deliberately differentiates contexts by size + color + tracking, not by font swap alone - [[Agent Client]] uses ultra-light weights (180–275) against dark — thin-on-dark is part of the look ## 8. Slides / presentations From [[frontend-slides]] and [[presentation-formatter]]: - Preferred family: [[Sora]] (presentation-formatter) or iA Writer Quattro (frontend-slides Flexoki preset) - Hierarchy via "register" classes: `register-note`, `register-secondary`, `register-code` - Archetypes (title / section / content) rather than free-form layouts - All type sized with `clamp()`; viewport-fitted (`100vh`, overflow hidden) - Breakpoints at 700/600/500px heights - `prefers-reduced-motion` honored; motion reserved for high-impact reveals, not decoration - Backgrounds as atmosphere (gradients, texture) — not flat white - Content density capped: ~4–6 bullets or 1 heading + 1 image per slide - Explicitly avoided: Inter/Roboto/Arial, purple gradients, predictable layouts ## 9. Writing-side formatting rules Already codified in [[writing-standards]]; worth lifting into the house style: - Double quotes for direct quotation / article titles; single quotes for scare-quotes, mentioned words, nested - UK logical punctuation (punctuation inside quotes only if quoted) - Italics for work titles, foreign phrases, first-introduction technical terms, variables, rare emphasis - Bold reserved for `Label — description` lists only; never for emphasis in prose, never in headings - No capitalised labels ("The Functional Reliability Move") - No nested headers, no argument-A/argument-B scaffolding ## 10. Cross-cutting patterns 1. One font family, many variants. Duospace / Quattro / Mono S do the work; no mixing with sans. 2. Warm greys only. Never cool blue-grey for chrome; warmth is non-negotiable. 3. Typography carries hierarchy before color does. Letter-spacing, size, weight, caps — color is reinforcement. 4. Teal = interactive, red = expressive, gold = emphasis, green = quotation, blue = code. Roles are consistent across surfaces. 5. Spatial generosity. Line-height 1.5, heading tops 2em+, narrow measure (~39rem / 800px). Breath over density. 6. Context-differentiated registers. Vault, [[Claudian]] chat, Agent Client, sidebar each read differently (size, weight, tracking, background) while sharing palette. 7. Outlined over filled. Callouts outlined, tags pill-outlined, HRs thin gradients. Nothing shouts. 8. Commit to specificity. iA Writer, Flexoki, small-caps chat headings, single-story *a* and *g* — the style rejects "default polish" in favor of marked choices. Mirrors the stated aesthetic (practical effects, anti-generic). ## Open questions to fix the style - Which accents are house vs which are Obsidian-only? (Is gold-on-dark part of the identity, or just an H2 color?) - Is the warm/dark bias the house, or is there a light-mode version? (`minimal-flexoki-light` configured but very little custom light-mode CSS.) - Presentation font: Sora or iA Writer Quattro? The two skills currently disagree. - Bold policy in presentations: does the "no bold in prose" rule extend to slides, or do slides get bold weights for contrast? - Serif anywhere? Nothing in the current stack uses one — worth deciding if that's deliberate. *Uno stile di casa si riconosce dai dettagli che rifiuti, non solo da quelli che scegli.*