Minimal Editorial Exports

Minimal Editorial Exports

Financial report tooling defaults to density — dark tables, corporate blue, every indicator visible at once — because that's what the body of a report needs. But aria-code also produces things that aren't report bodies: a cover page, a PPTX title slide, a single chart meant to stand alone, a Canva one-pager. Applying the dense-dashboard default to those is a mismatch: a cover page crammed with the same density as the analysis behind it reads as unfinished, not thorough. The fix is a second, deliberately restrained style for exactly these single-focal-point surfaces — heavy negative space, one accent color, one number or one chart doing the work, quiet typography carrying the rest. Silence read as confidence in print design long before software existed; the same logic applies here.

When this matters

• A report's cover page or first slide, before the dense analysis begins
• A PPTX title slide (aria.report.pptx / report_exporters.py)
• A single chart meant to be shared standalone, not embedded in a full report
• A Canva brand-template autofill for a one-pager or social export
• Never the report body — tables, multi-indicator panels, and the institutional/bloomberg themes stay dense on purpose; this style is for the one surface per document that's allowed to be quiet

Design rules

1. 70%+ quiet space. The cover/title surface should be mostly negative space around one focal point — one number (e.g. the headline return), one chart, or one signal — not a summary of everything the document contains.
2. One accent color, tied to real meaning. If there's a directional signal, the accent is that signal's real color (gain/loss, buy/sell) — never a decorative color chosen for mood. If there's no signal, pick one restrained anchor color and don't reach for a second.
3. Restrained type, not the safe default. Serif or monospace over the generic sans-serif dashboard default; one size doing the heavy lifting (the headline number or title), everything else quiet caption-weight.
4. Texture only where the format supports it. An HTML/PDF cover (report_generator.py's export_pdf path) can carry a subtle paper-grain or noise background; PPTX/DOCX covers (report_exporters.py) can't render texture the same way — for those, let space and type do the work instead of trying to fake grain.
5. No borrowed dashboard chrome on the cover. No sidebar, no nav, no multi-panel grid — a cover that reuses the report body's chrome isn't restrained, it's just a smaller dashboard.

Applying this in aria-code

• report_generator.py — generate_price_chart's mpf.make_marketcolors(...) call sets the chart palette; for a standalone/cover chart, drop it to a single accent + neutral rather than the full up/down + volume palette used in the report body.
• pdf_report.py — THEMES (institutional, bloomberg) are both dense-body themes; this style is for the cover page those themes render before the body starts, not a competing third dense theme.
• report_exporters.py — markdown_to_pptx's title slide (the first slide, before per-heading slides start) is the one slide this style governs; keep it to one line of restrained type and real negative space, not a bullet list. Same for markdown_to_docx's cover heading.
• canva_client.py — when building the brand template this style targets, keep the template itself minimal (one text field, one optional image/chart field); autofill_design's data argument should carry one headline value, not a dense field set.

Variation axes — don't let every export look identical

Run this style enough times (one cover per symbol, one title slide per report) and a single fixed recipe becomes its own template — the exact genericness problem ai-generated-ui-craft warns about, just at the style level instead of the whole-page level. The fix isn't random variation (a randomly-placed layout on a financial document reads as arbitrary, not considered) — it's varying along a few independent axes, each driven by something real about this export, not a dice roll:

• Focal-point position — centered / lower-third / upper-block. Derive from something real when possible (e.g. a strong directional signal implies weight toward one side) rather than defaulting to centered every time purely out of habit.
• Focal-point type — one number (headline return/price), one chart (aria.report.chart's output), or one short line of text — pick whichever actually carries this specific report's story; don't reach for "always the chart" or "always the number" regardless of what the report is about.
• Type pairing — serif-only, monospace-only, or a serif headline + monospace caption pair. Rotate deliberately across a batch (e.g. a multi-symbol daily digest) rather than letting every export in the same run pick the same pairing by default.
• Quiet ratio — 70% vs 85%+ negative space is itself a choice, not just a floor; a headline-only cover can afford more silence than one carrying a chart.

None of these axes touch the accent-color rule above — the accent stays tied to real signal meaning regardless of which layout/type/quiet-ratio combination gets picked.

Automated Quality Gate

scripts/exports_gate.py turns the checklist below into code, the same pattern minimal-editorial-poster's poster_gate.py uses (these two skills are siblings — keep the two gates' shape aligned if one changes). Build a spec with surface, export_format, quiet_pct, focal_point, focal_point_type, accent_color ({name, hex, source}), typography, texture, chrome_notes, and — when part of a batch — is_batch/variation_axis/variation_reason, then:

python scripts/exports_gate.py --spec spec.json
python scripts/exports_gate.py --demo

--demo compiles a dense cover wearing a "minimal" label (25% quiet space, borrowed sidebar/nav chrome, texture on a PPTX slide that can't render it, Inter/system-ui type) next to the corrected minimal-editorial compile for the same report — the first FAILs with named codes (insufficient_quiet_space, borrowed_dashboard_chrome, texture_unsupported_by_format, …), the second PASSes.

Checklist

• Is at least 70% of the cover/title surface genuinely quiet, not just slightly less dense than the body?
• Is the one accent color tied to something real (a signal), or at least chosen once and not fought by a second color?
• Is the type restrained and specific, not the default dashboard sans?
• Did texture only get used where the export format can actually render it (HTML/PDF), not faked on PPTX/DOCX?
• Does the cover avoid reusing the report body's chrome (sidebar, nav, multi-panel grid)?
• Is this being applied to a cover/title/single-focal surface, not the dense report body itself?
• If generating more than one export in the same run/batch, does the focal-point position, focal-point type, or type pairing actually vary across them — driven by something real, not left on autopilot?