FerroxLabs visual-system
Mode skill. Default-enabled on the Brand specialist.
When to use
Use after the onlyness statement is locked in TEAM_MEMORY.md and the team needs a working visual system: typography, color, layout density, motif, plus the voice rules Copy writes inside. Use when a user asks for "the look," a logo direction, a palette, a font pairing, or a style guide. If onlyness is not locked, run brand-foundation first.
Trigger phrases: "Give me a palette." / "What fonts should we use?" / "Build a mini style guide." / "What's our visual identity?"
Procedure
1. Re-anchor on the dominant attribute. Read the locked onlyness statement and its dominant attribute back to the user. Every choice below must signal that one word.
2. Typography first — it carries the personality. Pick two type voices: one for display (headlines, hero, logotype) and one for body (paragraphs, UI, captions). Decide in this order:
- Display face voice. Serif = considered, editorial. Geometric sans = engineered, modern. Humanist sans = warm, approachable. Slab = sturdy, declarative. Mono = technical, raw, honest. Display/custom = high-attitude, niche.
- Body face. Different family, compatible x-height. Body carries trust; pick legibility before character.
- One contrast move. Either weight contrast (thin display against regular body) or family contrast (serif display against sans body). Not both — two moves becomes noise.
State the why in one sentence per choice. "Slab display because the attribute is unflinchingly honest, and slab carries declarative weight without smiling."
3. Color — one ownable hue, then a working set.
- One ownable hue. Pick one chromatic color the brand owns. Avoid default category colors (blue for SaaS, green for sustainability, black for luxury) unless you have a reason to fight inside the cliché.
- One supporting accent. A second color that does the work the primary won't (warm CTA against cool primary, muted neutral against saturated lead).
- Working neutrals. A near-black (almost never #000), one off-white background, one mid-gray for borders and secondary text. Three, not five.
- One reason per choice. "Desaturated and slightly green — signals clinical precision over corporate familiarity."
4. Layout density. Choose one: dense (small type, tight tracking, lots of information on screen — signals expertise and seriousness) or spacious (large type, generous whitespace, one idea per view — signals confidence and calm). Density is a brand statement. Mixing reads as indecision.
5. Motif and image style. Pick one visual mark, pattern, illustration system, or photographic treatment. Plus one written "never" rule for images the brand won't use. The "never" list stops drift better than any "always" list.
6. Voice rules for Copy. Define, in five lines:
- Register (formal / conversational / blunt / warm).
- Sentence length default (short, mixed, long-flowing).
- First person (we / I / none).
- Three banned words or phrases specific to this brand.
- One thing the brand never says (a position, a posture, a claim).
Post all six outputs to ## Brand in TEAM_MEMORY.md under a dated entry. Hand the voice-rules block to the Copy specialist explicitly.
Decision rules
- Two type voices, period. A third face is almost always a wrapped solution to a layout problem the pairing should have solved.
- The ownable hue must survive at 24px and at 24ft. If it muddies at either end, it's wrong.
- If the attribute is quiet, the system gets quieter than feels comfortable. Most brands under-commit.
- Recognizability beats prettiness. Slightly-off-but-unmistakable beats polished-and-generic.
- No mood boards without three pinned references. "Clean and modern" without pictures is a discussion, not a brief.
Anti-patterns
- Three or four typefaces because each is individually nice. The brand reads as a font store.
- Locking a palette before the price tier is set. Premium and budget look nothing alike.
- Borrowing an admired brand's system wholesale. You end up with their recognizability.
- Accessibility as a final-pass check. Contrast and minimum body size are first-pass constraints.
- Voice defined in adjectives ("friendly, smart"). Voice is rules — banned words beat mood words.
- Skipping the "never" list. Without it, every new asset drifts and brand decay starts.
Before / after
Brief: "We need a visual system. Onlyness: only daily planner that forces creatives to schedule the messy middle. Dominant attribute: unflinchingly honest."
Before (default category move): geometric sans, cream background, soft pastels, friendly icon set.
After (system answering the attribute): slab serif display in near-black, mono for captions and timestamps, a single oxidized rust as the ownable hue against off-white, dense layout, no illustrations — only marked-up date grids. Voice rules: no exclamation marks, no "just," no future-tense aspiration. The system stops smiling, and the buyer recognizes the planner inside a thumbnail.