Linear-design-analysis

Overview

Linear's marketing canvas is the deepest dark surface in this collection — {colors.canvas} is #010102, essentially pure black with a faint blue tint. On top sits a four-step surface ladder ({colors.surface-1} through {colors.surface-4}) for cards, panels, and lifted tiles, with hairline borders running from {colors.hairline} (#23252a) up through {colors.hairline-strong} and {colors.hairline-tertiary}. Light gray text ({colors.ink} #f7f8f8) carries the body and headlines.

The single chromatic accent is Linear lavender-blue {colors.primary} (#5e6ad2) — used on the brand mark, focus rings, and the primary CTA button. A lighter hover state ({colors.primary-hover} #828fff) and a focus-tinted variant ({colors.primary-focus} #5e69d1) extend the same hue. Linear avoids saturated greens, oranges, reds, etc. on the marketing canvas — the only semantic color is {colors.semantic-success} (#27a644) for status pills and the rare success indicator.

Display type runs Linear's custom sans (with SF Pro Display fallback) at weight 500–700 with negative letter-spacing scaling from -3.0px at 80px down to 0 at body. The body family is Linear's text cut, and a Linear Mono is reserved for code snippets in product screenshots.

The page rhythm is dense product screenshots — Linear's marketing leads with high-fidelity captures of the product UI (issue list, project view, dashboard) framed in {colors.surface-1} panels with {rounded.xl} 16px corners. The chrome is intentionally minimal so the app screenshots can do the heavy lifting.

Key Characteristics:

• Dark-canvas marketing system — {colors.canvas} (#010102) is the deepest dark in this collection.
• Lavender-blue brand accent ({colors.primary} #5e6ad2) — used scarcely on brand mark, focus, and the primary CTA.
• Four-step surface ladder (canvas → surface-1 → surface-2 → surface-3 → surface-4) carries hierarchy without shadow.
• Display tracking pulls aggressively negative (-3.0px at 80px); body holds at -0.05px.
• Cards use {rounded.lg} 12px corners with 1px hairline borders — never pill, rarely 16px.
• Product UI screenshots dominate the page. The marketing chrome is a dark frame for the app.
• No second chromatic color. No atmospheric gradients. No spotlight cards.

Colors

Source pages: linear.app (home), /intake, /pricing, /contact/sales, /build.

Brand & Accent

• Lavender-Blue ({colors.primary}): The signature Linear accent — primary CTA, brand mark, link emphasis.
• Lavender Hover ({colors.primary-hover}): Lighter lavender (#828fff) — hovered state of the primary CTA.
• Lavender Focus ({colors.primary-focus}): Focus-ring tint (#5e69d1) — focused inputs, focused buttons.
• Brand Secure ({colors.brand-secure}): Muted lavender-gray (#7a7fad) — used in "Linear Security" surfaces.

Surface

• Canvas ({colors.canvas}): Default page background — #010102, near-pure black with a faint blue tint.
• Surface 1 ({colors.surface-1}): One step above canvas — feature cards, pricing cards, product screenshot panels.
• Surface 2 ({colors.surface-2}): Two steps above — featured pricing card, hovered cards.
• Surface 3 ({colors.surface-3}): Three steps above — line-tertiary backgrounds, sub-nav.
• Surface 4 ({colors.surface-4}): Four steps above — bg-level-3, deepest lifted surface.
• Hairline ({colors.hairline}): 1px borders on cards and dividers.
• Hairline Strong ({colors.hairline-strong}): Stronger 1px borders — input focus rings.
• Hairline Tertiary ({colors.hairline-tertiary}): Tertiary borders for nested surfaces.
• Inverse Canvas ({colors.inverse-canvas}): Pure white — surface of the inverse pill CTA on a small set of section openers.
• Inverse Surface 1 ({colors.inverse-surface-1}): One step above inverse canvas.
• Inverse Surface 2 ({colors.inverse-surface-2}): Two steps above inverse canvas.

Text

• Ink ({colors.ink}): All headlines and emphasized body type — light gray #f7f8f8.
• Ink Muted ({colors.ink-muted}): Secondary type at #d0d6e0 — meta info on hero panels.
• Ink Subtle ({colors.ink-subtle}): Tertiary type at #8a8f98 — deselected pricing tabs, footer columns.
• Ink Tertiary ({colors.ink-tertiary}): Quaternary at #62666d — disabled, footnotes.

Semantic

• Success Green ({colors.semantic-success}): Status pills, success indicators. The only semantic color on marketing.
• Overlay ({colors.semantic-overlay}): Pure black overlay scrim for modals.

Typography

Font Family

• Linear Display — Linear's custom display sans; fallback SF Pro Display, -apple-system, system-ui, Segoe UI, Roboto. Carries display-xl through subhead.
• Linear Text — Linear's custom text sans (a slightly different cut tuned for body sizes); same fallback stack. Carries body sizes, button labels, captions.
• Linear Mono — Linear's custom mono; fallback ui-monospace, SF Mono, Menlo. Used for code snippets in product screenshots and for status / ID tokens.

The marketing surface treats Display and Text as one continuous voice; the family change is silent.

Hierarchy

Principles

• Aggressive negative tracking on display (-3.0px at 80px ≈ 4% of size).
• Single voice from display to body. Display-xl at 600 → body at 400 — same family, narrower weights.
• Eyebrow uses positive tracking (+0.4px) — contrast against the negative-tracked display marks the eyebrow as taxonomy.
• Mono only in code contexts. Linear Mono lives inside product screenshots — not on marketing chrome.

Note on Font Substitutes

Linear's custom typeface isn't publicly distributed; the documented fallback SF Pro Display, -apple-system, system-ui is the recommended substitute on macOS. For cross-platform implementation, Inter at weight 500 / 600 / 700 is the closest free substitute. Geist Sans is also viable. For mono, JetBrains Mono or Geist Mono at weight 400 closely approximates Linear Mono.

Layout

Spacing System

• Base unit: 4px.
• Tokens (front matter): {spacing.xxs} 4px · {spacing.xs} 8px · {spacing.sm} 12px · {spacing.md} 16px · {spacing.lg} 24px · {spacing.xl} 32px · {spacing.xxl} 48px · {spacing.section} 96px.
• Card interior padding: {spacing.lg} 24px on feature/pricing cards; {spacing.xl} 32px on testimonial cards; {spacing.xxl} 48px on CTA banners.
• Pill button padding: 8px vertical · 14px horizontal — Linear's compact button spec.
• Form input padding: 8px vertical · 12px horizontal.

Grid & Container

• Max content width sits around 1280px.
• Card grids are 3-up at desktop, 2-up at tablet, 1-up at mobile.
• Pricing tier grid is 3-up; comparison strip below shows checkmarks per tier.
• Product screenshot panels span full content width — they're the protagonist.

Whitespace Philosophy

The dark canvas IS the whitespace. Sections separate by lift onto surface-1 panels, not by gaps in white. Within a panel, generous {spacing.lg} 24px gaps between content blocks; {spacing.section} 96px between sections.

Elevation & Depth

Linear's depth is carried by surface ladder + hairline borders. The brand resists drop shadows on dark almost entirely.

Decorative Depth

• Product UI screenshots dominate as decorative depth.
• No atmospheric gradients, no spotlight cards.
• Subtle white edge highlight on the top edge of lifted panels — gives the dark surface a faint "pixel rendered" feel.

Shapes

Border Radius Scale

Photography & Illustration Geometry

• Product UI screenshots dominate; they sit in {rounded.xl} 16px tiles with {spacing.lg} 24px outer padding.
• Customer logo tiles render at small sizes (~24px logo height) on {colors.canvas} with no border.
• Avatar circles in testimonial cards use {rounded.full} at 32–40px sizes.

Components

Buttons

button-primary — Lavender CTA. The default primary CTA across all pages.

• Background {colors.primary}, text {colors.on-primary}, type {typography.button}, padding 8px 14px, rounded {rounded.md}.
• Pressed state lives in button-primary-pressed (background shifts to {colors.primary-focus}).
• Hover state lives in button-primary-hover (background shifts to {colors.primary-hover} lighter lavender).

button-secondary — Charcoal button. Used for secondary CTAs ("Sign in", "Read changelog").

• Background {colors.surface-1}, text {colors.ink}, type {typography.button}, padding 8px 14px, rounded {rounded.md}. 1px {colors.hairline} border.

button-tertiary — Plain text button.

• Background {colors.canvas}, text {colors.ink}, type {typography.button}, rounded {rounded.md}, padding 8px 14px.

button-inverse — White-on-dark inverse CTA.

• Background {colors.inverse-canvas}, text {colors.inverse-ink}, type {typography.button}, rounded {rounded.md}, padding 8px 14px.

Pricing Tabs

pricing-tab-default + pricing-tab-selected — Pill-toggle on /pricing.

• Default: {colors.canvas} background, {colors.ink-subtle} text, rounded {rounded.pill}, padding 6px 14px.
• Selected: {colors.surface-2} background, {colors.ink} text — selected = surface lift.

Cards & Containers

pricing-card — Each tier on /pricing.

• Background {colors.surface-1}, text {colors.ink}, type {typography.body}, rounded {rounded.lg}, padding 24px. 1px {colors.hairline} border.

pricing-card-featured — Recommended tier — surface lift to surface-2.

• Background {colors.surface-2}, otherwise identical structure.

feature-card — Generic feature highlight tile.

• Background {colors.surface-1}, text {colors.ink}, type {typography.body}, rounded {rounded.lg}, padding 24px.

product-screenshot-card — The dominant card type — frames a high-fidelity Linear app UI screenshot.

• Background {colors.surface-1}, text {colors.ink}, type {typography.body}, rounded {rounded.xl}, padding 24px.

testimonial-card — Customer quote with avatar + name + role.

• Background {colors.surface-1}, text {colors.ink}, type {typography.body-lg}, rounded {rounded.lg}, padding 32px.

customer-logo-tile — Small tile in the customer marquee.

• Background {colors.canvas}, text {colors.ink-subtle}, type {typography.caption}, rounded {rounded.xs}, padding 16px.

cta-banner — Closing CTA panel near page bottom.

• Background {colors.surface-1}, text {colors.ink}, type {typography.headline}, rounded {rounded.lg}, padding 48px.

Inputs & Forms

text-input + text-input-focused — Form fields on /contact/sales and signup overlays.

• Background {colors.surface-1}, text {colors.ink}, type {typography.body}, rounded {rounded.md}, padding 8px 12px.
• Focused state retains the same surface; the focus ring is a 2px {colors.primary-focus} outline at 50% opacity.

Status & Build Page

changelog-row — Each row in /build (changelog page) listing version, date, and changes.

• Background {colors.canvas}, text {colors.ink}, type {typography.body}, rounded {rounded.xs}, padding 24px 0. 1px {colors.hairline} bottom rule.

status-badge — Small status pill.

• Background {colors.surface-2}, text {colors.ink-muted}, type {typography.caption}, rounded {rounded.pill}, padding 2px 8px.

Navigation

top-nav — Sticky dark bar with the Linear wordmark left, primary nav links centered, and a button-secondary ("Sign in") + button-primary ("Get started") pair right.

• Background {colors.canvas}, text {colors.ink}, type {typography.body-sm}, height 56px.

Footer

footer — Dense link grid on {colors.canvas} with the Linear wordmark left.

• Background {colors.canvas}, text {colors.ink-subtle}, type {typography.caption}, padding 64px 32px.

Do's and Don'ts

Do

• Reserve {colors.canvas} (#010102) as the system's anchor surface — the faint blue tint is intentional.
• Use {colors.primary} lavender ONLY for: brand mark, primary CTA, focus ring, link emphasis.
• Use the four-step surface ladder for hierarchy. Avoid skipping levels.
• Pair display weight 600 with body weight 400 — Linear resists 700+ display weights.
• Apply negative letter-spacing aggressively on display.
• Use product UI screenshots as the protagonist of every section.
• Compose CTAs as {rounded.md} 8px corners.

Don't

• Don't ship a light-mode marketing page.
• Don't use lavender as a section background or card fill.
• Don't introduce a second chromatic accent (orange, pink, green for marketing).
• Don't add atmospheric gradients or spotlight cards.
• Don't pill-round CTAs.
• Don't use #000000 true black as the canvas.
• Don't combine multiple bright accents in product screenshot mockups.

Responsive Behavior

Breakpoints

Touch Targets

• CTAs hold ≥40px tap height across viewports.
• Pricing tab pills hold ≥36px tap height; touch viewports grow to ≥44px.
• Form inputs hold ≥44px tap target on touch.

Collapsing Strategy

• Top nav: links collapse to hamburger below 768px.
• Card grids: 3-up → 2-up at 1024px → 1-up below 768px.
• Pricing comparison: per-tier accordion below 768px.
• Display type: {typography.display-xl} 80px scales toward {typography.display-md} 40px on mobile.

Image Behavior

• Product UI screenshots maintain aspect ratio and never crop.
• Customer logos in the marquee may collapse from 6-up to 3-up below 768px.

Iteration Guide

1. Focus on ONE component at a time and reference it by its components: token name.
2. When introducing a section, decide first which surface lift it lives on.
3. Default body to {typography.body} at weight 400.
4. Run npx @google/design.md lint DESIGN.md after edits.
5. Add new variants as separate component entries.
6. Treat lavender as scarce: brand mark, primary CTA, focus, link emphasis.
7. Lead every section with a product UI screenshot.

Known Gaps

• The four-step surface ladder values are extracted directly from Linear's --color-bg-level-3, --color-line-tint, etc. CSS variables; they are Linear's canonical surface spec.
• Form-field error and validation styling is not visible on the inspected pages.
• Light mode is not documented because the marketing site does not ship a light theme.
• Linear's actual product UI uses a richer color-tag palette (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple) for issue priorities and project labels — those colors live in the in-product surfaces shown in mockups.
• The custom display, text, and mono families are proprietary; an open-source substitute is acceptable.