Aquarelle

# Aquarelle

## Philosophy

A quiet editorial visual language where a transparent watercolor feature illustration leads the page, supported by restrained type, warm cotton-rag paper surfaces, atmospheric hand-rendered accents, and generous negative space that lets the narrative image breathe. Pigment behaviour — blooming wet-on-wet, granulating into the paper tooth, drying crisp, lifting to unpainted paper — is used as structural design material, not decoration.

### Values

- transparent wash luminosity over opaque decoration
- editorial pacing with calm hierarchy and deliberate pauses
- hand-rendered atmosphere that feels commissioned rather than templated
- paper texture and pigment behaviour as structural material

### Anti-Values

- glossy digital gradients that erase the paper ground
- crowded card grids with equal-weight modules
- heavy display typography competing with the illustration
- stock-photo realism or hard-edged tech futurism

### Visual Character

- A single commissioned watercolor leads each page; the masthead and headlines are dark editorial ink set over the illustration's quiet regions.
- Content sits on warm paper leaves with fibre grain, a hairline deckle rule, corner wash blooms, and granulation speckle.
- Type pairs a lyrical Cormorant serif with a fine Source Sans body and IBM Plex Mono furniture — small-caps labels and thin rules instead of heavy contrast.
- Layouts use wide gutters, staggered pull quotes with oversized translucent watercolor quote glyphs, and floated vignettes so negative space becomes page rhythm.
- Controls keep an ink-and-paper feeling — transparent ochre-wash fills, hairline paper edges, and a gentle wash bloom on hover.

## Tokens

### Colors

| Name | Value |
|------|-------|
| bg | `#F4ECDD` |
| surface | `#FBF5EA` |
| surface_solid | `#FFFDF8` |
| text | `#26303A` |
| muted | `#6B6252` |
| border | `#D8C9B5` |
| accent | `#C68A2E` |
| accent_2 | `#4E6E7A` |
| accent_soft | `#ECD9B0` |
| on_accent | `#26303A` |
| success | `#4F6E48` |
| warning | `#A85B33` |
| error | `#9E4A44` |
| info | `#3F6373` |

### Typography

- **Base Size**: 17px
- **Body Font**: Source Sans 3
- **Heading Font**: Cormorant Garamond
- **Mono Font**: IBM Plex Mono
- **Heading Weight**: 600
- **Heading Transform**: none
- **Letter Spacing**: -0.02em
- **Line Height**: 1.6
- **Scale Ratio**: 1.28
- **Google Fonts Url**: https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Cormorant+Garamond:ital,wght@0,500;0,600;0,700;1,500;1,600&family=IBM+Plex+Mono:wght@400;500&family=Source+Sans+3:wght@300;400;500;600&display=swap

### Radii

- **None**: 0px
- **Md**: 16px
- **Lg**: 24px
- **Full**: 9999px

### Shadows

- **Sm**: 0 6px 18px rgba(54,47,38,.08)
- **Md**: 0 16px 40px rgba(54,47,38,.12)
- **Lg**: 0 30px 90px rgba(54,47,38,.16)

### Spacing

- **Base**: 8px
- **Scale**: [4,8,12,16,24,32,48,64]

### Surfaces

- **Treatment**: warm cotton-rag paper ground with fibre grain, transparent wash overlays, and pigment granulation
- **Card Style**: deckled paper leaf on soft paper shadow, square corners, corner wash bloom and granulation grain
- **Bg Pattern**: layered radial washes (Payne / ochre / sienna) at low alpha with multiply, faint fibre grain, scattered granulation speckle

### Borders

- **Default Width**: 1px
- **Accent Width**: 2px
- **Style**: single hairline paper-edge rule, full perimeter, occasionally broken like a drybrush mark
- **Character**: warm low-contrast deckle rule; never a coloured accent edge on any side

### Motion

- **Duration**: 420ms
- **Easing**: cubic-bezier(0.22, 0.61, 0.36, 1)
- **Philosophy**: motion feels like pigment diffusing into damp paper: slow, soft-edged, never mechanical

## Rules

### Composition

Lead with a single commissioned watercolor; organise text in magazine columns with wide outside gutters and offset secondary modules; keep to one dense cluster per viewport.

### Hierarchy

Headlines are lyrical Cormorant serif; metadata is IBM Plex Mono small-caps; body is a fine Source Sans (400) that stays calm while the illustration carries the emotion.

### Density

Low-to-medium with deliberate pauses and active negative space that reads as unpainted paper.

### Radius Stance

Square everywhere (radius 0) — cards, buttons, inputs, chips, thumbnails; 9999 only for literal circular pigment dots.

### Signature Patterns

- The wash bloom — a transparent ochre pigment field that blooms from the primary act and recolours through components.
- Deckled paper leaves — square cards on soft paper shadow with a hairline deckle rule, corner wash bloom, and granulation grain.
- Editorial pull quotes floated with an oversized translucent watercolor quotation glyph.
- Pigment-dot markers — the only round shape — marking nav, lists, and status.
- Commissioned illustration frames with layered paper texture and granulation.
- A live wet-on-wet diffusion field (WebGL) that dries with scroll and deposits pigment under the pointer.

## Layout

### Grid

Twelve-column editorial grid on desktop, six-column tablet, single-column mobile with the art block preceding copy.

### Breakpoints

mobile 390px, tablet 768-1024px, desktop 1440px, wide 1920px+ — each art-directed.

### Whitespace

Generous and active, especially around the watercolor, where wide margins read as unpainted paper ground.

## Guidance

### Do

- Let one commissioned watercolor lead; keep the type quiet.
- Use transparent overlapping washes to frame the story moment.
- Keep paper grain, deckle edges, and granulation present across components.
- Use wide gutters and active negative space for magazine rhythm.

### Don't

- No glossy gradients, neon palettes, or dense dashboard chrome.
- No rounded corners (this language is square) and no accent edge-rails.
- No aggressive geometric display type that overpowers the art.
- No pastel blobs without paper texture; never muddy.

## Imagery Direction

### Illustration Style

Commissioned transparent watercolor in the Granule technique — wet-on-wet blooms and backruns, granulation settling into cold-press tooth, drybrush feathered edges, generous unpainted paper — over glossy renders.

### Hero Image Direction

One full-bleed commissioned watercolor feature illustration with a reserved quiet washed region (open sky, pale ground) for the dark-ink display type; harbors, markets, coasts, portraits, still lifes.

### Icon Style

Hairline editorial glyphs, folio marks, and pigment-dot markers; hand-drawn ink chevrons rather than filled UI icons.

### Image Gen Prompts

- Loose transparent watercolor editorial cover, harbor at dusk, wide pale washed sky reserved for the masthead, Payne teal / burnt sienna / yellow ochre on cream cotton-rag, wet-on-wet blooms and granulation
- Commissioned watercolor feature spread, morning flower market, a quiet washed band for the standfirst, drybrush edges and generous unpainted paper

### Pairs With

granule

---
version: "alpha"
name: "Aquarelle"
description: "Agent-curated design language exported from Katagami as DESIGN.md."
colors:
  bg: "#F4ECDD"
  surface: "#FBF5EA"
  surface_solid: "#FFFDF8"
  text: "#26303A"
  muted: "#6B6252"
  border: "#D8C9B5"
  accent: "#C68A2E"
  accent_2: "#4E6E7A"
  accent_soft: "#ECD9B0"
  on_accent: "#26303A"
  success: "#4F6E48"
  warning: "#A85B33"
  error: "#9E4A44"
  info: "#3F6373"
typography:
  headline-lg:
    fontFamily: "Cormorant Garamond"
    fontSize: "2.228rem"
    fontWeight: 700
    lineHeight: 1.1
    letterSpacing: "-0.02em"
  headline-md:
    fontFamily: "Cormorant Garamond"
    fontSize: "1.741rem"
    fontWeight: 600
    lineHeight: 1.15
    letterSpacing: "-0.02em"
  body-md:
    fontFamily: "Source Sans 3"
    fontSize: "17px"
    fontWeight: 400
    lineHeight: 1.5
    letterSpacing: "-0.02em"
  label-md:
    fontFamily: "IBM Plex Mono"
    fontSize: "0.75rem"
    fontWeight: 600
    lineHeight: 1
    letterSpacing: "0.08em"
rounded:
  none: "0px"
  md: "16px"
  lg: "24px"
  full: "9999px"
spacing:
  base: "8px"
  xs: "4px"
  sm: "8px"
  md: "12px"
  lg: "16px"
  xl: "24px"
  2xl: "32px"
  3xl: "48px"
  4xl: "64px"
components:
  color-reference-bg:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.bg}"
  color-reference-surface:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.surface}"
  color-reference-surface_solid:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.surface_solid}"
  color-reference-text:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.text}"
  color-reference-muted:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.muted}"
  color-reference-border:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.border}"
  color-reference-accent:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.accent}"
  color-reference-accent_2:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.accent_2}"
  color-reference-accent_soft:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.accent_soft}"
  color-reference-on_accent:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.on_accent}"
  color-reference-success:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.success}"
  color-reference-warning:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.warning}"
  color-reference-error:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.error}"
  color-reference-info:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.info}"
  button-primary:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.accent}"
    textColor: "#000000"
    typography: "{typography.label-md}"
    rounded: "{rounded.md}"
    padding: "{spacing.md}"
  card-surface:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.surface}"
    textColor: "{colors.text}"
    rounded: "{rounded.md}"
    padding: "{spacing.md}"
  input-default:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.surface}"
    textColor: "{colors.text}"
    rounded: "{rounded.md}"
    height: "44px"
---

# Aquarelle

## Overview

A quiet editorial visual language where a transparent watercolor feature illustration leads the page, supported by restrained type, warm cotton-rag paper surfaces, atmospheric hand-rendered accents, and generous negative space that lets the narrative image breathe. Pigment behaviour — blooming wet-on-wet, granulating into the paper tooth, drying crisp, lifting to unpainted paper — is used as structural design material, not decoration.

### Values

- transparent wash luminosity over opaque decoration
- editorial pacing with calm hierarchy and deliberate pauses
- hand-rendered atmosphere that feels commissioned rather than templated
- paper texture and pigment behaviour as structural material

### Anti-Values

- glossy digital gradients that erase the paper ground
- crowded card grids with equal-weight modules
- heavy display typography competing with the illustration
- stock-photo realism or hard-edged tech futurism

### Visual Character

- A single commissioned watercolor leads each page; the masthead and headlines are dark editorial ink set over the illustration's quiet regions.
- Content sits on warm paper leaves with fibre grain, a hairline deckle rule, corner wash blooms, and granulation speckle.
- Type pairs a lyrical Cormorant serif with a fine Source Sans body and IBM Plex Mono furniture — small-caps labels and thin rules instead of heavy contrast.
- Layouts use wide gutters, staggered pull quotes with oversized translucent watercolor quote glyphs, and floated vignettes so negative space becomes page rhythm.
- Controls keep an ink-and-paper feeling — transparent ochre-wash fills, hairline paper edges, and a gentle wash bloom on hover.

## Colors

Use the YAML color tokens as the normative palette. The prose below names the roles agents should preserve when generating UI.

| Token | Value |
|-------|-------|
| bg | `#F4ECDD` |
| surface | `#FBF5EA` |
| surface_solid | `#FFFDF8` |
| text | `#26303A` |
| muted | `#6B6252` |
| border | `#D8C9B5` |
| accent | `#C68A2E` |
| accent_2 | `#4E6E7A` |
| accent_soft | `#ECD9B0` |
| on_accent | `#26303A` |
| success | `#4F6E48` |
| warning | `#A85B33` |
| error | `#9E4A44` |
| info | `#3F6373` |

## Typography

- **Headline-Lg**: Cormorant Garamond, 2.228rem, weight 700, line-height 1.1.
- **Headline-Md**: Cormorant Garamond, 1.741rem, weight 600, line-height 1.15.
- **Body-Md**: Source Sans 3, 17px, weight 400, line-height 1.5.
- **Label-Md**: IBM Plex Mono, 0.75rem, weight 600, line-height 1.

## Layout

### Spacing Tokens

- **Base**: `8px`
- **Xs**: `4px`
- **Sm**: `8px`
- **Md**: `12px`
- **Lg**: `16px`
- **Xl**: `24px`
- **2xl**: `32px`
- **3xl**: `48px`
- **4xl**: `64px`

### Grid

Twelve-column editorial grid on desktop, six-column tablet, single-column mobile with the art block preceding copy.

### Breakpoints

mobile 390px, tablet 768-1024px, desktop 1440px, wide 1920px+ — each art-directed.

### Whitespace

Generous and active, especially around the watercolor, where wide margins read as unpainted paper ground.

## Elevation & Depth

### Shadows

- **Sm**: 0 6px 18px rgba(54,47,38,.08)
- **Md**: 0 16px 40px rgba(54,47,38,.12)
- **Lg**: 0 30px 90px rgba(54,47,38,.16)

## Shapes

### Rounded

- **None**: `0px`
- **Md**: `16px`
- **Lg**: `24px`
- **Full**: `9999px`

### Surfaces

- **Treatment**: warm cotton-rag paper ground with fibre grain, transparent wash overlays, and pigment granulation
- **Card Style**: deckled paper leaf on soft paper shadow, square corners, corner wash bloom and granulation grain
- **Bg Pattern**: layered radial washes (Payne / ochre / sienna) at low alpha with multiply, faint fibre grain, scattered granulation speckle

### Borders

- **Default Width**: 1px
- **Accent Width**: 2px
- **Style**: single hairline paper-edge rule, full perimeter, occasionally broken like a drybrush mark
- **Character**: warm low-contrast deckle rule; never a coloured accent edge on any side

## Components

### Composition

Lead with a single commissioned watercolor; organise text in magazine columns with wide outside gutters and offset secondary modules; keep to one dense cluster per viewport.

### Hierarchy

Headlines are lyrical Cormorant serif; metadata is IBM Plex Mono small-caps; body is a fine Source Sans (400) that stays calm while the illustration carries the emotion.

### Density

Low-to-medium with deliberate pauses and active negative space that reads as unpainted paper.

### Radius Stance

Square everywhere (radius 0) — cards, buttons, inputs, chips, thumbnails; 9999 only for literal circular pigment dots.

### Signature Patterns

- The wash bloom — a transparent ochre pigment field that blooms from the primary act and recolours through components.
- Deckled paper leaves — square cards on soft paper shadow with a hairline deckle rule, corner wash bloom, and granulation grain.
- Editorial pull quotes floated with an oversized translucent watercolor quotation glyph.
- Pigment-dot markers — the only round shape — marking nav, lists, and status.
- Commissioned illustration frames with layered paper texture and granulation.
- A live wet-on-wet diffusion field (WebGL) that dries with scroll and deposits pigment under the pointer.

## shadcn/ui Usage

When the target app uses shadcn/ui, copy DESIGN.md with shadcn instead of the plain DESIGN.md. It contains the same Katagami design-language source plus the shadcn/ui primitives, imports, theme variables, component recipes, and preview-shot guidance.

DESIGN.md with shadcn: `/language/en-019fe2a2-cfc9-7dd2-92e8-d4f9a10407d1/DESIGN.with-shadcn.md`.

The shadcn page also exposes optional machine-readable files for automation, but the human-facing handoff is DESIGN.md with shadcn.

Install recommended primitives with `npx shadcn@latest add button card input textarea select dialog sheet tabs badge separator checkbox switch slider tooltip dropdown-menu table`.

Use these primitives in shadcn apps:
- button
- card
- input
- textarea
- select
- dialog
- sheet
- tabs
- badge
- separator
- checkbox
- switch
- slider
- tooltip
- dropdown-menu
- table

Implementation rule for agents: import shadcn primitives from `@/components/ui/*`, apply the generated CSS variables first, then compose the language-specific recipes from the companion MD. Katagami remains the source of truth; shadcn names are the implementation surface.

## Do's and Don'ts

- Do Let one commissioned watercolor lead; keep the type quiet.
- Do Use transparent overlapping washes to frame the story moment.
- Do Keep paper grain, deckle edges, and granulation present across components.
- Do Use wide gutters and active negative space for magazine rhythm.
- Don't No glossy gradients, neon palettes, or dense dashboard chrome.
- Don't No rounded corners (this language is square) and no accent edge-rails.
- Don't No aggressive geometric display type that overpowers the art.
- Don't No pastel blobs without paper texture; never muddy.

## Imagery Direction

### Illustration Style

Commissioned transparent watercolor in the Granule technique — wet-on-wet blooms and backruns, granulation settling into cold-press tooth, drybrush feathered edges, generous unpainted paper — over glossy renders.

### Hero Image Direction

One full-bleed commissioned watercolor feature illustration with a reserved quiet washed region (open sky, pale ground) for the dark-ink display type; harbors, markets, coasts, portraits, still lifes.

### Icon Style

Hairline editorial glyphs, folio marks, and pigment-dot markers; hand-drawn ink chevrons rather than filled UI icons.

### Image Gen Prompts

- Loose transparent watercolor editorial cover, harbor at dusk, wide pale washed sky reserved for the masthead, Payne teal / burnt sienna / yellow ochre on cream cotton-rag, wet-on-wet blooms and granulation
- Commissioned watercolor feature spread, morning flower market, a quiet washed band for the standfirst, drybrush edges and generous unpainted paper

### Pairs With

granule

```json
{
  "$schema": "https://ui.shadcn.com/schema/registry-item.json",
  "name": "aquarelle",
  "type": "registry:theme",
  "title": "Aquarelle shadcn Theme",
  "cssVars": {
    "theme": {},
    "light": {
      "background": "#F4ECDD",
      "foreground": "#26303A",
      "card": "#FBF5EA",
      "card-foreground": "#26303A",
      "popover": "#FBF5EA",
      "popover-foreground": "#26303A",
      "primary": "#26303A",
      "primary-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "secondary": "#f4f4f5",
      "secondary-foreground": "#111111",
      "muted": "#6B6252",
      "muted-foreground": "#26303A",
      "accent": "#C68A2E",
      "accent-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "destructive": "#9E4A44",
      "border": "#D8C9B5",
      "input": "#D8C9B5",
      "ring": "#C68A2E",
      "chart-1": "#26303A",
      "chart-2": "#f4f4f5",
      "chart-3": "#C68A2E",
      "chart-4": "#4F6E48",
      "chart-5": "#A85B33",
      "sidebar": "#FBF5EA",
      "sidebar-foreground": "#26303A",
      "sidebar-primary": "#26303A",
      "sidebar-primary-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "sidebar-accent": "#3F6373",
      "sidebar-accent-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "sidebar-border": "#D8C9B5",
      "sidebar-ring": "#C68A2E",
      "radius": "16px"
    },
    "dark": {
      "background": "#0f1115",
      "foreground": "#f8fafc",
      "card": "#181b22",
      "card-foreground": "#f8fafc",
      "popover": "#181b22",
      "popover-foreground": "#f8fafc",
      "primary": "#26303A",
      "primary-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "secondary": "#252a33",
      "secondary-foreground": "#f8fafc",
      "muted": "#252a33",
      "muted-foreground": "#a1a1aa",
      "accent": "#C68A2E",
      "accent-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "destructive": "#9E4A44",
      "border": "#303642",
      "input": "#303642",
      "ring": "#C68A2E",
      "chart-1": "#26303A",
      "chart-2": "#f4f4f5",
      "chart-3": "#C68A2E",
      "chart-4": "#4F6E48",
      "chart-5": "#A85B33",
      "sidebar": "#181b22",
      "sidebar-foreground": "#f8fafc",
      "sidebar-primary": "#26303A",
      "sidebar-primary-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "sidebar-accent": "#C68A2E",
      "sidebar-accent-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "sidebar-border": "#303642",
      "sidebar-ring": "#C68A2E",
      "radius": "16px"
    }
  },
  "meta": {
    "source": "katagami",
    "languageId": "en-019fe2a2-cfc9-7dd2-92e8-d4f9a10407d1",
    "slug": "aquarelle",
    "componentManifest": [
      "button",
      "card",
      "input",
      "textarea",
      "select",
      "dialog",
      "sheet",
      "tabs",
      "badge",
      "separator",
      "checkbox",
      "switch",
      "slider",
      "tooltip",
      "dropdown-menu",
      "table"
    ],
    "installCommand": "npx shadcn@latest add button card input textarea select dialog sheet tabs badge separator checkbox switch slider tooltip dropdown-menu table",
    "nativeTokenNames": {
      "colors": [
        "accent",
        "accent_2",
        "accent_soft",
        "bg",
        "border",
        "error",
        "info",
        "muted",
        "on_accent",
        "success",
        "surface",
        "surface_solid",
        "text",
        "warning"
      ],
      "typography": [
        "base_size",
        "body_font",
        "google_fonts_url",
        "heading_font",
        "heading_transform",
        "heading_weight",
        "letter_spacing",
        "line_height",
        "mono_font",
        "scale_ratio"
      ],
      "radii": [
        "full",
        "lg",
        "md",
        "none"
      ],
      "shadows": [
        "lg",
        "md",
        "sm"
      ],
      "spacing": [
        "base",
        "scale"
      ],
      "surfaces": [
        "bg_pattern",
        "card_style",
        "treatment"
      ],
      "borders": [
        "accent_width",
        "character",
        "default_width",
        "style"
      ],
      "motion": [
        "duration",
        "easing",
        "philosophy"
      ]
    }
  }
}
```