Estuary

# Estuary

## Philosophy

A quiet editorial field-study language where a single transparent watercolour plate leads the page, supported by one restrained literary voice, cool cotton-paper surfaces, hand-rendered atmosphere, and generous unpainted negative space. Pigment behaviour — a wash blooming into damp paper and settling at its drying edge into a hard, granulating tideline — is used as the structural material of the interface rather than 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 the settling wash edge 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 plate
- stock-photo realism or hard-edged tech futurism

### Visual Character

- A single transparent watercolour plate leads each page; the masthead and headlines are dark prussian-slate ink set over the plate's quiet washed regions.
- Structure is carried by the tideline — a granulating prussian wash edge — as section dividers, the selected-tab underline, the progress fill, and link hover, so the whole interface is organised by one recurring wash edge instead of borders.
- Content sits on cool cotton-paper specimen plates with fibre grain, a single hairline perimeter, a mono catalog number, and granulation speckle.
- Type is one literary Spectral voice — fine at 17px for body, large only for earned display moments — with IBM Plex Mono field furniture (catalog numbers, coordinates, folios).
- Layouts use wide gutters, staggered pull quotes with an oversized translucent watercolour quote glyph, and floated specimen vignettes so negative space becomes page rhythm.

### Lineage

> A reimagining of Watercolor-Led Magazine Storytelling: the watercolour-editorial soul kept, the expression reconceived as a cool naturalist field study built on the tideline.

## Tokens

### Colors

| Name | Value |
|------|-------|
| bg | `#F1EEE4` |
| surface | `#FAF8F1` |
| surface_solid | `#FEFCF6` |
| text | `#20303B` |
| muted | `#667079` |
| border | `#CFD3CC` |
| accent | `#274A63` |
| accent_2 | `#B0563C` |
| accent_soft | `#CBD7DD` |
| on_accent | `#F4F1E8` |
| success | `#4F6E48` |
| warning | `#B0703A` |
| error | `#9E4A44` |
| info | `#3F6373` |

### Typography

- **Base Size**: 17px
- **Body Font**: Spectral
- **Heading Font**: Spectral
- **Mono Font**: IBM Plex Mono
- **Heading Weight**: 700
- **Heading Transform**: none
- **Letter Spacing**: -0.02em
- **Line Height**: 1.62
- **Scale Ratio**: 1.28
- **Google Fonts Url**: https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Spectral:ital,wght@0,300;0,400;0,500;0,600;0,700;1,400;1,500&family=IBM+Plex+Mono:wght@400;500&display=swap

### Radii

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

### Shadows

- **Sm**: 0 6px 20px rgba(30,40,48,.07)
- **Md**: 0 18px 44px rgba(30,40,48,.11)
- **Lg**: 0 30px 90px rgba(30,40,48,.16)

### Spacing

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

### Surfaces

- **Treatment**: cool cotton-paper ground with fibre grain, transparent wash overlays, and pigment granulation
- **Card Style**: square specimen plate on soft paper shadow, single hairline perimeter, mono catalog number, granulation grain
- **Bg Pattern**: layered radial washes (prussian / payne / faint madder) at low alpha with multiply, faint fibre grain, scattered granulation speckle, each wash resolving into a tideline

### Borders

- **Default Width**: 1px
- **Accent Width**: 2px
- **Style**: single hairline paper-edge rule, full perimeter, occasionally broken like a drybrush mark
- **Character**: cool low-contrast paper rule; structure is carried by the tideline dividers, never a coloured accent edge on any side

### Motion

- **Duration**: 440ms
- **Easing**: cubic-bezier(0.22, 0.61, 0.36, 1)
- **Philosophy**: motion feels like pigment diffusing into damp paper: slow, soft-edged, never mechanical; washes flood, settle into a tideline, and dry down

## Rules

### Composition

Lead with a single transparent watercolour plate; organise text in field-journal columns with wide outside gutters and offset secondary modules; keep to one dense cluster per viewport.

### Hierarchy

Headlines are large Spectral; metadata is IBM Plex Mono small-caps; body is a fine Spectral (400) at 17px that stays calm while the plate carries the emotion.

### Density

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

### Radius Stance

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

### Signature Patterns

- The tideline — a granulating prussian wash edge that resolves washes into structure: dividers, the selected-tab underline, the progress fill, and the hover gesture on links and buttons.
- Specimen plates — square cards on soft paper shadow with a single hairline, a mono catalog number, and granulation grain.
- Editorial pull quotes floated with an oversized translucent watercolour quotation glyph.
- Pigment-dot markers — the only round shape — marking nav, status, and lists.
- Commissioned specimen frames with layered paper texture and granulation.
- A live wet-on-wet diffusion field (WebGL) that warms into the climax and deposits pigment under the pointer as a wet brush.

## Layout

### Grid

Twelve-column field-journal grid on desktop, six-column tablet, single-column mobile with the plate preceding copy.

### Breakpoints

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

### Whitespace

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

## Guidance

### Do

- Let one transparent watercolour plate lead; keep the type quiet.
- Use the tideline — the granulating wash edge — as your dividers, affordances, and meters.
- Keep paper grain, hairline plates, and granulation present across components.
- Use wide gutters and active negative space for field-journal 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 heavy display type competing with the plate.
- No pastel blobs without paper texture or a settling edge; never muddy.

## Imagery Direction

### Illustration Style

Transparent watercolour in the Backrun technique — wet-on-wet washes settling into a granulating tideline, backruns and cauliflower blooms, granulation in the cold-press tooth, drybrush feathered edges, generous unpainted paper — over glossy renders.

### Hero Image Direction

One full-bleed transparent watercolour plate with a reserved quiet washed region (open sky, pale ground) for the dark-ink display type; estuaries, coasts, specimens, portraits, still lifes.

### Icon Style

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

### Image Gen Prompts

- Loose transparent watercolour naturalist field study, an estuary at first light, wide pale washed-open sky reserved for the masthead, prussian and payne's grey on cool cotton paper, wet-on-wet washes settling into a granulating tideline
- Transparent watercolour specimen plate, a heron in the reeds, generous unpainted cotton paper, backruns and granulation, one faint warm madder accent

### Pairs With

backrun

---
version: "alpha"
name: "Estuary"
description: "Agent-curated design language exported from Katagami as DESIGN.md."
colors:
  bg: "#F1EEE4"
  surface: "#FAF8F1"
  surface_solid: "#FEFCF6"
  text: "#20303B"
  muted: "#667079"
  border: "#CFD3CC"
  accent: "#274A63"
  accent_2: "#B0563C"
  accent_soft: "#CBD7DD"
  on_accent: "#F4F1E8"
  success: "#4F6E48"
  warning: "#B0703A"
  error: "#9E4A44"
  info: "#3F6373"
typography:
  headline-lg:
    fontFamily: "Spectral"
    fontSize: "2.228rem"
    fontWeight: 700
    lineHeight: 1.1
    letterSpacing: "-0.02em"
  headline-md:
    fontFamily: "Spectral"
    fontSize: "1.741rem"
    fontWeight: 600
    lineHeight: 1.15
    letterSpacing: "-0.02em"
  body-md:
    fontFamily: "Spectral"
    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: "#ffffff"
    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"
---

# Estuary

## Overview

A quiet editorial field-study language where a single transparent watercolour plate leads the page, supported by one restrained literary voice, cool cotton-paper surfaces, hand-rendered atmosphere, and generous unpainted negative space. Pigment behaviour — a wash blooming into damp paper and settling at its drying edge into a hard, granulating tideline — is used as the structural material of the interface rather than 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 the settling wash edge 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 plate
- stock-photo realism or hard-edged tech futurism

### Visual Character

- A single transparent watercolour plate leads each page; the masthead and headlines are dark prussian-slate ink set over the plate's quiet washed regions.
- Structure is carried by the tideline — a granulating prussian wash edge — as section dividers, the selected-tab underline, the progress fill, and link hover, so the whole interface is organised by one recurring wash edge instead of borders.
- Content sits on cool cotton-paper specimen plates with fibre grain, a single hairline perimeter, a mono catalog number, and granulation speckle.
- Type is one literary Spectral voice — fine at 17px for body, large only for earned display moments — with IBM Plex Mono field furniture (catalog numbers, coordinates, folios).
- Layouts use wide gutters, staggered pull quotes with an oversized translucent watercolour quote glyph, and floated specimen vignettes so negative space becomes page rhythm.

### Lineage

> A reimagining of Watercolor-Led Magazine Storytelling: the watercolour-editorial soul kept, the expression reconceived as a cool naturalist field study built on the tideline.

## 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 | `#F1EEE4` |
| surface | `#FAF8F1` |
| surface_solid | `#FEFCF6` |
| text | `#20303B` |
| muted | `#667079` |
| border | `#CFD3CC` |
| accent | `#274A63` |
| accent_2 | `#B0563C` |
| accent_soft | `#CBD7DD` |
| on_accent | `#F4F1E8` |
| success | `#4F6E48` |
| warning | `#B0703A` |
| error | `#9E4A44` |
| info | `#3F6373` |

## Typography

- **Headline-Lg**: Spectral, 2.228rem, weight 700, line-height 1.1.
- **Headline-Md**: Spectral, 1.741rem, weight 600, line-height 1.15.
- **Body-Md**: Spectral, 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 field-journal grid on desktop, six-column tablet, single-column mobile with the plate preceding copy.

### Breakpoints

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

### Whitespace

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

## Elevation & Depth

### Shadows

- **Sm**: 0 6px 20px rgba(30,40,48,.07)
- **Md**: 0 18px 44px rgba(30,40,48,.11)
- **Lg**: 0 30px 90px rgba(30,40,48,.16)

## Shapes

### Rounded

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

### Surfaces

- **Treatment**: cool cotton-paper ground with fibre grain, transparent wash overlays, and pigment granulation
- **Card Style**: square specimen plate on soft paper shadow, single hairline perimeter, mono catalog number, granulation grain
- **Bg Pattern**: layered radial washes (prussian / payne / faint madder) at low alpha with multiply, faint fibre grain, scattered granulation speckle, each wash resolving into a tideline

### Borders

- **Default Width**: 1px
- **Accent Width**: 2px
- **Style**: single hairline paper-edge rule, full perimeter, occasionally broken like a drybrush mark
- **Character**: cool low-contrast paper rule; structure is carried by the tideline dividers, never a coloured accent edge on any side

## Components

### Composition

Lead with a single transparent watercolour plate; organise text in field-journal columns with wide outside gutters and offset secondary modules; keep to one dense cluster per viewport.

### Hierarchy

Headlines are large Spectral; metadata is IBM Plex Mono small-caps; body is a fine Spectral (400) at 17px that stays calm while the plate carries the emotion.

### Density

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

### Radius Stance

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

### Signature Patterns

- The tideline — a granulating prussian wash edge that resolves washes into structure: dividers, the selected-tab underline, the progress fill, and the hover gesture on links and buttons.
- Specimen plates — square cards on soft paper shadow with a single hairline, a mono catalog number, and granulation grain.
- Editorial pull quotes floated with an oversized translucent watercolour quotation glyph.
- Pigment-dot markers — the only round shape — marking nav, status, and lists.
- Commissioned specimen frames with layered paper texture and granulation.
- A live wet-on-wet diffusion field (WebGL) that warms into the climax and deposits pigment under the pointer as a wet brush.

## 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-019fe2a3-2cd9-7d93-8a8c-41db5d9f2f68/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 transparent watercolour plate lead; keep the type quiet.
- Do Use the tideline — the granulating wash edge — as your dividers, affordances, and meters.
- Do Keep paper grain, hairline plates, and granulation present across components.
- Do Use wide gutters and active negative space for field-journal 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 heavy display type competing with the plate.
- Don't No pastel blobs without paper texture or a settling edge; never muddy.

## Imagery Direction

### Illustration Style

Transparent watercolour in the Backrun technique — wet-on-wet washes settling into a granulating tideline, backruns and cauliflower blooms, granulation in the cold-press tooth, drybrush feathered edges, generous unpainted paper — over glossy renders.

### Hero Image Direction

One full-bleed transparent watercolour plate with a reserved quiet washed region (open sky, pale ground) for the dark-ink display type; estuaries, coasts, specimens, portraits, still lifes.

### Icon Style

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

### Image Gen Prompts

- Loose transparent watercolour naturalist field study, an estuary at first light, wide pale washed-open sky reserved for the masthead, prussian and payne's grey on cool cotton paper, wet-on-wet washes settling into a granulating tideline
- Transparent watercolour specimen plate, a heron in the reeds, generous unpainted cotton paper, backruns and granulation, one faint warm madder accent

### Pairs With

backrun

```json
{
  "$schema": "https://ui.shadcn.com/schema/registry-item.json",
  "name": "estuary",
  "type": "registry:theme",
  "title": "Estuary shadcn Theme",
  "cssVars": {
    "theme": {},
    "light": {
      "background": "#F1EEE4",
      "foreground": "#20303B",
      "card": "#FAF8F1",
      "card-foreground": "#20303B",
      "popover": "#FAF8F1",
      "popover-foreground": "#20303B",
      "primary": "#20303B",
      "primary-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "secondary": "#f4f4f5",
      "secondary-foreground": "#111111",
      "muted": "#667079",
      "muted-foreground": "#20303B",
      "accent": "#274A63",
      "accent-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "destructive": "#9E4A44",
      "border": "#CFD3CC",
      "input": "#CFD3CC",
      "ring": "#274A63",
      "chart-1": "#20303B",
      "chart-2": "#f4f4f5",
      "chart-3": "#274A63",
      "chart-4": "#4F6E48",
      "chart-5": "#B0703A",
      "sidebar": "#FAF8F1",
      "sidebar-foreground": "#20303B",
      "sidebar-primary": "#20303B",
      "sidebar-primary-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "sidebar-accent": "#3F6373",
      "sidebar-accent-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "sidebar-border": "#CFD3CC",
      "sidebar-ring": "#274A63",
      "radius": "16px"
    },
    "dark": {
      "background": "#0f1115",
      "foreground": "#f8fafc",
      "card": "#181b22",
      "card-foreground": "#f8fafc",
      "popover": "#181b22",
      "popover-foreground": "#f8fafc",
      "primary": "#20303B",
      "primary-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "secondary": "#252a33",
      "secondary-foreground": "#f8fafc",
      "muted": "#252a33",
      "muted-foreground": "#a1a1aa",
      "accent": "#274A63",
      "accent-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "destructive": "#9E4A44",
      "border": "#303642",
      "input": "#303642",
      "ring": "#274A63",
      "chart-1": "#20303B",
      "chart-2": "#f4f4f5",
      "chart-3": "#274A63",
      "chart-4": "#4F6E48",
      "chart-5": "#B0703A",
      "sidebar": "#181b22",
      "sidebar-foreground": "#f8fafc",
      "sidebar-primary": "#20303B",
      "sidebar-primary-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "sidebar-accent": "#274A63",
      "sidebar-accent-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "sidebar-border": "#303642",
      "sidebar-ring": "#274A63",
      "radius": "16px"
    }
  },
  "meta": {
    "source": "katagami",
    "languageId": "en-019fe2a3-2cd9-7d93-8a8c-41db5d9f2f68",
    "slug": "estuary",
    "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"
      ]
    }
  }
}
```