"In Tlilli in Tlapalli" — The Black Ink, The Red Ink: Wisdom and Knowledge
Section I
Color Palette
The sacred pigments of Mesoamerica — drawn from obsidian, jade, turquoise, maize, blood, terracotta, limestone, and cacao. Each hue carries spiritual weight, mirroring the materials revered by the Mexica and the Maya.
Obsidian
#1a1a1a
Itztli — volcanic glass
Jade
#2a8a4a
Chalchihuitl — precious green stone
Turquoise
#30a0a0
Xihuitl — precious blue-green
Maize Gold
#d4a020
Cintli — sacred corn
Sacrificial Red
#aa2020
Tlapalli — red ink, life-force
Terracotta
#c07040
Zoquitl — clay pottery
Limestone
#e8dcc0
Tetl — carved stone
Cacao
#3a2010
Cacahuatl — divine drink
Section II
Typography
As the scribes of Palenque carved their glyphs into limestone stelae, so our typefaces carry the weight of monumental inscription. Three voices speak: the display for temple names, the heading for carved proclamations, the body for the unfolding codex.
Display — Vast Shadow
Kukulkan
Vast Shadow · 3rem · Dramatic, carved stone presence
Heading — Cinzel
The Temple of Inscriptions
Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan
El Castillo — The Observatory of Chichen Itza
Cinzel · 400-900 weight · Roman capitals, inscriptional authority
Body — Alegreya
The Popol Vuh tells of the Hero Twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, who descended into Xibalba, the underworld realm of the Lords of Death. Through cunning and sacrifice, they overcame each trial — the House of Darkness, the House of Cold, the House of Jaguars, and the House of Bats — until at last they rose again as the Sun and the Moon, establishing the cosmic order that governs all cycles of time.
Alegreya · 1.125rem / 1.7 · Readable serif with character
3.5remTonatiuh
2.5remThe Fifth Sun
2remLong Count Calendar
1.5remBaktun XIII — The Great Cycle
1.125remThe sacred Ceiba tree connects the thirteen heavens to the nine levels of Xibalba.
Like the precise astronomical alignments of Teotihuacan's Avenue of the Dead, our spacing scale follows a base-8 progression — disciplined, proportional, and rooted in cosmic geometry.
--space-xs
--space-sm
--space-md
--space-lg
--space-xl
--space-2xl
--space-3xl
Section IV
Buttons
Forged like obsidian macuahuitl blades and adorned like jaguar warrior shields. Each button carries the authority of a tlatoani's command. The clipped corners echo the stepped pyramids of Uxmal.
Primary Actions
Variants
Sizes
Section V
Forms
The ah tz'ib (scribes) recorded the will of kings on bark-paper codices. These form elements channel that tradition — inputs carved from cacao-dark surfaces, framed by jade focus states, and adorned with the diamond-shaped glyphs of the Long Count.
Enter the name as it appears on the dedicatory stela.
Section VI
Cards
Content containers shaped like the great stepped pyramids — rising from the sacred plazas, each level revealing deeper knowledge. As the architects of Tikal and Teotihuacan stacked their temples toward the heavens, so our cards layer information with ascending purpose.
Jade Mask of K'inich Janaab Pakal
Discovered in the sarcophagus beneath the Temple of Inscriptions at Palenque, the jade funerary mask of Pakal the Great remains one of the most iconic artifacts of Maya civilization. Each piece of jade was individually carved and fitted to honor the divine king's passage into Xibalba.
The Long Count Calendar
The Maya Long Count calendar tracks time from a mythological starting point of 11 August 3114 BC. Organized into cycles of k'in (days), winal (20 days), tun (360 days), k'atun (7,200 days), and b'ak'tun (144,000 days), it enabled astronomers to calculate dates millions of years into the past and future.
The Ballgame — Pok-ta-Pok
More than sport, the Mesoamerican ballgame was cosmic ritual. Played in I-shaped courts throughout the Maya and Aztec worlds, it reenacted the mythic struggle of the Hero Twins against the Lords of Xibalba. The rubber ball symbolized the movement of celestial bodies across the sky.
Pyramid-Stepped Variant
El Castillo, Chichen Itza
The 91 steps on each of its four faces, plus the temple platform, total 365 — one for each day of the Haab' solar calendar. During the spring equinox, shadow and light create the illusion of a serpent descending the northern staircase.
Pyramid of the Sun
Rising 65 meters above the Avenue of the Dead at Teotihuacan, this monument was built over a sacred cave — believed to be the place where time itself began. Its base measures 225 meters per side, rivaling the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Section VII
Alerts & Badges
Omens from the priests, prophecies from the calendar keepers, warnings from the jaguar warriors. Four levels of urgency mirror the four cardinal directions and the four previous Suns that preceded our own.
Jade Omen — Favorable
The day-sign reads Imix (Crocodile): a day of new beginnings. The augurs confirm that construction may proceed. The foundation stone has been blessed with copal smoke.
Gold Prophecy — Knowledge
The Venus cycle reaches inferior conjunction. Astronomers at Uxmal have recorded this transit for the Dresden Codex. All scribes must update their calculations.
Turquoise Notice — Informational
The Haab' new year ceremony begins at the next sunrise. All citizens must prepare offerings of maize and cacao for the wayeb' rituals marking the five unnamed days.
Blood Warning — Critical
The day-sign reads Kimi (Death). The Lords of Xibalba stir. No journeys should be undertaken. The obsidian mirrors show shadows moving in the darkness beneath the earth.
The Mesoamerican worldview organized all of reality into interlocking patterns of sacred meaning. These four principles — drawn from the cosmology of the Maya and Mexica — guide every design decision in this system.
Cosmic Order
Cemanahuac — "The Whole World"
Every element occupies its rightful place within the four-directional cosmos. Layout, hierarchy, and alignment reflect the structure of the universe — as above, so below; as in the heavens, so in the design.
Sacred Geometry
Nepohualtzintzin — mathematical harmony
The Maya understood zero and positional notation centuries before Europe. Proportions, spacing, and grids in this system follow vigesimal (base-20) harmony — mathematical relationships that echo the precision of their astronomical calculations.
Duality
Ometeotl — "Two-God," the dual creator
Life and death, light and shadow, jade and obsidian. Mesoamerican thought held that all forces exist in complementary pairs. Our design embraces contrast — dark backgrounds with luminous accents, weight against lightness, the monumental against the intimate.
Cycles of Time
Nahui Ollin — "Four Movement," the current Sun
Time is not linear but cyclical. The Tzolk'in (260 days), the Haab' (365 days), and the Calendar Round (52 years) interlock like cosmic gears. Our design uses rhythm, repetition, and pattern to honor this understanding: what was shall be again.