Color Palette
Six values on a greyscale continuum, plus one precise accent. The restraint of the palette is the point. As Agnes Martin understood, the subtlest distinctions carry the greatest weight.
Typography
One typeface. Inter. Hierarchy is established through weight and size alone. Minimalism rejects the notion that variety produces clarity. A unified type system produces calm.
Spacing
A mathematical progression of eight values. Like Donald Judd's serial sculptures, the intervals between elements are as important as the elements themselves. Space is not absence; it is material.
Forms
Inputs stripped to a single bottom border. The form is a conversation reduced to its structural minimum. Labels above, input below, nothing between.
Cards
White on white. The container barely announces itself. A hairline border is the only concession to delineation. The content is the card; the card is almost nothing.
Untitled (Stack)
Donald Judd's aluminum boxes at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas. One hundred works in mill aluminum, each unique, all the same dimensions.
View workFriendship
Agnes Martin's pale grids and washes. Pencil lines on gesso, so faint you must stand close. The painting rewards patience and silence.
View workWall Drawing #118
Sol LeWitt's instruction-based art. The idea becomes the machine that makes the art. Fifty lines drawn at random by the installer.
View workOn the Phenomenology of Reduction
Every removal is a decision. What remains after subtraction is not less but more concentrated, more intentional. The residue of thought.
White Paintings After Rauschenberg
Rauschenberg's White Paintings (1951) are not blank. They are hypersensitive screens, registering shadow, dust, the viewer's own reflection.
Fluorescent Light as Medium
Dan Flavin's diagonal of personal ecstasy. Commercial light fixtures become icons. The ordinary is the extraordinary, unmodified.
Accent Border
A single blue line on the left edge. This is the maximum permitted color accent for a card component.
Dark Surface
Black ground, white text. Used once per page at most. The inversion creates gravity and focal weight.
ExploreAlerts
Text with a thin left border. No background color, no icons, no drama. The message communicates; the style stays silent.
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Design Principles
The philosophy that governs every decision in this system. Each principle is drawn from the minimalist tradition in art and architecture.
Subtract Until It Breaks
Remove every element, every color, every rule that is not structurally necessary. The design is finished not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. If removing something causes no loss of function or meaning, it should not have been there.
"A shape, a volume, a color, a surface is something itself. It shouldn't be concealed as part of a fairly different whole."
Donald Judd, "Specific Objects," 1965Space Is Material
White space is not the absence of design. It is an active structural element. The intervals between objects carry as much information as the objects themselves. Generous margins, deliberate emptiness, room to breathe. Judd's stacks at Marfa prove that the gap between boxes is as essential as the aluminum.
"The idea becomes a machine that makes the art."
Sol LeWitt, "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art," 1967One Decision, Applied Consistently
One typeface. One accent color. One border width. Minimalism is not poverty of choice but discipline of application. Sol LeWitt wrote instructions; the art was in the system, not the individual mark. This design system follows the same logic: define the rule, then follow it everywhere.
Quiet Over Loud
No gradients. No shadows. No textures. No decoration. Agnes Martin's paintings appear nearly blank from across the room. Only when you stand close do the pencil lines and pale washes reveal themselves. This system rewards attention. The interface does not shout; the user leans in.
"My paintings are not about what is seen. They are about what is known forever in the mind."
Agnes MartinThe Ordinary, Unmodified
Dan Flavin made art from commercial fluorescent tubes. He did not sculpt them, paint them, or alter them. He placed them. The power came from context, not craft. In this system, a button is text. An input is a line. A card is a border. Use the ordinary. Do not embellish it.
"It is what it is, and it ain't nothing else."
Dan FlavinEvery Element Must Justify Its Existence
Before adding any element to the interface, ask: what happens if this is removed? If the answer is nothing, remove it. A divider that separates already-separated content. A label that restates what is obvious. An icon that duplicates adjacent text. These are noise. Eliminate them.