# OS/2 Workplace Shell × Windows 95 Interface — composed image prompt
# IndexStyle — https://indexstyle.org/compose?ids=os-2-workplace-shell+windows-95-interface
# OS/2 Workplace Shell carries the structure and Windows 95 Interface appears as the accent.
# Style descriptors only. This prompt names no artist, studio, brand or work.

Produce four original images that take their structure from OS/2 Workplace Shell (style, 1992–2001) and their accent from Windows 95 Interface (style, 1995–2001).

## What to make

Make the kind of thing OS/2 Workplace Shell exists for: handling files, devices and settings as one environment of related objects rather than separate applications, or reconstructing a 1990s work desktop from its object model instead of window decoration. Choose one subject and hold it across all four.

## Structure comes from OS/2 Workplace Shell

- Pale gray surfaces with double light and dark dimensional edges
- Low-color object icons drawn from an oblique view
- Notebook settings with stacked edge tabs
- Direct dragging among folders, shredder and drives

Composition: Use the desktop as a base, overlap folder windows, and gather settings into a multi-tab Notebook. Type and lettering: Use a small system sans and keep object names to one line directly below their icons.

## Accent comes from Windows 95 Interface, used sparingly

- Gray panels framed by a doubled edge, one light line and one dark line, outside and inside
- A bar pinned to the bottom of the screen with a single square button at its left end
- A flat navy title bar with three small squares grouped at its right end
- Small bitmap text with no antialiasing, one letter underlined to mark the keyboard shortcut

Let one material quality come from it: Carve everything from four values: the gray face, a white highlight, a mid gray shadow, a black outline. Build relief from an outer and an inner line, and swap light for dark on press.

## Colour and feeling

Build the ground on #C9C7BD, carry the structure in #557A9E and #202226, and let a single accent come from #008080. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette.
Feeling to carry: technique, trust, nostalgia.

## What goes wrong

- OS/2 Workplace Shell: Old icons and 3D buttons are not enough. Every part must behave as a directly operable, related object.
- Windows 95 Interface: Copy the gray and the doubled line but add rounded corners or soft shadows, and the direction of the carving stops reading, taking the hardness that defined the original with it.

## Across the four

Keep the roles fixed in all four. Vary the framing, the scale and the arrangement so the set shows what this pairing can do rather than four versions of one picture.

## Constraints

- Do not imitate, reference or name any specific artist, studio, brand, character or copyrighted work.
- Do not reproduce the composition of an existing work.
- Produce original compositions in the general period languages described above.

Design specs for each entry: https://indexstyle.org/styles/os-2-workplace-shell/design.md · https://indexstyle.org/styles/windows-95-interface/design.md