# Ribbon × Windows 95 Interface — composed image prompt
# IndexStyle — https://indexstyle.org/compose?ids=ribbon-ui+windows-95-interface
# Ribbon 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 Ribbon (layout, 2007–) and their accent from Windows 95 Interface (style, 1995–2001).

## What to make

Make the kind of thing Ribbon exists for: consolidating menus and toolbars into a single surface for a business application with dozens of commands, or designing a surface where users pick by seeing the result first, through galleries and live preview. Choose one subject and hold it across all four.

## Structure comes from Ribbon

- A tabbed band sits permanently at the top of the window, fixed at 48 pixels high
- The band is cut into labelled groups, with each group name running along its lower edge
- Command icons come in two sizes, 32 by 32 and 16 by 16, and the frequent ones take the large size and lead the group
- Coloured contextual tabs appear when an object type is selected, and their tab set labels end in Tools

Composition: Fix the band to the top and keep core tabs to seven or fewer. Make the first tab Home and gather the frequent commands there, then cut the band into labelled groups. Type and lettering: Label every command. Icons stand alone only where the commands are ones everybody already knows.

## 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 #F5F4F2, carry the structure in #D6E4F5 and #2E5C99, 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: trust, technique, nostalgia.

## Where they fight

- Ribbon and Windows 95 Interface both belong to Microsoft UI, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable.

## What goes wrong

- Ribbon: Merely refactoring existing menus and toolbars into the band costs the extra space without gaining the results oriented commands that justify it.
- 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/ribbon-ui/design.md · https://indexstyle.org/styles/windows-95-interface/design.md