Compose styles
Rather than blending styles toward a middle, this gives them roles. The first one carries the structure, the next comes in as the accent, and anything after that shows up in a single detail. Where they fight each other, it says so before you start.
How to divide the work
- Composition
- Follow Breeze: Divide regions with space and thin rules rather than stacked frames or shadows. Keep the arrangement plain so visual clutter drops
- Type
- Set in Breeze's manner (Let type carry the hierarchy. Open a wide gap in size and weight between heading and body, and never separate them with ornament), and let KDE Oxygen's lettering (Keep sans labels small and clear, letting distinct icon silhouettes lead recognition) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Breeze's material (Build on flat fields with no shading or gloss and hold the palette near monochrome. Push contrast hard, then derive light and dark from the same assets); bring in exactly one thing from KDE Oxygen (Build from pale gray and blue, applying one-pixel edges, a common light source and a soft lower shadow to every icon).
- Colour
- Build on #3DAEE9, #EFF0F1, #232629 and admit one accent from #EEF3F5, #3DAEE9, #273238.
Where they fight
- Breeze and KDE Oxygen both belong to Platform Screen Languages, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable.
Caution
- Breeze Softening the contrast breaks the premise, because a flat surface has nothing but contrast left to separate one element from the next.
- KDE Oxygen Glossy blue icons alone do not make Oxygen. Synchronize lighting, edge treatment and shadow height across the entire set.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from Breeze (style, 2014–) and their accent from KDE Oxygen (style, 2006–2014). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Breeze exists for: making a Linux desktop application sit naturally inside the default workspace appearance, or setting the look of an admin interface that has to ship light and dark as a matched pair from day one. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Breeze - Flat surfaces with no modelled shading, where edges are carried by contrast alone - Icons and graphic assets reduced toward monochrome, with a tight colour count - Type contrast doing the work ornament would otherwise do, so layout reads through text - The same assets existing as a matched light and dark pair Composition: Divide regions with space and thin rules rather than stacked frames or shadows. Keep the arrangement plain so visual clutter drops. Type and lettering: Let type carry the hierarchy. Open a wide gap in size and weight between heading and body, and never separate them with ornament. ## Accent comes from KDE Oxygen, used sparingly - Pale-gray chrome with blue selection and restrained gloss - Dimensional icons with one-pixel edges and a lower shelf shadow - One upper-diagonal light source across materials - Toolbars and docks grouped by fine separators Let one material quality come from it: Build from pale gray and blue, applying one-pixel edges, a common light source and a soft lower shadow to every icon. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #EFF0F1, carry the structure in #3DAEE9 and #232629, and let a single accent come from #3DAEE9. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: technique, calm, trust, intimacy, futurity. ## Where they fight - Breeze and KDE Oxygen both belong to Platform Screen Languages, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable. ## What goes wrong - Breeze: Softening the contrast breaks the premise, because a flat surface has nothing but contrast left to separate one element from the next. - KDE Oxygen: Glossy blue icons alone do not make Oxygen. Synchronize lighting, edge treatment and shadow height across the entire set. ## 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.
Related entries
- Breeze 2014– / Style / Platform Screen Languages
The default visual style KDE introduced with Plasma 5, described in its own announcement as a high contrast, flat theme for the workspace. Graphics assets are simpler and more monochromatic, and layouts lean on typography rather than ornament so elements stay recognisable. Light and dark variants shipped as a matched pair from the beginning.
- KDE Oxygen 2006–2014 / Style / Platform Screen Languages
Oxygen unified KDE 4 applications, workspace and icons through clear blue, soft gray, fine outlines and icons that seem to rest on a shared shelf, bringing lightness to an information-dense desktop.
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