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 FUI (Fantasy User Interface): Decide the one thing to be read first and aim the light and the motion at it. Fill the rest with density that carries no meaning
- Type
- Set in FUI (Fantasy User Interface)'s manner (Lead with monospace and let most of the text act as texture. Only the word that must be read changes size and brightness), and let Metalheart's lettering (Extrude the letters, bevel them deep, and bake in mirror reflections) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in FUI (Fantasy User Interface)'s material (One or two luminous colours on black, thin strokes, almost no fill. Pull the brightness down so the screen sits inside the photographed shot); bring in exactly one thing from Metalheart (Chrome, liquid metal, lens flare, reflections carrying surrounding color).
- Colour
- Build on #000000, #4FE3FF, #FF6A00 and admit one accent from #e2e9ef, #7f96a8, #0d1117.
Where they fight
- FUI (Fantasy User Interface) and Metalheart both belong to UI Expression, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable.
Caution
- FUI (Fantasy User Interface) Trying to make the screen genuinely operable thins out the density and scatters the information, and it stops being readable in the length of the performance.
- Metalheart Polishing it clean in current software removes the rawness that came from the crude renderers of the time, and it becomes something else.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from FUI (Fantasy User Interface) (style, 1997–) and their accent from Metalheart (style, 1995–2004). ## What to make Make the kind of thing FUI (Fantasy User Interface) exists for: designing a screen that has to be read in the few seconds an actor is looking at it, or designing the display of a device that does not exist, as a picture that never has to work. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from FUI (Fantasy User Interface) - One thing per screen that the audience is meant to read, with everything else present as density - Columns of monospaced figures updating continuously while computing nothing - Thin luminous lines on black, with shapes drawn as outlines and almost no fill - Frames and controls that look like plausible equipment rather than pure abstraction Composition: Decide the one thing to be read first and aim the light and the motion at it. Fill the rest with density that carries no meaning. Type and lettering: Lead with monospace and let most of the text act as texture. Only the word that must be read changes size and brightness. ## Accent comes from Metalheart, used sparingly - Liquid-metal chrome - Aggressive bevels - Lens flares - Techno and sci-fi typography Let one material quality come from it: Chrome, liquid metal, lens flare, reflections carrying surrounding color. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #4FE3FF, carry the structure in #FF6A00 and #000000, and let a single accent come from #7f96a8. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: futurity, technique, exhilaration, rebellion. ## Where they fight - FUI (Fantasy User Interface) and Metalheart both belong to UI Expression, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable. ## What goes wrong - FUI (Fantasy User Interface): Trying to make the screen genuinely operable thins out the density and scatters the information, and it stops being readable in the length of the performance. - Metalheart: Polishing it clean in current software removes the rawness that came from the crude renderers of the time, and it becomes something else. ## 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
- FUI (Fantasy User Interface) 1997– / Style / UI Expression
The name that stuck to the craft of making the screens that appear inside films. It spread around the work of Mark Coleran, who says he is given credit for the term without being sure he can take it, and who describes these screens as illustration and a storytelling device that was never designed to be used. He works with light, shape, form, movement and sound so that each film screen has one thing the audience is meant to read.
- Metalheart 1995–2004 / Style / UI Expression
Early 3D software gave this fin-de-millénaire style its chrome, liquid metal, aggressive bevels and lens flare. Dressed in techno and science-fiction imagery, it ruled rave flyers and games magazines around Y2K.
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