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 Luna: A horizontal bar along the bottom, one primary control at its left
- Type
- Set in Luna's manner (Bold sans in white, contrasted hard against the blue ground), and let Windows 95 Interface's lettering (Set a bitmap sans at its native size with antialiasing off. Use one size, reserve bold for emphasis, and underline the single shortcut letter) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Luna's material (Saturated blue and green, frames swelled by rounding and gradient); bring in exactly one thing from Windows 95 Interface (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
- Build on #ece9d8, #3a6ea5, #000080 and admit one accent from #C0C0C0, #000080, #008080.
Where they fight
- Luna and Windows 95 Interface both belong to Microsoft UI, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable.
Caution
- Luna Copying only the palette while dropping the rounding and swell leaves the colors floating, and none of the optimism arrives.
- 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.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from Luna (style, 2001–2006) and their accent from Windows 95 Interface (style, 1995–2001). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Luna exists for: using early 2000s PC culture as a device for nostalgia, or assembling a bright, friendly home facing screen through saturation. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Luna - The blue taskbar - The green Start button - Rounded frames - Meadow-and-sky optimism Composition: A horizontal bar along the bottom, one primary control at its left. Type and lettering: Bold sans in white, contrasted hard against the blue ground. ## 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 #ece9d8, carry the structure in #3a6ea5 and #000080, 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: intimacy, play, trust, technique, nostalgia. ## Where they fight - Luna 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 - Luna: Copying only the palette while dropping the rounding and swell leaves the colors floating, and none of the optimism arrives. - 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.
Related entries
- Luna 2001–2006 / Style / Microsoft UI
Windows XP's look: blue taskbar, green Start button, rounded windows and a meadow wallpaper repainting the gray office machine as household optimism.
- Windows 95 Interface 1995–2001 / Style / Microsoft UI
The screen language Microsoft set down in its 1995 handbook for software design. Gray panels are carved with a doubled outer and inner edge, so the direction of the shadow alone says what can be pressed. A bar sits permanently along the bottom, and every application is assembled from the same system parts.
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