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 Motif: Windows are cut into beveled rectangles and controls are packed a few pixels apart; there is almost no breathing room, the screen is filled with operable parts
- Type
- Set in Motif's manner (A small sans at one fixed size, labels held to a single line, no letterspacing and no ornament inside the text), and let Terminal UI's lettering (One monospaced face where emphasis comes from weight and inversion alone) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Motif's material (Pick one face color, derive a light edge and a dark edge from it, and paint them on opposite sides; swap the two while pressed, and never round a corner); bring in exactly one thing from Terminal UI (One phosphor hue on black with scanlines and bloom added sparingly).
- Colour
- Build on #D3D3D3, #B4B4B4, #5F9EA0 and admit one accent from #b2b2b2, #00a800, #010301.
Where they fight
These are already listed as related entries, so the join should come easily.
Caution
- Motif Replacing the two hard edge colors with a soft drop shadow kills the flip that signals a press, leaving decoration that merely looks raised.
- Terminal UI Heavy scanlines and flicker cost legibility and the atmosphere ends up beating the speed that made the tool worth using.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from Motif (style, 1989–) and their accent from Terminal UI (style, 1970s–). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Motif exists for: rebuilding a UNIX workstation era application for an exhibit or a technical write up, or building instrument or CAD controls where pressable and unpressable must read as relief rather than color. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Motif - A gray face lit along its top and left edges and darkened along its bottom and right, so every part appears raised - While a control is held down the two edge colors swap and the part sinks - A thin rectangular ring is drawn around whichever control currently takes keyboard input - Scroll bars are square cornered rectangles with a triangular arrow button at each end Composition: Windows are cut into beveled rectangles and controls are packed a few pixels apart; there is almost no breathing room, the screen is filled with operable parts. Type and lettering: A small sans at one fixed size, labels held to a single line, no letterspacing and no ornament inside the text. ## Accent comes from Terminal UI, used sparingly - Single phosphor color on black - The monospace grid - A blinking cursor - Scanlines and glow Let one material quality come from it: One phosphor hue on black with scanlines and bloom added sparingly. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #D3D3D3, carry the structure in #B4B4B4 and #5F9EA0, and let a single accent come from #00a800. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: technique, trust, rebellion, calm. ## What goes wrong - Motif: Replacing the two hard edge colors with a soft drop shadow kills the flip that signals a press, leaving decoration that merely looks raised. - Terminal UI: Heavy scanlines and flicker cost legibility and the atmosphere ends up beating the speed that made the tool worth using. ## 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
- Motif 1989– / Style / Platform Screen Languages
Motif is the interface language of UNIX workstations, maintained by The Open Group, standardized as IEEE 1295 and shipped on more than two hundred platforms. Its own data sheet calls the look a distinctive 3D beveled appearance, meaning every part sits on a gray face edged with one light line and one dark line.
- Terminal UI 1970s– / Style / UI Expression
The terminal look: monospaced phosphor characters on black. The VT100's green afterglow became the primal image of the computer's face, repeated from hacker cinema to modern CLI tools.
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