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 Oberon System Interface: Cut the display into vertical tracks and divide each track horizontally. Never overlap. Keep a narrow right hand track for the log and the command text and leave the left wide. Give every viewer a one line title bar
- Type
- Set in Oberon System Interface's manner (Set commands in the same face and size as body text. Name them M.P and spell them out as words, Copy and Rename rather than cp and rn), 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 Oberon System Interface's material (One bit, black on white. Single pixel rules, no shadow, no rounded corners, no greys and no colour. Mark the insertion point with a hook); bring in exactly one thing from Terminal UI (One phosphor hue on black with scanlines and bloom added sparingly).
- Colour
- Build on #FFFFFF, #000000, #808080 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
- Oberon System Interface Copying the tiling without the rule that any text on screen is executable forces the menu bar and the buttons back in, and all that is left is a cramped layout.
- 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 Oberon System Interface (layout, 1988–) and their accent from Terminal UI (style, 1970s–). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Oberon System Interface exists for: designing a workspace that gives up overlapping windows, where placement is decided by only two moves: which track, and where in that track, or giving a product a command list the user can rewrite, held as an ordinary editable text instead of a dedicated menu component. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Oberon System Interface - Nothing overlaps: the display is cut into vertical tracks first, then tiled top to bottom inside each track - A narrow track on the right holds a log above and a text of commands below, with the wide working track on the left - A one line title bar across the top of every viewer, carrying the document name and commands such as System.Close as plain text - One bit per pixel, black on white, with borders drawn as single lines and no shadow, rounding or grey Composition: Cut the display into vertical tracks and divide each track horizontally. Never overlap. Keep a narrow right hand track for the log and the command text and leave the left wide. Give every viewer a one line title bar. Type and lettering: Set commands in the same face and size as body text. Name them M.P and spell them out as words, Copy and Rename rather than cp and rn. ## 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 #FFFFFF, carry the structure in #808080 and #000000, 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, calm, rebellion. ## What goes wrong - Oberon System Interface: Copying the tiling without the rule that any text on screen is executable forces the menu bar and the buttons back in, and all that is left is a cramped layout. - 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
- Oberon System Interface 1988– / Layout / Platform Screen Languages
The screen of the system Niklaus Wirth and Jürg Gutknecht built at ETH between 1986 and 1989. Windows never overlap: the display is split into vertical tracks and each track is tiled top to bottom. Any text anywhere on the screen can be run as a command if it reads M.P and you click it with the middle button, so the system needs no menu widget at all.
- 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.
Share this composition:https://indexstyle.org/compose?ids=oberon-system-ui+terminal-ui