# Motif (モチーフ)

> 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.

- IndexStyle No.515 — https://indexstyle.org/styles/motif
- Kind: Style · Family: Platform Screen Languages · Era: 1989–
- Mood: Technology, Trust
- Color cues: #D3D3D3 / #B4B4B4 / #5F9EA0 (cues taken from reference works, not a fixed palette)

## Defining characteristics

- 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

## Best used for

- Rebuilding a UNIX workstation era application for an exhibit or a technical write up
- Building instrument or CAD controls where pressable and unpressable must read as relief rather than color

## Composition recipe

- Typography & lettering: A small sans at one fixed size, labels held to a single line, no letterspacing and no ornament inside the text.
- Layout & structure: 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.
- Material & texture: 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.

## What to avoid

Replacing the two hard edge colors with a soft drop shadow kills the flip that signals a press, leaving decoration that merely looks raised.

## Application checklist

Before calling a piece an application of this style, check it against the defining characteristics:

- [ ] 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
- [ ] At least one reference work below has been studied directly
- [ ] The caution above ("What to avoid") has been addressed

## Related styles

- **Luna (ルナ)** — Windows XP's look: blue taskbar, green Start button, rounded windows and a meadow wallpaper repainting the gray office machine as household optimism. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/luna
- **Terminal UI (ターミナルUI)** — 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. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/terminal-ui

## Further study

- The Open GroupのMotifデータシート（3Dの面取り外観という自称の出どころ）
- CDEの画面写真とMotifの部品を突き合わせ、どこが共通でどこが違うか見る
- 面の色から明るい縁と暗い縁を自動で作る計算式（mwmの既定の色設定）

## Reference works

- Motif Window Manager（mwm）の既定の画面 2014 — Wikimedia Commons / CC0 — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Debian%20Motif%20MWM%20Default.png
- xpdf のメニューを開いた画面 — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Xpdf-screenshot.png
- Motif で組まれた CDE のデスクトップ 2012 — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Common%20Desktop%20Environment.jpg

## Source of record

- Internet Archive (bitsavers) — Open Software Foundation, OSF/Motif Style Guide Revision 1.2 (1993) — https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_openSoftwaFMotifStyleGuideRevision1.21993_16324635

## Machine surfaces

- JSON: https://indexstyle.org/api/styles/motif
- Image-generation prompt (legally clean): https://indexstyle.org/styles/motif/prompt.txt
- MCP: https://indexstyle.org/mcp (tools: search_styles, get_style, compose_styles; prompts: image-prompt, apply-style)