# OPEN LOOK (オープンルック)

> A screen language for Unix workstations, specified by Sun Microsystems in a functional specification published by Addison-Wesley in 1989. The book defines two parallel designs, one black and white for monochrome displays and one three dimensional for grayscale and colour, sets a single sans serif variable width face for every common element, and tells implementers that restraint is the key to colour. Each pop-up window carries a pushpin at the left of its header, and pinning it leaves the window on the workspace.

- IndexStyle No.516 — https://indexstyle.org/styles/open-look
- Kind: Style · Family: Platform Screen Languages · Era: 1988–1990s
- Mood: Technology, Trust
- Color cues: #000000 / #808080 / #FFFFFF (cues taken from reference works, not a fixed palette)

## Defining characteristics

- A pushpin at the left end of a pop-up window's header, which pins the window to the workspace instead of dismissing it
- Three dots after a label announce a window, an outlined triangle announces a menu
- Scrollbars split into an elevator, a cable and top and bottom cable anchors, with the dark part of the cable showing how much is in view
- The workspace is a 50 percent dither pattern and menu drop shadows are a 75 percent pattern

## Best used for

- Rebuilding a Unix workstation screen from around 1990 with a look that reads as Sun rather than Motif
- Rebuilding a working screen so it survives a one bit display, using dither patterns and outlines alone

## Composition recipe

- Typography & lettering: Set every shared element in the same sans serif variable width face. Size in points rather than pixels, and scale through the 10, 12, 14 and 19 point steps the spec provides.
- Layout & structure: Give each window four resize corners and gather commands into control areas outside the pane. Every pop-up window opens with a header that carries a pushpin.
- Material & texture: Make the design work in black and white first. For the three dimensional version pick one background colour, derive the recessed shade by adding 10 to 15 percent black, and reserve white for lit edges.

## What to avoid

Starting from the three dimensional colour scheme collapses the moment the design meets a monochrome display, where neither the raised edges nor the pushpin survive.

## Application checklist

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

- [ ] A pushpin at the left end of a pop-up window's header, which pins the window to the workspace instead of dismissing it
- [ ] Three dots after a label announce a window, an outlined triangle announces a menu
- [ ] Scrollbars split into an elevator, a cable and top and bottom cable anchors, with the dark part of the cable showing how much is in view
- [ ] The workspace is a 50 percent dither pattern and menu drop shadows are a 75 percent pattern
- [ ] At least one reference work below has been studied directly
- [ ] The caution above ("What to avoid") has been addressed

## Related styles

- **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
- **Aqua (アクア)** — Mac OS X's design language of buttons you want to lick. Jelly gloss, pinstripes, deep shadows and the genie effect staged digital components as objects you could touch, and set the terms for UI throughout the 2000s. What the web made of it with images is Web 2.0 Gloss. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/aqua

## Further study

- 仕様書 Appendix B の実寸図。要素がポイントで指定されている
- 同時代の Motif と並べ、影の付け方と字の扱いの違いを見る
- 押しピンで常駐させる窓と、閉じる前提のダイアログの使い分け

## Reference works

- OPEN LOOK 形式の窓とウィンドウメニュー（olvwm）2016 — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Olvwm-desktop.jpg
- Sun Microsystems《The NeWS Toolkit》の部品見本 — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The%20NeWS%20Toolkit%20screen%20snapshot.gif
- olvwm のルートメニューと仮想デスクトップ管理 2013 — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:OLWM%20Desktop%2C%20Virtual%20Desktop%20Manager%2C%20Menu%20-%20with%20VIM%20using%20desert256%20running%20in%20an%20XTerm%20window.png

## Source of record

- Internet Archive — Sun Microsystems, "OPEN LOOK Graphical User Interface Functional Specification"（Addison-Wesley, 1989/90） — https://archive.org/details/openlookgraphica00sunm

## Machine surfaces

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