japanese-minimal
One identity: a room with one vase — the absence is the design.
1. PALETTE (Fixed)
- Paper:
#F4F1EA(rice paper warmth). Alternate:#ECE8DF. - Ink:
#33302B(sumi — soft, never pure black). - Secondary:
#8A8378(stone ash) for metadata and body-aside text. - Seal accent — exactly one:
#B3392A(hanko red). Used for: the seal mark, one underline, one stat, links. That's the entire accent budget. - No pure white, no gradients, no colored fields (accent-colored fields banned — accent is a mark, not a surface).
2. TYPOGRAPHY (Fixed)
- Display: Japanese mincho serif (
Shippori Mincho, or a serif with calligraphic rhythm), weight 400–600,clamp(2.4rem, 6vw, 5rem), leading 1.15–1.3 (mincho breathes — no brutal leading). - Body: a clean gothic (
Zen Kaku Gothic Newor system sans at 300–400) 15–16px, 1.8–2.0 line-height — generous. - Labels: gothic caps or roman numerals,
letter-spacing: 0.18em, 10–11px, stone ash. - One vertical moment: a single
writing-mode: vertical-rltext element (a label, a number, a name) per page — a worthwhile signature, never repeated. - No italics (mincho has none in spirit), no fake bold, no all-caps display.
3. COMPOSITION (Fixed)
- Ma (negative space) is the layout. Hero padding ≥ 20vh. Sections ≥ 160px apart. If a section feels empty, that's correct — do not fill it.
- Asymmetric stillness: content in a 5/12–7/12 column, offset from center; one object per line of sight. Never center-symmetric stacks, never full-bleed busy screens.
- Rules over boxes: thin (1px) stone-ash rules for section dividers and index rows. Panels are paper-tone (
#ECE8DF) with NO border — tone, not line. - Index as a list: items on hairline rows: number / name / one-line note. Counts in mincho numerals.
- The seal: the hanko (a square or rounded-square red mark with one ideograph or monogram in white) appears exactly twice: once near the wordmark, once in the footer. It's a signature, not a logo badge.
4. CONTENT TREATMENT
- No emoji, no icon sets — typographic marks (・, —, ◦) or the seal itself.
- If photography: one or two images max, muted, grainy, generous margins (image smaller than the column, not filling it);
filter: saturate(0.7) contrast(0.95). - Copy rhythm: short lines, imperatives in the form of observation ("The data asked quietly."), no exclamation marks, no superlatives ("best/greatest/revolutionary").
- CTA: one text link with a seal-red underline, or one solid sumi button (square). Never two equal CTAs.
5. MOTION (Single Acts)
- One fade/rise per section: 500–700ms,
cubic-bezier(0.22, 1, 0.36, 1), 8–10px. - Hover: color shifts to seal red or opacity 0.75, 200ms. Nothing else exists. No parallax, no marquees, no loops.
6. CHECKLIST (Fail the Page If…)
- Any color besides paper, ink, ash, and seal red.
- Any accent-colored surface (accent is mark-only).
- Any border-radius above 2px or any box-shadow.
- Display set in a sans.
- Italic or uppercase display text.
- Center-symmetric hero or less than ~160px between sections.
- More than one vertical text element.
- Any element that doesn't appear to have been placed with a reason.
