Tactile Paper
Editorial Cream
Warm cream surfaces, tactile white cards with black outlines and offset shadows, restrained accent colors. A print-magazine feel.
Palette specimen
Cream
#F4F4F0
Ink
#111111
Card
#FFFFFF
Coral
#FF6F5E
Moss
#5B7B5A
Gold
#E8B84B
Specimen of the Editorial Cream system. Not the site palette.
Best for
Content brands, portfolios, and product marketing that want warmth and craft. Reads as made by hand, not generated.
The contract
The full DESIGN.md. Copy it, or download it into a project root so an agent can build against it.
DESIGN.md
# DESIGN.md - Editorial Cream
A warm, tactile system with a print-magazine sensibility. Cream paper, black ink, white cards that sit slightly above the page with a hard offset shadow.
## Palette (tokens)
| Token | Value | Use |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `--paper` | #F4F4F0 | Page background |
| `--ink` | #111111 | Text and outlines |
| `--card` | #FFFFFF | Card surfaces |
| `--coral` | #FF6F5E | Primary accent, CTAs |
| `--moss` | #5B7B5A | Secondary accent |
| `--gold` | #E8B84B | Highlight, sparingly |
| `--muted-ink` | #55534E | Secondary text |
Accent colors sit on white or ink, never on cream (contrast fails on cream).
## Type scale
- Family: a grotesque or transitional serif for display, a clean sans for body.
- Display headings: large, weight 700 plus, normal to slightly tight tracking.
- Scale (rem): 0.8125, 0.9375, 1.0625, 1.375, 1.75, 2.5, 3.5, 5.
- Labels: small caps or uppercase sans, 0.75rem, letterspaced.
## Spacing grid
8px base with a generous rhythm. Section padding 64 to 96px. Cards get roomy internal padding of 24 to 32px. Container max-width 68rem.
## Corners and borders
- Corner radius: small and consistent, 4 to 6px. Never fully rounded.
- Outlines: 1.5px to 2px solid ink on cards and buttons. The outline is a feature.
- Offset shadow: a hard, non-blurred shadow, for example `6px 6px 0 var(--ink)`, on cards and primary buttons. No soft blur shadows.
## Component patterns
- Buttons: ink outline, white or coral fill, hard offset shadow that collapses to 2px on press. Weighty labels.
- Cards: white, ink outline, offset shadow, ample padding. They should feel like physical cards on paper.
- Sections: an uppercase kicker, a serif display headline, then sans body.
## Banned patterns
- Gradients of any kind.
- Soft, blurred, ambient shadows. Shadows here are hard and offset only.
- Accent colors on the cream background (coral on cream fails contrast).
- Emojis as decoration.
- Em dashes. Use a hyphen with spaces.