The look: Margin
Margin is the frame of TJ's books: running heads, numbered sections, captioned figures, hairlines, white paper, ink and grays, no accent color. It was chosen over four other looks and four close variations of itself because the page stays about the content, not the style. This site is Margin.
What the earlier looks became
Its square chrome and the lockup live on in Margin.
Its reading frame (top bar, rail, a 688 px column) is Margin's layout.
Exhibit and 3D stages open in v2's dark theme; the Colloquy's display is the reference.
AI Research moves to Margin; its maps keep a dark stage and the data colors.
What signals function
In a quiet frame each visual cue can carry one meaning, and none should carry two. A cue that tells you what something does is what Don Norman calls a signifier (The Design of Everyday Things, revised edition, 2013). No cue works alone: a button still needs its border or fill, a pointer and a focus ring as well as its corners.
| Cue | What it says | The rule |
|---|---|---|
| Corners | what you can do | Square to read; a small radius to act; the switch to flip. |
| Fill | how important | The main action ink-filled, the next outlined, the rest plain. One filled button per view. |
| A box | you can type here | Inputs and menus are boxes; read-only content never is. |
| Underline | this goes somewhere | Links underlined; headings and labels never. |
| Typeface | who is speaking | Mono for what the model produced; sans for the interface; Archivo for structure. |
| Small marks | what happens next | → a next page, ▾ a menu, ↗ leaves the site. |
| Color | state, never function | Ink for the interface; color for status and data, with a word or a number beside it. |