dark · structured · sans · email · ai
DESIGN.md inspired by Shortwave
A dark AI-email canvas with Poppins display weight and one electric blue — Inbox rebuilt by the people who built it.
By webdesignhot · www.shortwave.com ↗
$ npx @webdesignhot/design-md add shortwave
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Aave Ghost-soft DeFi — lavender #978fff on white, custom Aave Repro sans, pastel gradients in a usually-brutalist lending space. Accenture Dark hero, white Graphik, and one electric purple — the `>` greater-than mark made into a whole consulting brand. '#a600ff' is always moving forward. Adidas Pure-black sport-utility, AdihausDIN/adidasFG uppercase, three-stripe geometry — the engineering canon for global sportswear. Adobe Creative-suite chrome — paper-white canvas, magenta-to-orange wordmark gradient, and Adobe Clean carrying every product grid. Affirm Honest-money fintech in the dark — indigo #4a4af4 CTAs at near-pill 96px radius, light-weight white headlines, no fine print. AgentKit Three swappable themes for AI agent products — editorial dark, daylight bright, fintech cool-blue. Airbnb Pure-white marketplace canvas with one Rausch coral and Cereal — generous photography, soft pills, modest type. Airtable White-canvas editorial workflow software with full-bleed coral and forest signature cards punctuating a near-black pill-CTA system. Alibaba Electric orange `#ff6a00` + dense merchant grids — the global B2B wholesale floor as a website. Allbirds Oatmeal-canvas eco-minimalism — Geograph sans on warm Amazon Smile-orange CTA, Amazon Ember sans, dense product grids — the canonical everything-store interface. Amazon Web Services Squid-ink navy with Smile-orange CTAs — the densest tile-portal on the cloud-platform internet. American Express White-canvas premium-restraint membership UI — signature Amex Blue accent, near-black editorial type, concierge-tier hierarchy. Anthropic Editorial broadsheet for AI safety — cream canvas, Anthropic Serif body, terracotta clay accent, magazine geometry. Apple White-canvas product theatre — SF Pro Text, 980px pill CTAs, and a single-blue accent system. Apple Music Pink-red gradient hero with album-grid kinesthetics — SF Pro precision, signature `#fa233b` brand pink, glassy dark canvas. Apple TV+ Pure-black cinematic theatre with SF Pro and ruthless minimalism — content as the only voice. Arbitrum Arbitrum Blue on white — Layer 2 chain marketing with Inter sans, structured grids, sophisticated-restraint contrasted with Solana's cinematic. Arc Browser-as-personality marketing — buttery cream canvas, Marlin Soft display, hand-tooled blue-and-coral palette. Are.na Bare grey-and-orange minimalism — a single Helvetica-class sans, hairline borders, and a stubborn refusal to optimise for engagement. Asana Approachable work management in soft purple — Asana Sans at modest weights with a rainbow accent palette and warm sky-tinted whitespace. Astro Cosmos navy canvas with violet-to-orange brand gradient — Mona Sans display, Inter body, Astro''s star-chart MPA framework dressed as an observatory dashboard. ASUS Republic of Gamers red `#cd0000` on black with bold sans — Taiwan engineering meets esports brutalism. Atlassian Enterprise-blue corporate canvas — signature Atlassian Blue, Charlie display type, four-product mark. Audi Vorsprung durch Technik on near-black — Audi Type sans, four-rings precision, and a near-monochrome canvas with `#bb0a30` reserved for sport. Auth0 Twilight-blue dark canvas with TWK Lausanne 300 display + Aeonik body — the original identity-platform aesthetic. Away Editorial travel-luggage DTC — Graphik on white, photography-led, sharp 0px white CTAs over dark hero imagery. Axiom Deep-navy observability with a cyan electric accent — Inter for body, JetBrains Mono for every event label, and a structural grid that reads as logs at planet scale. Axios Smart-brevity in chromatic form — blocky white canvas, Tiempos-flavored Atiza serif, signature `Why it matters:` time-bars and bullet-first prose. Bandcamp Bandcamp Cyan + Helvetica — indie-music marketplace honesty, no streaming-platform polish, no algorithmic carousels. Base Coinbase-adjacent L2 minimalism — coinbaseSans on white, signature electric blue Baseten White canvas with Inter and a signature `#6c5ce7` purple — ML model deployment dressed in approachable workshop chrome. BBC News Signature BBC red (`#bb1919`), Reith Sans + Reith Serif, the global broadcaster authority typography of the world''s public-service news. Bear Off-white canvas, a custom bearsans display, a red bear icon, and tealish handwritten underlines — a Markdown notes app dressed as a Mac Pro magazine. beehiiv Aggressive black-on-yellow newsletter punch — heavy display sans, hyper-flat cards, and a `#ffd60a` highway-yellow that reads like a tabloid front page. Best Buy Yellow price-tag mark, electric blue trust, bold sans — big-box electronics design with Geek-Squad confidence. Binance Trading-floor near-black with a single high-voltage Binance Yellow doing all the brand work — BinanceNova for type, BinancePlex for numbers. Biome A white-canvas Rust toolchain page where one deep azure blue does all the work. Bloomberg Iconic black-orange financial broadsheet — BWHaasHead headlines, AvenirNextPForBBG chrome, terminal-grade data density. Bluesky Sky-blue `#0085ff` on bright white with Inter sans — the AT-Protocol social network rendered as airy, federated, open. Blur Pure-black canvas, neon `#ff8700` orange voltage, and JetBrains-Mono-default everywhere — brutalist NFT trader terminal as competitive instrument. BMW Corporate-blue calm — BMW Type Next on a cream-tinted white, dark navy hero bands, and the M-stripe triplet in reserve. BMW M Performance black on M-blue/M-violet/M-red — the motorsport variant that turns BMW corporate into track-day theatre. Bolt An electric-blue command line for the web — StackBlitz's AI builder on a near-black #1e1e21 canvas, Inter Display, builder's register. Booking.com Deep-blue commerce engine — Bookin Sans on white, yellow CTA voltage, dense booking-funnel maximalism. Booking.com Booking Blue + signal yellow — the deal-finder design language at maximum density, optimized for conversion not contemplation. Bose Pure black canvas, Helvetica restraint, and premium-audio confidence — sound presented as engineering art. Brex Cool grey-blue surfaces, magenta-to-purple-to-indigo gradient, Söhne 600 — fintech as fast, modern, slightly flashy. Brilliant STEM education with playful diagram-energy — warm coral CTA on near-black, custom Brilliant Sans, illustrated geometry as hero. Bugatti French-engineered austerity — pure black canvas, three Bugatti typefaces, and full-bleed photography as the only voltage. Bun Cream canvas with chunky pink accents and the wide-eyed mascot — a JS runtime dressed as a 1970s bakery sign. Buttondown Indie newsletter software in heavy 900-weight Auto Pro — electric `#0069ff` pill CTAs and soft-yellow highlights on a pure-white canvas. Cal.com Open-source calendly with one bold custom font — Cal Sans on a soft `#f4f4f4` paper canvas. Calm Signature `#0066ff` deep blue + Aktiv Grotesk + meditation-deep cool atmospheric calm. Calm Mindfulness in a serif — Calm Cream canvas, soft moonlit blue and forest green, Visby Round display, breathing-pace motion. Capacities Cream-yellow canvas, Inter at 700 with a Crimson Pro serif fallback, and a yellow underline as page ornament — a PKM that thinks like a sketchbook. Capital One Confident-accessible banking — navy authority, one red swoosh, 2px-sharp blue. Cartesia Bright clinical white with a single deep-blue action — voice-AI presented as scientific instrument rather than consumer product. Cash App Electric `#00d54b` green on near-black, Cash Sans monospace-flavoured geometry, and p2p-money youth aesthetic. Casper Cozy DTC sleep brand — Casper navy/indigo ink (`#1e306e`) on a pure-white canvas, deep-navy `#012169` pill CTAs at 32px radius, Calibre body under New Kansas friendly-serif display. Premium that tucks you in. Character.AI Cool zinc canvas, custom atHauss sans, and dark pill CTAs — a roleplay social product dressed in TikTok-grade neutrality. Chase Trust-institutional banking UI — white canvas, near-black ink, bright-blue primary + green secondary CTAs in Open Sans. Chevrolet Gold-cross American classic — Louis sans on white with a `#cd9834` bowtie, a `#003876` corporate blue, and Camaro/Corvette red drama in reserve. CircleCI Light-content CI/CD platform — near-black hero, Inter sans, navy chrome with a restrained CircleCI-green accent. ClassPass Wellness-marketplace energy — coral-pink CTA on warm white, GT America sans, photographed-class-as-hero pattern. Claude.ai Cream paper canvas, Anthropic Sans for body and Anthropic Serif for the headline — an AI assistant set in literary type. Clerk Geist + Suisse on near-black canvas with `#6c47ff` violet CTA — the drop-in-auth dev-tool aesthetic. ClickHouse Near-pure black canvas with electric yellow as the brand voltage — database performance dressed in voltmeter chrome. Cloudinary Media-API technical infrastructure in confident blue — Inter at modest weights with a deep navy-blue brand and a single chromatic accent for media moments. CodeRabbit Near-black AI-review canvas — warm CodeRabbit orange accent, Plus Jakarta Sans, sharp 4px white CTAs. CodeSandbox Pale-lime electricity on a Cohere Stark white editorial canvas with deep green-black product bands and a CohereText/Unica77 type split. Coinbase Institutional-grade calm — pure white canvas, a single Coinbase Blue, and Coinbase Display set at weight 400 instead of 700. Composio Near-black canvas with deep-electric-blue voltage and a 2x2 terminal-mockup hero — agent infrastructure dressed as developer instrumentation. Corsair Yellow `#ffff00` lightning on black with Roboto — RGB-everything peripherals and PC components. Costco Warehouse blue + signature red, Helvetica utilitarian — bulk-buying signage translated to web. Coursera University-blue `#0056d2` on warm-white parchment with Source Sans — the canonical online-degree marketplace. Cursor Warm cream IDE-marketing — `#f7f7f4` canvas, `#26251e` ink, custom CursorGothic display, JetBrains Mono code, vivid orange accent. CVS Health CVS-red heart on a clean white canvas — custom CVS Sans, near-black ink, trustworthy healthcare clarity. Databricks Signature Databricks Red Datadog NationalWeb on white with the iconic `#632ca6` purple — observability dressed as an enterprise dashboard, structurally dense, chromatically restrained, multicolour where the data demands it. Deel A warm dark canvas with electric coral and orange accents — global payroll dressed as a confident product portrait. DeepSeek Deep-blue Chinese-tech minimalism — a research lab dressed in `#4d6bfe` and stark white space. Deliveroo Deliveroo Teal on white — food-delivery design at maximum saturation, custom Roo Sans, kangaroo-mark mascot energy. Dell Pragmatic blue `#007db8` with custom Roboto-derivative — business-first PC commerce since the dorm room. Deloitte Big-4 gravitas — pure-white canvas, true-black ink, Open Sans at light 300, and the signature green dot. Delta Air Lines Whitney sans on near-white, Delta navy + signal red — the Hartsfield-Jackson aircraft livery translated to web typography. Deno Inkwell black on warm white with the dinosaur mascot — TypeScript runtime as Eric Carle children's book. Descript Cream-pink canvas, a custom Brett display serif, and a wine-dark CTA — an AI video editor that ships like a magazine. Discord Indigo-ground hangout — gg sans body, ABC Ginto Nord display, 12-16px tile radii, white pill CTAs. Disney+ Deep navy gradient streaming hall with custom Inspire display sans and the unmistakable Disney+ wordmark arc. DoorDash Signature red-orange CTA, custom DoorDash Sans, delivery-funnel commerce — the dominant on-demand local marketplace. Duolingo Owl-green confidence and DIN-Round buttons that lift like candy — the gamified language app distilled to four colors and one mascot. dYdX Pure-black canvas, Satoshi-compressed display, and one signature indigo-purple #7774ff CTA — a pro-trader perps terminal as a brand. Dyson Engineering-greyscale on white — Dyson Futura Light at 44px (weight `300`, never bold), body ink `#333` not pure black, zero-radius CTAs with a fluid-dynamics ripple hover, and a single magenta accent reserved for haircare. The web brand of an engineering company that refuses to look like a marketing site. ElevenLabs Near-black voice-tech ground with white voice-wave aesthetic — Inter at studio scale, pill CTAs, and a single saturated accent that reads as both wayfinding and brand. Emirates Custom-serif luxury — Emirates red on light grey, gold accents, Fly Better editorial calm. Epic Games Pure-black canvas with custom Brutal Type / Heading Now display — Fortnite-saturated marketing meets PC-storefront merchandising. Ethereum Off-white canvas, ethereum-blue `#1c64f2` voltage, and Inter + serif duet — community-owned protocol as open documentation. Etsy Burnt-orange CTA, Graphik humanist sans, handcrafted-warmth aesthetic — the marketplace for makers and small batch. Everlane Pure white canvas, Maison Neue Book, near-black ink — radical-transparency DTC minimalism. Excalidraw Literal hand-drawn whiteboard — wobbly SVG strokes, Virgil-style handwriting, and a deliberately primitive UI that turns digital sketching into nostalgia. Expedia Navy commerce + Mango yellow voltage — Expedia Sans, dense travel-funnel density with One Key loyalty colour-coding. fal Pure white canvas, focal display at 120px, and near-black #252527 CTAs — generative-AI inference at editorial scale. Fantastical White paper, Effra geometric sans, full-round blue pills, and a rainbow of app-icon glass squares — a calendar app marketed like Apple''s Pro Apps. Ferrari Cinematic editorial in near-black — Rosso Corsa restraint, FerrariSans 500, and full-bleed cavallino photography. Figma Bright multi-color section bands with figmaSans display and figmaMono eyebrows — a marketing site that designs in scenes. Financial Times Salmon-pink page (`#fff1e5`) — the world''s most recognizable newspaper background, paired with Financier display + MetricWeb sans for global markets coverage. Fireworks AI Light canvas with Inter sans and a signature `#6720ff` purple-amber-orange spark — fast-inference platform dressed in speed-of-light kinetic chrome. Fly.io Mackinac display + Fragment Mono on a violet-saturated canvas — a PaaS that dresses like a small-press magazine. Ford American-truck heritage in corporate blue — Antenna sans, oval-script wordmark, and a deep `#003478` voltage that has carried the brand since 1927. Fortnite Battle-royale design at maximum saturation — neon yellow + electric blue on near-black, Burbank Big condensed display, season-driven brand kaleidoscope. Framer Black-on-white maximalism with electric gradient floods — Inter Display at heroic sizes, motion as a first-class material. Frontegg PP Neue Machina display + Neue Montreal body — plug-and-play user-management with deep-blue gravitas. Gemini (Google) Blue-into-violet gradient, Google Sans, soft Material 3 surfaces — Google''s house style applied to a chat interface. Ghost Warm-cream content CMS aesthetic — Inter for chrome, a soft serif for the writing surface, and a single confident green for action. GitHub Dark-canvas developer-platform marketing — Mona Sans variable headings, lime-green accent, near-black ground. GitHub Copilot Pure-white canvas, pure-black inverted CTAs, Mona Sans display — GitHub's editorial confidence applied to AI tooling. GitLab Light DevOps-platform marketing — GitLab Sans, near-black ink, oversized 96px headlines, tanuki-orange accent. Gitpod Editorial dev-tool calm — light canvas, near-black navy text, ABC Diatype sans + Martina Plantijn serif, 8px radius. Glif Near-black Manrope on near-white, anchored by one confident green CTA — a playful creative-agent canvas. Glossier Post-pink austerity — white canvas, single-family Apercu, 0px radius rectangles. The brand that invented millennial-pink chrome in 2014 has retired pink to a footer wash and a single badge color. Grafana Dark observability canvas with the iconic `#f46800` orange — Inter for body, Roboto Mono everywhere a label hides, multi-colour chart palette ripped straight from a real dashboard. Granola White paper, a custom Quadrant book serif, and an olive-green CTA — an AI notepad that dresses like a stationery shop. Graphite Near-black developer canvas — Matter type, near-white ink, one clean blue, 8px CTAs. Groq Warm off-white canvas, light-weight Space Grotesk, and a single hot `#f43e01` orange — speed-obsessed AI inference. Grubhub Friendly red-orange CTA, Sentinel display + Avenir body, dense delivery-app commerce — the long-running incumbent. Gumroad Hot pink `#ff90e8` on cream, ABC Favorit at 96px, hard black borders and offset shadows — neo-brutalist creator commerce. Gymshark Pure white canvas, black ink, Montserrat bold display over Roboto body — every CTA a fully-rounded 56px pill. HashiCorp Black canvas hosting a per-product color portfolio — Terraform purple, Vault yellow, Consul red, Waypoint cyan — multi-product identity made literal. Hashnode Developer publishing platform — deep navy canvas, electric blue brand, Inter sans + JetBrains Mono code chrome. HBO Max Deep purple-black premium streaming canvas with custom Sharp Grotesk and the unmistakable Max wordmark. Headspace Signature `#ffac1d` orange + custom round display + meditation-friendly playful warmth. Height AI-PM workspace dressed in chalk pastels — Inter at modest weights over a near-paper canvas, with a single confident accent and an AI-purple voltage moment. HEY Warm-white canvas, deep purple-ink, and a crayon-box of saturated pastels — opinionated email dressed as a friendly poster. Hilton Hilton Blue on white — confident-contemporary hospitality with Söhne-adjacent sans, blue-on-white photography-led layouts. Honda Reliability-first restraint — HondaGlobalFont on white, signature red HP Cyan-blue `#0096d6` HP-circle on white with Forma DJR — the 84-year-old technology brand''s mainstream face. HubSpot Warm coral-orange (#FF7A59) on a near-white canvas, a humanist sans set generous and round, and a brand voice that turned inbound marketing into a methodology. Hugging Face AI community canvas — deep blue-black ground, Source Sans Pro headlines, pill auth + 8px tile cards. Hulu Near-black canvas anchored on Hulu Green `#1ce783` with Graphik sans — the bright, cable-meets-streaming UI. Hume AI Warm cream canvas, custom Fellix type, and near-black pill CTAs — voice-AI research presented with humanist calm rather than tech coldness. Hyperliquid Near-black IBM Carbon Design System made literal — pure-white canvas, IBM Plex Sans at light 300, square corners, and one assertive `#0f62fe` blue. Ideogram A bright white canvas with a single saturated violet cue — a typography-first AI image tool that lets the gallery do all the talking. IKEA Yellow `#ffdb00` on blue `#0058a3`, Noto IKEA sans, Swedish-democratic-design retail at planetary scale. Instacart Grocery-shopping-list practical — Instacart Sans on white, signature carrot green JetBlue JetBlue Blue on white — friendly aviation with a custom rounded sans, Mint cabin orange accent, lower-case microcopy. Jupiter Jupiter lime on near-black — Solana DeFi aggregator with Inter, a cat-in-space mascot, and playful pill-CTA energy. Kagi A premium search engine dressed in warm cream and Plex — the indie answer to ad-funded search. KAYAK Burnt-orange flight-search density — Open Sans on white, comparison-engine maximalism, price-graph data viz. Khan Academy Signature `#14bf96` mint green on white with Lato sans — free-for-everyone education in a warm, encouraging register. Kinde White canvas with Inter 72/500 display + dev-friendly pink-coral accent — the approachable auth-billing-access platform. Kit A cream newsletter canvas with a custom KitSans display, a Libre Franklin secondary, and a pastel-rainbow chip set — the editorial register reborn from ConvertKit. Klarna Klarna PINK `#ffa8cd` on white, near-black navy `#0b051d` ink, Klarna Title at billboard scale. Kraken Kraken Purple `#7132f5` on white — Kraken-Brand display + Kraken-Product UI for a calmer, less-bombastic crypto exchange. Krea A pure-black studio with Suisse Intl set quietly at 60px — a creative-AI gallery that lets the work and the cobalt CTA carry the colour. Lamborghini Cathedral of darkness — true black canvas, Lamborghini Gold accents, and LamboType angled-terminal display. LangChain Deep navy canvas with Inter precision and a quietly confident teal accent — agent orchestration dressed as engineering documentation. Ledger White canvas, Inter at rest, and one unmistakable Ledger Orange on full-pill CTAs — security made calm. Lego Lego Yellow + Red on white — primary-color toy theatre, custom Lego Sans, brick-as-hero photography. Lemon Squeezy A dark hero with white Circular display, signature lemon-yellow Leonardo.Ai A pure-black cinematic canvas where ufficioDisplay headlines and white full-pill CTAs frame generative imagery — a film studio's title card, Canva-owned. Linear Dark-canvas product surface — pure-black ground, indigo accent, custom Inter weights, pill CTAs. LiveKit Realtime audio-video infra — Public Sans 300 weight on near-black, signature cyan LlamaIndex White canvas with Inter and a signature `#1b9aff` blue — RAG infrastructure dressed as a clean technical reference card. Logitech Soft consumer-tech blue gradients with Brown sans — design for the way you work, play, and create. Lovable Pink-into-violet gradient on white — vibe-coding dressed in playful, friendly chromatics. Lowe's Signature navy blue on white canvas — residential-DIY warmth rendered as big-box retail. lululemon Quiet-luxury athleisure — Saans variable on bone-off-white, off-black ink (`#140f0f`, not pure black), pill CTAs on square product cards, mixed-case sentence-cased headlines tracked −4px. The athletic brand that murmurs. Luma AI A cinematic black screening room that opens into a white studio — Graphik set tight, every CTA a full white pill. Magic Eden Mint-cream canvas, magenta-mint accent duet, and a custom Foundry display — Solana-native marketplace as boutique gallery. Mailchimp Cavendish-yellow chunkiness — a custom display serif (Cooper Light), the signature `#ffe01b` block, and a brand voice that hugs you while it ships campaigns. Marriott Luxury-hospitality restraint — Caudex serif for editorial moments, off-white canvas, gold-bronze CTA, photographed-resort hero. Mastercard Cream-canvas editorial fintech, circular-portrait orbits, MarkForMC at 450 weight — institutional-but-warm payments brand. MasterClass Pure-black cinema with custom display serif and editorial reverence — celebrity-instructor learning as a premium streaming product. Medium Editorial reading-first publishing — magazine-grade serif body, GT Super display, signature green-on-white pill CTAs. Mercedes-Benz Three-pointed-star authority — MBCorpo on near-black canvas, silver-blue Mercury A near-pure white canvas with a literary serif headline and a signature mercury-mint accent — banking dressed as a quiet magazine. Meta Optimistic blue (#0467df) on a white corporate canvas — Optimistic Display headlines, generous space, social-platform conglomerate at rest. MetaMask Foxy Orange on white — Ethereum wallet design with custom MM Sans, 8-bit fox mascot, friendly-utility voice. Microsoft Fluent surfaces — off-white canvas, Segoe UI Variable Display, and a Cortana-blue action color carrying every product. Midjourney A deep cosmic canvas where JetBrains Mono headlines float over a wide-gamut OKLCH rainbow — a research lab dressed as a chapel. MiniMax Stark monochrome canvas broken open by vibrant gradient product cards — coral, magenta, blue, purple as model identity. Mintlify Documentation-platform marketing — pure white canvas, mint-green accent, Inter at tight tracking, near-black pill CTAs. Miro Canary-yellow Mistral Butter-yellow canvas, Arial as a deliberate anti-tech statement, and zero-radius rectangles — French AI as a brutalist art-school manifesto. Modal Serverless GPU infra in lime-green — `#0c0c0c` canvas, electric `#7fee64` accent, custom Modal Mono on every chip and code block. Monday.com Project management in confident red-pink — Poppins display at bold weights with a colorful saturated palette and a playfully energetic visual rhythm. MongoDB Signature MongoDB green Monzo Hot Coral `#ff4f40` on bright white, MonzoSans humanist geometry, and a transparent challenger-bank warmth. Motion AI-calendar productivity in green-and-purple — Inter at modest weights with a green-to-purple voltage gradient signaling the AI scheduler, anchored by a clean white canvas. MSI Dragon-red `#ff0000` on jet black with bold display sans — the Taipei dragon-heritage gaming hardware brand. Mux Video API for developers — Aeonik on light-cream, Rotonto display, JetBrainsMono CTAs, sharp 0px corners. MyFitnessPal Fitness-tracking utility — MFP Blue on white, Inter sans, dense calorie-and-macro grids, conversion-first navigation. Neon Serverless Postgres dressed in late-night green — a near-black canvas with a single electric mint accent. Netflix Pure-black streaming theatre with signature `#e50914` red and Netflix Sans — the canonical media-tile grid. Nike Pure black, pure white, Helvetica Now — pill CTAs and full-bleed athletic photography on a single soft cloud gray. Nintendo Joyful red on paper-white — Nintendo's site is the toy-aisle of the web, illustration-rich and refusal-of-darkness intentional. Notion Off-white canvas with Lyon serif accents and a custom NotionInter — a workspace dressed as a literary magazine. Nubank Roxo #8d0de3 as the whole brand — white nuSansDisplay on dark purple, 999px pill CTAs, anti-bank warmth. Nuxt Forest-green `#00dc82` glow on a near-black canvas — Vue-flavored warmth dressed for the cosmos. NVIDIA Engineering-grade canvas — pure black hero / paper-white body / one violently saturated `#76b900` green that carries every CTA and corner square. Obsidian Near-black canvas, near-white text, a single electric-purple CTA and a crystal mark — a local-first knowledge base that looks like the editor it ships. Omnivore Open-source read-it-later — near-white reading canvas, focused emerald-on-paper brand, archival elegance after the Eleven Labs sunset. On Swiss-engineered monochrome — true-black ink on white, custom On sans, bold 700 heads and 40px full-pill CTAs. OpenAI Pure white canvas, OpenAI Sans set in calm 500-weight, and a single black pill for the only action that matters — try ChatGPT. OpenRouter Pure-black canvas with custom display typography and pragmatic mono — LLM-router infrastructure dressed as a terminal billing dashboard. OpenSea Pure-black canvas, electric `#2081e2` blue, and Inter at trader-pro density — the original NFT marketplace as financial terminal. Optimism Pure-white canvas, signature `#ff0420` red voltage, and Inter at confident L2 register — Ethereum rollup as bold optimistic infrastructure. Ory White canvas with Inter 48/400 display + signature deep-navy `#0f172a` CTA — open-source-first identity for technical teams. Oura Pure-black canvas with Inter precision and gold-stamped scores — the premium-ring health-precision aesthetic. Paddle Merchant-of-record calm — condensed serif headlines on a near-black canvas with warm cream and sand CTAs. Paper Website A literal sheet-of-paper website — single literary serif, off-white sheet canvas, narrow reading columns, ink-blue links. Patagonia Outdoor-cooperative editorial — Futura sans on cream, ranger-station palette, photography-led story-first marketing. Patreon Patreon Coral on white — creator-economy patronage with Söhne sans, photographer-led marketing, mid-2024 brand refresh language. PayPal Dual-blue corporate trust — PayPal Sans Big over white, with a deep-navy ink and a sky-blue counterpoint. Peloton Signature `#cb1e4e` red on midnight ink, Inter display, instructor-led premium-fitness storefront. Perplexity Cream paper canvas, custom pplxSans, and the unmistakable Tropic-cyan accent — a reference-library answer engine dressed in warm tones. Phantom Phantom Purple on near-black — crypto wallet design that respects the user's intelligence with editorial restraint. Picoko Warm-white canvas, weight-900 Outfit, and one blazing pink — product photography reimagined in seconds. Pika A cream-canvas AI video studio in custom Telka type, with peach and black pill CTAs. Pinecone White canvas with Inter and a signature `#1cb0d0` cyan — vector database technical-marketing dressed in clean blueprint chrome. Pinterest Masonry feed as product, restrained chrome around it — white canvas, near-black text, Pinterest red reserved for action. Pitch Enormous Mark Pro headlines on a black hero, then a clean white workspace — violet Plaid Pale blue trust on white, classical Stripe-adjacent type, and a Benjamin-Franklin-as-mascot moment of personality. Plain B2B support tool with a Dinamo grotesk and a single radioactive `#1ad379` action — Linear-restraint applied to support. PlanetScale Pure-black canvas, blood-red accent, mono-set numerals — a database brand styled like a financial terminal. PlayStation Sony's Cinema-Black canvas with PS Blue and a custom SST sans — gaming-as-cinema, premium hardware in editorial restraint. Polar Dev-tool obsidian — 8rem editorial display headlines, indigo accents, Louize serif moments. Polygon Deep purple `#8247e5` voltage, soft surface ladder, and Inter at enterprise calm — Ethereum L2 as institutional infrastructure. Porsche Engineering-purity black-on-white — Porsche Next at 96px regular, Rosso PostHog Cream-canvas analytics with mustard-yellow CTAs and IBM Plex — open-source craft, not SaaS gloss. Postmark Postal-yellow #ffde00 + warm-black #1c1d1f + paper-white canvas — the transactional email API designed like a friendly post office sign. Prime Video Amazon-blue streaming canvas with Ember sans and the dense, utility-first marketplace UI vocabulary. PropelAuth White canvas with SF Pro Rounded display 60/900 + deep-navy ink — B2B multi-tenant auth with Apple-tinted polish. Quizlet Study-buddy design — Quizlet purple-blue on white, custom Hurmes Geometric, flashcard-as-hero pattern. Qwik Electric purple-to-blue gradient on near-black — resumable execution dressed as a lightning bolt. Railway Ship software peacefully — IBM Plex Serif headlines on a deep eggplant canvas, with a single confident violet for action. Rainbow White canvas, SF Pro Rounded Black at 96px, and a pink-orange-blue-purple rainbow — the friendliest Ethereum wallet onchain. Raindrop.io White paper, system-ui sans, soft watercolor blob backgrounds, and a vivid `#0b7ed0` blue CTA — a bookmark manager that ships like a creative-tool sketch. Ramp Off-yellow `#fcfb70` and black-on-white editorial — finance ops dressed as a printed annual report. Rare Beauty Soft lavender on cream — Selena Gomez's beauty brand with mental-health-aware editorial restraint and serif-led product cards. Raycast Near-black canvas, glowing keycaps, monospaced shortcut chips — a marketing site that thinks like a launcher. Razer Neon `#44d62c` snake-green on jet black with Roboto — the For Gamers, By Gamers visual signature. Readwise Pastel-orange book-club warmth — soft cream canvas, friendly Tiempos serif accents, and a tangerine that signals 'this is your library.' Recraft A jet-black studio where ABC Gravity Condensed slams the headline at weight 900 and a single electric-lime CTA does all the shouting. Reddit Front-page-of-the-internet orange — community-card density, IBM Plex Sans display, and a confident Remix Signature `#3992ff` blue on pure white with Inter — a nested-routes web framework dressed as a manifesto poster. Render Lavender on white — a PaaS that swapped Heroku purple for a candy-bright #8a05ff and kept the airy whitespace. Replicate AI-API marketing — light page chrome, dark hero canvas, rb-Freigeist Neue display, JetBrains Mono code, sharp 0px corners. Replit Saturated turquoise on `#0e1525` ink — the cloud-IDE aesthetic with IBM Plex DNA and a JetBrains Mono soul. Resend Pure-black canvas with Domaine Display serif at 96px and Commit Mono code chips — email infra that thinks in italics. Retool Pragmatic blue #3a55fc + Inter + dense product mocks — the internal-tool platform that designed itself like a well-organised admin panel. Reuters Global newswire restraint — signature orange (`#ff8000`), Knowledge Medium custom sans, broadsheet rigor for the world''s oldest news agency. Revolut Dark Aeonik Pro hero, white Inter content, near-black `#191c1f` ink, fully-pill CTAs and gradient-accented fintech sleekness. Riot Games Crimson `#d13639` red on near-black with custom Riot Beam display — esports-tournament drama and competitive-MOBA editorial. Ritual Visible-supply-chain wellness — white lab canvas, Ritual Navy #142b6f everywhere, CircularXX, 25px rounded CTAs, warm yellow as the one accent. Rive Chunky animated display type and saturated playful colour — interactive graphics platform that wears its motion design on its sleeve. Robinhood Chartreuse `#CCFF00` lime on a black `#000` canvas, Martina Plantijn serif headlines paired with Capsule Sans Text — financial-editorial register, not tech-app sans. Roblox Bright `#ed1d24` red on white with Builder Sans — the youth-block-builder playground turned multi-billion-game social platform. RunPod Deep slate canvas with Inter and a signature `#673ab7` purple — accessible GPU cloud dressed in friendly developer chrome. Runway A near-black research canvas with ABC Normal headlines pulled tight at -2.5px — a film studio, an ML lab, and a brutalist gallery in one shell. Salesforce Cloud-trust dashboards — Salesforce Sans on a sky-blue ground, with Astro the bear standing guard over a dense CRM portal. SAP Enterprise-ERP precision in cobalt — SAP72 sans, signal-blue accents, and a calm white canvas built for trust. Segment Twilio Segment's customer-data-platform canvas — Whitney SSm humanist sans, navy-on-white, single confident `#1866ee` blue. Semafor Paper-cream canvas (`#f8f5d7`) with FeatureFlatHeadline serif and signature flag-style topic columns — global-news editorial built for the post-Twitter era. SendGrid Functional API-blue on white — the email-platform dashboard aesthetic, now folded under the Twilio umbrella. Sentry Deep-aubergine observability — Dammit Sans display, Rubik body, JetBrains Mono code, signature violet #7553ff and pill CTAs. shadcn/ui Copy-paste components in pure black-on-white — the most influential design system not actually shipped as a library. Shopify Dark-first commerce theatre — 96px NeueHaasGrotesk at weight 330, electric mint focus rings, and stacked multi-layer shadows. Signal Privacy-first messaging in `#3a76f0` Signal blue with Inter sans — minimal, ad-free, end-to-end-encrypted by default. Slack Aubergine workspace marketing — Salesforce-Avant-Garde headlines, all-caps 4px CTAs, white canvas with `#4a154b` accents. Snowflake Deeper cyan Solana Solana Gradient + Diatype on near-black — Layer 1 chain marketing as cinematic experiment, magenta-purple-cyan brand prism. SolidJS Deep navy with a blue-to-cyan brand gradient — reactive primitives dressed as a circuit diagram. Sonos Pure black canvas, Inter typography, and audio-system minimalism — speakers presented as gallery objects. SoundCloud Signature `#ff5500` orange on `#f2f2f2` paper with Interstate sans — waveform-first audio social UI. Sourcegraph Near-black code-intelligence canvas — PolySans display, coral-red accent, big quiet headlines. Southwest Airlines Heart-warm low-cost airline — Southwest Sans on light grey, yellow CTA voltage with navy ink, sharp 2px corners. SpaceX Pure-black cinematic photography, D-DIN aerospace stencil type, ghost-button minimalism — the interface disappears. Spotify Electric `#1ed760` green on near-black canvas with Spotify Mix sans — the canonical streaming-audio tile grid. Square Pure black on pure white, Square Sans grids, and retail-POS minimalism — commerce as black-and-white geometry. StackBlitz Electric blue `#1574ef` on a graphite `#1c1f25` canvas — the in-browser IDE that built Bolt. Starbucks Forest-green storefront — SoDoSans, full-pill buttons, warm-cream canvas, and a floating Frap CTA the brand calls home. Steam Deep blue-gray `#1b2838` with Motiva Sans — the utilitarian PC-gaming library that runs the world's largest digital storefront. SteelSeries Esports orange `#ff6900` on near-black with Inter — Danish precision peripherals for competitive play. Storybook Open-source frontend workshop — white canvas, Nunito Sans, dark hero band, and the signature coral-pink brand mark. Strava Signature `#fc4c02` orange + Inter on white — endurance-athlete data-driven storefront with map-overlay heritage. Stripe Editorial fintech polish — light Söhne headlines at weight 300, navy-not-black text, signature `#533afd` purple CTAs. Stytch Paper-cream canvas with Booton display + Chivo Mono body — passwordless-modern auth, joined Twilio. Substack Magazine-on-the-internet — Spectral serif body at 19px, Cahuenga display, signature `#ff6719` orange CTAs. Suno A near-black booth with cream Neue Montreal and a hot-pink cue light — a music studio, a record sleeve, and a chat app fused into one canvas. Sunsama Thoughtful daily planning in warm cream and ink — Inter at modest weights over a paper-cream canvas with sage and rose accents and a calm, unhurried voice. Supabase Off-black canvas, signature emerald `#3ecf8e`, Circular as display, Postgres-grade type discipline. Superhuman White paper canvas, a custom Super Sans variable, and a single confident lavender — premium email dressed as a stationery brand. Supreme Box-logo red, Courier monospace, skate-deadpan minimalism — the most influential streetwear store on the web. Svelte Hot orange #ff3e00 against clean white with a confident sans — the framework that wears its flame as a wordmark. T-Mobile T-Mobile magenta (#E20074) dominates a near-white canvas — Un-carrier loudness in TeleNeo display weight. Tailscale Warm-light approachable-technical — off-white canvas, near-black Inter, brick-red accent. Tailwind CSS The system applied to itself — Inter Variable on white canvas, signature cyan #06b6d4, every component built from Tailwind utilities. Tana Pure black canvas, a custom tanaClassic serif at 83px, and a pale-pistachio CTA — a knowledge graph dressed as a literary supplement. Target Bullseye red CTA, Helvetica Neue, photographic hero — friendly mass-market design with confident chromatic restraint. Telegram Cloud-blue messaging — Tesla Cinematic showroom on white — one Electric Blue CTA, Universal Sans, and viewport-height car photography. The Atlantic Modern serif headlines on cream-paper, signature Atlantic orange `#fbb33b`, long-form magazine reading rendered for the web. The Economist Deep cinnabar red `#e3120b`, Milo serif body, Econ Sans labels — the global-affairs weekly rendered with cover-illustration discipline. The Guardian Guardian Egyptian slab serif, signature navy `#052962`, structured ruled hierarchy with bold section accents. The Home Depot Signature orange on white, Helvetica bold — hardware-aisle signage as a web storefront. The New York Times Cheltenham serif headlines on paper-white, signature breaking-news red, the canonical American broadsheet rendered for the web. The New Yorker Adobe Caslon Pro + Irvin headline cap — a century of editorial gravitas in cream paper, ink black, and signature cartoon line. The Washington Post Postoni serif blackletter masthead, "Democracy Dies in Darkness" tagline, sober ink-on-paper political broadsheet. Things Cool light-blue canvas, system-ui sans, vivid Things-blue accent — a task manager that ships like an Apple Pro Display. Threads Instagram-adjacent text-first social — pure-black canvas, system-sans clarity, and a quiet brand restraint built from the @ glyph alone. TikTok Electric cyan-magenta on pure black — vertical-video voltage with custom Proxima Nova display and a bold neon brand grammar. tldraw Casual whiteboard sketchy — hand-drawn UI primitives, dotted-grid canvas, and a soft pastel palette that wears its toy-like energy with confidence. Together AI Deep navy on near-white with Inter sans — open-source LLM cloud rendered as developer-platform infrastructure. Toyota Japanese-reliability mainstream — `#eb0a1e` Toyota red on white, ToyotaType sans, and a calm-confident marketing surface for the world's most-sold automotive brand. Turbo Vercel-grade pure-black canvas with a magenta-to-blue Turbo gradient — the build system that wears its speed as a sweep. Turso SQLite at the edge — a deep-teal canvas with a CRT-bright cyan accent (#00face) that reads as a glowing edge node. Twilio Signal-red `#f22f46` against clean white — communications APIs given the visual weight of a broadcast colour. Twitch Purple `#9146ff` on `#0e0e10` canvas with Inter — the live-streaming UI built around chat, raids, and gaming density. Uber Eats Pure-black ground, Uber Move custom sans, Uber-app continuity — the operating system of food delivery. Udemy Signature `#a435f0` purple on white with Sailec sans — the open course-marketplace bazaar made approachable. Udio A pitch-black stage with near-white Innovator display type and a single magenta-pink spotlight — a recording console reimagined as a creative canvas. Uniqlo Signature red `#ff0000`, Helvetica Neue system stack, japanese-utility-functional grid — the LifeWear engine. Uniswap Uniswap Pink on white — DEX design with Basel sans, unicorn-mark whimsy, and rounded-card softness in a usually-brutalist DeFi space. v0 A near-white prompt canvas with GeistSans and pure OKLCH grayscale — Vercel''s AI builder dressed as the calmest text editor on the internet. Valorant Tactical-shooter design language — Tungsten condensed all-caps, signal-red CTAs, and an off-white text the brand calls "ECE8E1". Venmo A single confident `#3d95ce` blue, Aktiv Grotesk geometry, and a social-feed informality — payments dressed as group chat. Vercel Brutalist developer-product polish — near-white canvas, near-pure black-on-near-white type, Geist sans + mono, conic-gradient accents. Visa Bright-blue + golden-yellow payment-rail confidence — saturated `#1434CB` primary, ceremonial `#FCC015` yellow on hero pill CTAs, pill geometry throughout, custom visa-font-latin in light/regular weights. Vite Electric purple #646cff + Manrope display + a literal lightning-bolt mark — the build tool that designed itself to feel as fast as it is. Vodafone Vodafone Red broadcast band, monumental 144px display, two-tier button system — corporate-newsroom telecom design. Volkswagen People's-car blue — the deep `#001e50` corporate hue, custom VW Sans, and a friendly-German marketing surface that sells everyday mobility with confidence. Walmart Spark-yellow on big-box blue, Antonio Display + Bogle sans — everyday low prices made loud. Warby Parker Friendly-premium DTC eyewear — white canvas, bright blue + deep navy, fully pill CTAs. Warp Near-black canvas, neon-lime cursor, real terminal screenshots — a marketing site that boots like a shell. Wayfair Near-white canvas, ink-black type, photographic product cards — editorial-light home retail at marketplace scale. Weaviate White canvas with Inter and a signature `#1cdb46` open-source green — modular vector database dressed in approachable engineering chrome. webdesignhot AI-era editorial dark — pure black with one acid-lime accent. Webflow Indigo-to-purple gradient discipline with a precise structural sans — the visual builder that markets itself like a design conference. WHOOP Lime `#a0d10b` voltage on jet-black, Inter precision, recovery-data athlete-grade aesthetic. Wikipedia System-default information design — Linux Libertine serif headings, Vector skin, deliberate non-branding for the encyclopedia of record. WIRED Newsstand-density editorial grid, sharp-corner buttons, mono ALL-CAPS kickers — Conde Nast meets engineering lab. Wise A flexible bright-lime green on cream-white — money that travels in sans-serif and a single confident accent. Workday HR-warm professional in tangerine — Adelle Sans humanist curves, signature `#f37721` orange, and a calm white people-first canvas. WorkOS Pure-white canvas with Untitled Sans 80/500 display + indigo-violet h2 — the B2B-enterprise gravitas aesthetic. X Pure-black canvas with Chirp display — algorithmic minimalism, single-letter wordmark, ruthless type discipline. Xbox Xbox Green on near-black, Microsoft's Segoe UI Display dialed to gamer-coded confidence — bold, energetic, Game Pass-first. Y Combinator Brutalist orange monolith — system-font sans on white canvas, signature `#f26625` orange-red blocks with hard 0px corners. You.com Crisp white developer-doc canvas, custom Lumen Sans, and the indigo `#5368EE` accent — a search API rebrand done as enterprise infrastructure. YouTube YouTube Sans + Roboto + signature `#ff0000` red — content-density at planetary scale. Zed Warm paper-light canvas, IBM Plex Serif headlines at light weight, one electric-blue download button — a code editor's site that reads like a typesetter's page. Zoom Zoom Blue `#0B5CFF` on white — geometric sans wordmark, Workplace-era AI Companion friendly-corporate register. Zora Cream-white canvas, electric purple-orange duet, and a custom display — onchain creator network as zine cover.
try on →
theme
mobile · 390 × 844
Tokens webdesignhot/0.1
- bg
#0c0e16 - bg-elev
#11141d - surface
#161922 - surface-elev
#1d212c - text AAA · 19.3
#ffffff - text-strong
#ffffff - text-muted
#9aa3b8 - text-soft
#c4cad8 - brand AA·LG · 4.3
#356aff - brand-hover
#2a59e6 - brand-soft
#7d9bff - brand-tint
rgba(53,106,255,0.12) - on-brand
#ffffff - border — · 1.2
rgba(255,255,255,0.08) - border-soft
rgba(255,255,255,0.04) - border-strong — · 1.6
rgba(255,255,255,0.16) - shadow-ambient
rgba(0,0,0,0.32) - shadow-elev
rgba(0,0,0,0.48) - shadow-brand
rgba(53,106,255,0.30) - scrim
rgba(6,7,12,0.72) - success
#3ecf8e - success-soft
rgba(62,207,142,0.14) - warning
#f0b429 - warning-soft
rgba(240,180,41,0.14) - danger
#ff5c5c - danger-soft
rgba(255,92,92,0.14) - info
#356aff - info-soft
rgba(53,106,255,0.14)
Ship faster than ever.
display-hero Poppins 64px w700 -0.03em
Ship faster than ever.
display-lg Poppins 56px w700 -0.02em
Ship faster than ever.
h1 Poppins 40px w700 -0.018em
Built for teams that ship.
h2 Poppins 32px w600 -0.012em
A complete kit
h3 Poppins 24px w600 -0.005em
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
h4 "Inter" 20px w600 0
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
body-lg "Inter" 18px w400 0
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
body "Inter" 16px w400 0
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
button "Inter" 15px w600 0
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
body-sm "Inter" 14px w400 0
npx @webdesignhot/design-md add stripe
code ui-monospace 14px w400 0
OUR DESIGN SYSTEM
label "Inter" 13px w500 0
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
overline "Inter" 12px w600 0.08em
OUR DESIGN SYSTEM
caption "Inter" 12px w500 0.02em
- step-0 0px
- step-1 4px
- step-2 8px
- step-3 12px
- step-4 16px
- step-5 24px
- step-6 32px
- step-7 48px
- step-8 64px
- step-9 96px
- micro
2px - sm
4px - md
8px - lg
12px - xl
16px - pill
9999px
Text link →
Card preview
A complete kit — everything your product needs.
Hero, pricing, FAQ, dashboard, docs — every layout your product needs.
New
Stable
v1.0
Design roles 8/8 mapped · webdesignhot/0.1
Maps the 8 canonical role names to this entry's actual tokens. Use these to plug the design into role-aware tools — shadcn/ui themes, role-aware Tailwind plugins, atelier-lint — without hard-coding token names.
- background → bg
- foreground → text
- primary → brand
- primary-foreground → on-brand
- accent → brand-soft
- muted → text-muted
- border → border
- ring → brand
Export
4 formats · paste-ready
Tailwind
theme.extend block for tailwind.config.js
CSS variables
:root { --bg, --text, --brand, … } you can paste anywhere
DTCG JSON
W3C Design Tokens Community Group format
Figma Variables
Importable into Figma → Variables → Import
---
name: Shortwave
tagline: A dark AI-email canvas with Poppins display weight and one electric blue — Inbox rebuilt by the people who built it.
updated_at: 2026-05-28T23:12:53.511Z
published_at: 2026-05-28T23:12:53.511Z
author: webdesignhot
source_url: https://www.shortwave.com
spec: webdesignhot/0.1
quality: curated
featured: false
categories: [saas, ai]
tags: [dark, structured, sans, email, ai]
preview_swatch: ['#0c0e16', '#356aff', '#7d9bff']
description: 'Shortwave is an AI email client built by the team behind Google Inbox, and its marketing site wears that lineage as a dark, product-forward canvas (`#0c0e16`) carrying white type (`#ffffff`) and a single electric brand blue (`#356aff`). Display copy is set in Poppins — a geometric sans pinned at 64px for the hero — while the body chain leads with Shortwave''s loaded UI sans (the raw probe captured the unloaded `Times` fallback, never the rendered face). One voltage, one CTA shape: the "Get started for free" button lands in `#356aff` at an 8px radius. The register is modern, AI-forward, and productivity-minded — closer to a developer-grade tool than a consumer mail app, all confidence and contrast against near-black.'
aliases:
background: bg
foreground: text
primary: brand
primary-foreground: on-brand
accent: brand-soft
muted: text-muted
border: border
ring: brand
colors:
bg: '#0c0e16' # deep near-black navy canvas — the dark hero floor
bg-elev: '#11141d' # one step up from canvas for grouped sections
surface: '#161922' # card surface on the dark canvas
surface-elev: '#1d212c' # nested / hovered card surface
text: '#ffffff' # primary copy — white on the dark hero (authoritative)
text-strong: '#ffffff' # display copy — pure white at peak weight
text-muted: '#9aa3b8' # captions, metadata, secondary deck — cool slate
text-soft: '#c4cad8' # secondary running-text, slightly brighter than muted
brand: '#356aff' # primary CTA blue (rgb 53,106,255) — the singular voltage
brand-hover: '#2a59e6' # pressed/hover state — darker, denser blue
brand-soft: '#7d9bff' # lighter blue for accent text / links on dark
brand-tint: 'rgba(53,106,255,0.12)' # 12% blue wash for soft chips / focus halos
on-brand: '#ffffff' # white text on the blue CTA
border: 'rgba(255,255,255,0.08)' # 8% white hairline — the default divider on dark
border-soft: 'rgba(255,255,255,0.04)' # 4% white for very subtle splits
border-strong: 'rgba(255,255,255,0.16)' # 16% white for focused / emphasized edges
shadow-ambient: 'rgba(0,0,0,0.32)' # soft cast on dark surfaces
shadow-elev: 'rgba(0,0,0,0.48)' # deeper lift for popovers / modals
shadow-brand: 'rgba(53,106,255,0.30)' # blue-tinted glow under the CTA on hover
scrim: 'rgba(6,7,12,0.72)' # modal backdrop — near-black wash
success: '#3ecf8e' # confirmation green, cool not neon
success-soft: 'rgba(62,207,142,0.14)' # success surface tint on dark
warning: '#f0b429' # advisory amber on dark
warning-soft: 'rgba(240,180,41,0.14)'
danger: '#ff5c5c' # form-error red, legible on near-black
danger-soft: 'rgba(255,92,92,0.14)'
info: '#356aff' # informational accent reuses the brand blue
info-soft: 'rgba(53,106,255,0.14)'
typography:
display:
family: 'Poppins, system-ui, -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto, sans-serif'
weights: [500, 600, 700]
body:
family: '"Inter", system-ui, -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif'
weights: [400, 500, 600]
mono:
family: 'ui-monospace, SFMono-Regular, "SF Mono", Menlo, Monaco, Consolas, "Liberation Mono", monospace'
weights: [400, 500]
scale:
display-hero: { size: 64, weight: 700, lineHeight: 1.0, tracking: '-0.03em', family: display }
display-lg: { size: 56, weight: 700, lineHeight: 1.05, tracking: '-0.02em', family: display }
h1: { size: 40, weight: 700, lineHeight: 1.1, tracking: '-0.018em', family: display }
h2: { size: 32, weight: 600, lineHeight: 1.2, tracking: '-0.012em', family: display }
h3: { size: 24, weight: 600, lineHeight: 1.25, tracking: '-0.005em', family: display }
h4: { size: 20, weight: 600, lineHeight: 1.3, tracking: '0', family: body }
body-lg: { size: 18, weight: 400, lineHeight: 1.55, tracking: '0', family: body }
body: { size: 16, weight: 400, lineHeight: 1.55, tracking: '0', family: body }
body-sm: { size: 14, weight: 400, lineHeight: 1.5, tracking: '0', family: body }
label: { size: 13, weight: 500, lineHeight: 1.4, tracking: '0', family: body }
overline: { size: 12, weight: 600, lineHeight: 1.4, tracking: '0.08em', family: body, transform: uppercase }
caption: { size: 12, weight: 500, lineHeight: 1.4, tracking: '0.02em', family: body }
button: { size: 15, weight: 600, lineHeight: 1.2, tracking: '0', family: body }
code: { size: 14, weight: 400, lineHeight: 1.55, tracking: '0', family: mono }
radius:
micro: 2
sm: 4
md: 8
lg: 12
xl: 16
pill: 9999
spacing:
base: 4
scale: [0, 4, 8, 12, 16, 24, 32, 48, 64, 96]
layout:
page-width: 1280
prose-width: 720
header-height: 64
components:
button-primary:
bg: '#356aff'
color: '#ffffff'
radius: 8
padding: '10px 16px'
font: button
use: '"Get started for free" — every primary conversion action.'
button-primary-hover:
bg: '#2a59e6'
color: '#ffffff'
shadow: 'rgba(53,106,255,0.30) 0 8px 24px -6px'
use: 'Pointer hover — denser blue, a soft blue glow lifts beneath.'
button-ghost:
bg: 'transparent'
color: '#ffffff'
border: '1px solid rgba(255,255,255,0.16)'
radius: 8
padding: '10px 16px'
use: 'Secondary "Watch demo" / "Sign in" on the dark canvas.'
button-soft:
bg: 'rgba(53,106,255,0.12)'
color: '#7d9bff'
radius: 8
padding: '10px 16px'
use: 'Tertiary action — tinted blue wash, blue label, no border.'
card:
bg: '#161922'
color: '#ffffff'
border: '1px solid rgba(255,255,255,0.08)'
radius: 12
padding: '24px'
use: 'Feature card on dark — surface lift plus hairline, light shadow.'
input:
bg: '#11141d'
color: '#ffffff'
border: '1px solid rgba(255,255,255,0.16)'
radius: 8
padding: '8px 12px'
focus: 'border → #356aff + 3px blue tint halo (rgba(53,106,255,0.12))'
use: 'Single-line form field on the dark hero.'
badge-pill:
bg: 'rgba(53,106,255,0.12)'
color: '#7d9bff'
radius: 9999
padding: '4px 10px'
font: caption
use: '"New" / "AI" announcement chip — tinted blue on dark.'
nav-link:
color: '#ffffff'
use: 'Top-nav item — white at rest, brand blue on hover/active.'
motion:
ease-standard: 'cubic-bezier(0.4, 0, 0.2, 1)'
ease-emphasized: 'cubic-bezier(0.2, 0, 0, 1)'
duration-fast: 150
duration-standard: 240
duration-slow: 320
button-hover: 'background 240ms standard + blue glow 240ms — no transform'
card-hover: 'surface lightens #161922 → #1d212c, hairline 8% → 16% over 240ms'
reduced-motion: 'respects prefers-reduced-motion: reduce — transitions become opacity-only fades'
breakpoints:
mobile: 640
tablet: 1024
desktop: 1280
wide: 1536
shadows:
ambient: 'rgba(0,0,0,0.32) 0 1px 2px 0'
card: 'rgba(0,0,0,0.32) 0 4px 16px -4px'
elevated: 'rgba(0,0,0,0.48) 0 16px 40px -12px, rgba(0,0,0,0.32) 0 4px 12px -4px'
brand-glow: 'rgba(53,106,255,0.30) 0 8px 24px -6px'
ring: '0 0 0 3px rgba(53,106,255,0.12)'
accessibility:
contrast-text-on-bg: 19.27 # #ffffff on #0c0e16 — AAA
contrast-text-on-surface: 17.55 # #ffffff on #161922 — AAA
contrast-on-brand: 4.51 # #ffffff on #356aff — AA body / AAA large
contrast-brand-on-bg: 4.27 # #356aff on #0c0e16 — AA large / non-text UI
contrast-brand-soft-on-bg: 7.34 # #7d9bff on #0c0e16 — AAA large, AA body
contrast-muted-on-bg: 7.62 # #9aa3b8 on #0c0e16 — AAA large, AA body
focus-ring: '1.5px solid #356aff + 3px rgba(53,106,255,0.12) halo on dark surfaces'
reduced-motion-honored: true
touch-target-min: 44
dark-mode: default # The marketing site IS dark — near-black navy canvas with white type. There is no separate light marketing variant in the captured brand state.
---
## 1. Visual Theme & Atmosphere
Shortwave's marketing site opens on a **dark near-black navy canvas** (`#0c0e16`) carrying **white type** (`#ffffff`) and a single **electric brand blue** (`#356aff`). It is the visual posture of a tool that takes itself seriously: built by the team behind Google Inbox, Shortwave positions email not as a consumer toy but as a workspace, and the dark canvas signals "this is software you live inside," not a brochure you skim. The page reads like an app's own dark theme escaped onto the web — the marketing surface and the product surface share one temperature.
The typographic split is the second signal. Display copy is set in **Poppins** — a geometric, near-circular sans pinned at **64px / 700** for the hero — while body copy runs in Shortwave's loaded UI sans (the raw audit captured `Times`, but `Times` is the *unloaded fallback*; the rendered face is the product's own neutral grotesque, and the body chain leads with an Inter-class sans). Poppins gives headlines a friendly, almost rounded confidence that softens the dark canvas; the neutral body keeps long-form copy legible and machine-precise. The contrast between rounded-geometric display and neutral-grotesque body is deliberate — warmth up top, precision in the running text.
There is exactly **one voltage** on the page. Where most AI products reach for purple-pink gradients and neon glows, Shortwave commits to a single saturated blue. `#356aff` is the only chromatic event: it fills the "Get started for free" CTA at an **8px radius**, tints links, and underlines the active nav state. Everything else is white, slate, or near-black. The restraint reads as confidence — the product doesn't need to shout in five colours.
The atmosphere is **product-forward minimalism on dark glass**. Surfaces lift from the canvas through tonal layering (`#0c0e16` → `#11141d` → `#161922` → `#1d212c`) and 8% white hairlines rather than heavy drop-shadow stacks. Shadows exist but stay soft and near-black — they read as ambient depth, not Material-style elevation drama. The whole composition feels engineered: a dark IDE-adjacent register where the blue is the cursor and the white is the code.
The register throughout is **modern, AI-forward, and productivity-minded**. Headlines lead with capability and automation ("Automate your email with AI") rather than feelings. The page trusts the reader to be a power user — someone who knows what an inbox-zero workflow costs and wants the machine to carry it.
**Key Characteristics:**
- Dark near-black navy canvas (`#0c0e16`) — the marketing site is natively dark, not light-with-a-dark-band
- White type as the dominant ink (`#ffffff`) — pure white at every level on the dark floor
- One electric brand blue (`#356aff`) — the singular chromatic voltage, nothing competes with it
- Poppins for display (geometric, rounded, friendly) at up to 64px / 700 hero
- Neutral grotesque body (Inter-class) — `Times` in the raw probe is the unloaded fallback, never the rendered face
- Tonal surface layering on dark glass instead of shadow-stack elevation
- 8% white hairlines (`rgba(255,255,255,0.08)`) as the default divider — never solid grey
- CTA lands at 8px radius — rectangular-soft, never fully-pill
- Soft near-black ambient shadows; a blue-tinted glow reserved for the primary CTA hover
- AI-forward, power-user voice — capability-led, automation-minded, never giddy
## 2. Color Palette & Roles
### Canvas / Primary
- **Canvas** (`#0c0e16`): the dark near-black navy floor for every page. The marketing site is natively dark — there is no light variant in the captured brand.
- **Canvas Elev** (`#11141d`): one tonal step up from the floor — grouped section backings, input fills.
- **White** (`#ffffff`): the dominant text colour — display headlines, body copy, primary nav links all sit in pure white.
### Brand
- **Brand Blue** (`#356aff`): the singular voltage. Primary CTA fill ("Get started for free"), active-state underline, focus ring, info accent. RGB 53, 106, 255.
- **Brand Hover** (`#2a59e6`): pressed/hover state on the primary blue — denser, slightly darker.
- **Brand Soft** (`#7d9bff`): a lighter blue for inline link text and accent labels on the dark canvas, where full-saturation `#356aff` sits at the edge of body contrast.
- **Brand Tint** (`rgba(53,106,255,0.12)`): 12% blue wash for soft chips, badge fills, and the focus halo.
### Text / Neutral Scale
- **White** (`#ffffff`) — display + body, the dominant ink
- **Text Soft** (`#c4cad8`) — secondary running-text, slightly dimmed from pure white
- **Text Muted** (`#9aa3b8`) — captions, metadata, timestamps, secondary deck (cool slate)
### Surface
- **Surface** (`#161922`): the default card surface on the dark canvas.
- **Surface Elev** (`#1d212c`): nested or hovered card surface — one tonal step brighter.
### Interactive
- **Link** (`#7d9bff`): inline body links — lighter blue for legibility on near-black.
- **Link Hover** (`#356aff`): hover brightens toward the full brand voltage; underline thickens.
- **CTA** (`#356aff` fill, `#ffffff` text): primary conversion button.
- **Disabled** (`#9aa3b8` text on `rgba(255,255,255,0.04)`): drained slate on a faint fill.
### Borders
- **Hairline** (`rgba(255,255,255,0.08)`): the default 8% white divider — never solid grey.
- **Hairline Soft** (`rgba(255,255,255,0.04)`): 4% white for very subtle splits.
- **Hairline Strong** (`rgba(255,255,255,0.16)`): 16% white for ghost-button edges and focused inputs.
### Shadow Colors
Shortwave's shadows stay **near-black and soft** on the dark canvas — they read as ambient depth rather than Material elevation. The one chromatic shadow is the **blue-tinted glow** beneath the primary CTA on hover (`rgba(53,106,255,0.30)`), tying the only colour event on the page to the only lift event.
- `rgba(0,0,0,0.32) 0 1px 2px 0` — ambient
- `rgba(0,0,0,0.32) 0 4px 16px -4px` — card
- `rgba(0,0,0,0.48) 0 16px 40px -12px` — elevated popover / modal
- `rgba(53,106,255,0.30) 0 8px 24px -6px` — primary CTA hover glow
### Semantic
- **Success** (`#3ecf8e` on `rgba(62,207,142,0.14)`) — confirmation; cool mint-green, never neon
- **Warning** (`#f0b429` on `rgba(240,180,41,0.14)`) — advisory amber, legible on near-black
- **Danger** (`#ff5c5c` on `rgba(255,92,92,0.14)`) — form-error red, bright enough to read on dark
- **Info** (`#356aff` on `rgba(53,106,255,0.14)`) — informational; reuses the brand blue
## 3. Typography Rules
### Font Family
**Display**: `Poppins, system-ui, -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto, sans-serif`. Poppins is a geometric sans with near-circular bowls (`o`, `e`, `a`) and even stroke weight — it gives the dark hero a rounded, approachable confidence. Used at weights 500–700, peaking at 700 for the 64px hero.
**Body**: `"Inter", system-ui, -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif`. The raw probe captured `Times` for body — **this is the unloaded fallback, not the rendered face**. The shipped UI sans is a neutral grotesque (Inter-class); the chain leads with Inter so substitutions land in the same metric family rather than reflowing to a serif. Body weights: 400 (copy), 500 (labels), 600 (emphasis).
**Mono**: `ui-monospace, SFMono-Regular, "SF Mono", Menlo, Monaco, Consolas, "Liberation Mono", monospace` — used for keyboard shortcuts and the rare code/command callout in feature copy.
The page runs a **two-family system**: Poppins carries every display role (geometric warmth), the neutral grotesque carries every body and UI role (machine precision). The split is the typographic fingerprint — never set body in Poppins, never set the hero in the grotesque.
### Hierarchy
| Role | Font | Size | Weight | Line Height | Letter Spacing | Notes |
|------|------|------|--------|-------------|----------------|-------|
| display-hero | Poppins | 64 | 700 | 1.0 | -0.03em | Hero "Automate your email with AI" — peak moment |
| display-lg | Poppins | 56 | 700 | 1.05 | -0.02em | Section opener on major bands |
| h1 | Poppins | 40 | 700 | 1.1 | -0.018em | Page / feature-spread headline |
| h2 | Poppins | 32 | 600 | 1.2 | -0.012em | Feature block heading |
| h3 | Poppins | 24 | 600 | 1.25 | -0.005em | Sub-feature / card title |
| h4 | Inter | 20 | 600 | 1.3 | 0 | Inline emphasis title, footer column heads |
| body-lg | Inter | 18 | 400 | 1.55 | 0 | Hero deck — the line beneath the hero h1 |
| body | Inter | 16 | 400 | 1.55 | 0 | Default running text |
| body-sm | Inter | 14 | 400 | 1.5 | 0 | Card meta, captions in flow |
| label | Inter | 13 | 500 | 1.4 | 0 | Form labels, nav micro-labels |
| overline | Inter | 12 | 600 | 1.4 | 0.08em | Section eyebrow, uppercase |
| caption | Inter | 12 | 500 | 1.4 | 0.02em | Timestamps, helper text |
| button | Inter | 15 | 600 | 1.2 | 0 | CTA + nav button label |
| code | mono | 14 | 400 | 1.55 | 0 | Keyboard-shortcut / command callout |
### Principles
- **Two families, one job each.** Poppins owns display (rounded-geometric warmth); the neutral grotesque owns body and UI (machine precision). Never cross the two — body in Poppins reads soft and brochure-ish, the hero in grotesque loses its friendliness.
- **`Times` is a fallback ghost.** The raw probe sampled `Times` for body because the web font hadn't loaded. Never set body copy in a serif — the shipped face is a sans, and the chain leads with Inter so unloaded states fall back to a sans, not a serif.
- **Negative tracking only on display.** The 64px hero rides at `-0.03em`; mid displays at `-0.012em` to `-0.018em`; body and captions sit at zero. Geometric sans like Poppins need slightly tighter tracking at large sizes to avoid looking loose.
- **Tight leading at large sizes.** The hero sits at 1.0 line-height — Poppins compresses vertically at display sizes, the way an app's onboarding masthead does.
- **Generous body leading.** Body runs at 1.55 — lush by SaaS standards. The extra leading keeps long-form feature copy calm against the dark canvas.
- **Uppercase only on overlines.** Positive tracking (`0.08em`) is reserved for the 12px uppercase eyebrow; everything else is sentence case.
- **Inter is the production-safe substitute** for the body face — it shares the metrics the chain expects. For display, Poppins has no acceptable swap; falling back to a default geometric (Montserrat, Geist) changes the brand's rounded character.
## 4. Component Stylings
### Buttons
**`button-primary`** — The signature blue CTA. `#356aff` fill, white text at 15px / 600, **8px radius**, 10×16px padding. Used for "Get started for free" and every primary conversion. There is exactly one primary CTA per band.
**`button-primary-hover`** — Pointer hover. Background flips to the denser `#2a59e6`; a soft blue-tinted glow (`rgba(53,106,255,0.30) 0 8px 24px -6px`) lifts beneath. No transform, no scale.
**`button-ghost`** — Secondary action on the dark canvas. Transparent fill, white text, 1px 16%-white hairline border (`rgba(255,255,255,0.16)`), 8px radius. Used for "Watch demo" or "Sign in" beside the primary CTA.
**`button-soft`** — Tertiary action. A 12% blue wash fill (`rgba(53,106,255,0.12)`), brand-soft blue label (`#7d9bff`), no border, 8px radius. The tinted-blue surface telegraphs a blue-family action without the full saturation of the primary.
### Cards
**`card`** — Feature panel on the dark canvas. `#161922` surface, white text, **12px radius**, 1px 8%-white hairline (`rgba(255,255,255,0.08)`), 24px padding, soft near-black card shadow. The surface lift plus hairline is the elevation language — the shadow only deepens the read, it doesn't carry it.
**`card-hover`** — Surface lightens `#161922` → `#1d212c`; the hairline strengthens 8% → 16% white over 240ms. No translate.
**`feature-tile`** — Smaller nested tile inside a feature grid. `#11141d` fill, 4%-white hairline, 12px radius, 20px padding. Used where card-on-card stacking would lose contrast.
### Badges, Tags, Pills
**`badge-pill`** — Tinted-blue announcement chip. `rgba(53,106,255,0.12)` fill, `#7d9bff` text at 12px / 500, 9999px radius, 4×10px padding. Used for "New" or "AI" markers at the top of the hero. At most one per band.
**`category-tag`** — Slate rectangular tag with 8px radius inside feature cards to mark "Inbox", "Calendar", "AI Assistant". 12px / 600 uppercase overline with 0.08em tracking, `#9aa3b8` text.
### Inputs / Forms
**`input`** — `#11141d` fill, 1px 16%-white hairline (`rgba(255,255,255,0.16)`), **8px radius**, 8×12px padding, white text, muted placeholder (`#9aa3b8`). On focus the border turns brand blue (`#356aff`) and a soft 3px blue tint halo (`rgba(53,106,255,0.12)`) appears — a soft ring, not a hard outline.
**`email-input-hero`** — Inline email signup on the hero. Same fill and radius; the "Get started for free" CTA sits flush right as a combined affordance, no gap.
### Navigation
**`top-nav`** — Transparent over the dark canvas at the top of the page, 64px height, 1px 8%-white bottom hairline once scrolled. Wordmark flush left in white, nav links centred in white body, "Sign in" ghost button + blue "Get started for free" CTA flush right.
**`nav-link`** — White (`#ffffff`) at rest, no underline. On hover the link turns brand-soft blue (`#7d9bff`); the active page gets a 1.5px brand-blue underline.
### Tooltips & Toasts
**`tooltip`** — `#1d212c` fill, white text at 13px / 500, 8px radius, 8×12px padding, soft near-black shadow. Used on keyboard-shortcut callouts inside product screenshots.
**`toast`** — `#161922` fill, 12px radius, 8%-white hairline, white text, 16×20px padding. Semantic toasts carry a 2px left accent strip in the matching semantic colour (success mint, danger red).
## 5. Layout Principles
### Spacing System
- Base unit: **4px**
- Scale: `0 · 4 · 8 · 12 · 16 · 24 · 32 · 48 · 64 · 96`
- Section padding (vertical): 64–96px for major bands — generous, product-tour cadence
- Card internal padding: 24px on `card`; 20px on nested `feature-tile`
- Inter-card gutters: 24px between cards in a 3-up grid; 16px in dense 4-up grids
### Grid & Container
- Max content width: **1280px** on the inner grid with 24px gutters
- Prose width: **720px** for long-form feature body — narrower than the page gutter to keep reading flow tight
- Header height: **64px**
- Feature grid pattern: 3-up at desktop, 2-up at tablet, 1-up at mobile — never 4+ columns of prose
### Whitespace Philosophy
The dark canvas does the heavy lifting for breathing room — large fields of near-black around white type and blue accents read as calm and premium without needing extra padding. Sections get 64–96px of vertical room top and bottom. Because the page is uniformly dark, there are no light/dark band alternations to manage; rhythm comes from surface tonal shifts (`#0c0e16` floor → `#161922` card clusters) rather than full-band colour swaps.
### Section Cadence
A typical page runs:
1. Dark hero (64px Poppins white headline, 18px deck, blue CTA + ghost "Watch demo")
2. Product screenshot band (the app rendered on the dark canvas, often inside a browser/window chrome frame)
3. Feature stack (3-up cards on the dark floor — surface `#161922`, hairline, soft shadow)
4. AI-capability spread (alternating image/copy rows, blue accent labels)
5. Social-proof band (logos or testimonials, muted slate metadata)
6. Dark CTA close ("Get started for free" — full-bleed near-black, centred blue CTA)
The blue appears at most a handful of times per page — it's the conversion signal, not a decorative thread.
## 6. Shapes & Radius Scale
| Tier | Value | Use |
|------|-------|-----|
| Micro | 2px | Inline tags, fine indicators (rare) |
| Small | 4px | Tight chips, nested controls |
| Standard | 8px | Buttons, inputs, ghost CTAs — the signature control shape |
| Comfortable | 12px | Cards, toasts, feature tiles |
| Featured | 16px | Hero shell, product-screenshot frame |
| Pill | 9999px | Announcement / badge chips only |
The system rounds every shape uniformly on all four corners — no compound radii. The single rule: **controls (buttons, inputs) at 8px, cards at 12px, hero shells at 16px, and the fully-pill radius is reserved for small announcement chips.** Buttons stay rectangular-soft at 8px rather than fully pill — it reads as software-grade and precise, not consumer-bubbly.
## 7. Depth & Elevation
| Level | Treatment | Use |
|-------|-----------|-----|
| 0 — Flat | no shadow, sits on canvas | Hero copy, section backings (~70% of surfaces) |
| 1 — Ambient | `rgba(0,0,0,0.32) 0 1px 2px 0` | Sticky nav at scroll, inputs |
| 2 — Card | `rgba(0,0,0,0.32) 0 4px 16px -4px` | Feature cards, screenshot frames |
| 3 — Elevated | `rgba(0,0,0,0.48) 0 16px 40px -12px, rgba(0,0,0,0.32) 0 4px 12px -4px` | Dropdowns, popovers, modals |
| 4 — Brand glow | `rgba(53,106,255,0.30) 0 8px 24px -6px` | Primary blue CTA on hover only |
| 5 — Modal | scrim `rgba(6,7,12,0.72)` + dialog with elevated shadow | Sign-in / waitlist modal |
### Shadow Philosophy
On a dark canvas, drop shadows can't do the same lifting work they do on white — a near-black shadow on near-black is nearly invisible. Shortwave therefore leans on **tonal surface layering plus hairlines** for most elevation (`#0c0e16` floor → `#161922` card → `#1d212c` hover), and uses soft near-black shadows only to add ambient separation under cards and popovers. The single chromatic lift is the **blue glow** under the CTA on hover — the only place colour and elevation combine. The product-screenshot frame gets the heaviest shadow, framing the app as the hero object.
## 8. Interaction & Motion
### Easing
- **Standard**: `cubic-bezier(0.4, 0, 0.2, 1)` — hover colour swaps, surface lightening, hairline transitions
- **Emphasized**: `cubic-bezier(0.2, 0, 0, 1)` — modal entry, section reveals on scroll
### Durations
| Bucket | Value | Use |
|--------|-------|-----|
| Fast | 150ms | Hairline tone swaps, focus-ring fades, link colour shifts |
| Standard | 240ms | Button hover, card surface lightening, nav underline |
| Slow | 320ms | Modal entry, screenshot reveal on scroll |
### Per-Component Recipes
- **Primary button hover**: background `#356aff` → `#2a59e6` over 240ms standard; blue glow (`rgba(53,106,255,0.30) 0 8px 24px -6px`) fades in over 240ms. **No transform, no scale.** Colour + glow only.
- **Ghost button hover**: hairline strengthens `rgba(255,255,255,0.16)` → `rgba(255,255,255,0.28)`, fill picks up a faint 4% white wash over 240ms.
- **Card hover**: surface lightens `#161922` → `#1d212c`, hairline 8% → 16% white over 240ms standard. No translate.
- **Link hover**: brand-soft blue `#7d9bff` brightens toward `#356aff` over 150ms; underline thickens 1 → 1.5px.
- **Input focus**: border turns `#356aff`, 3px blue tint halo (`rgba(53,106,255,0.12)`) expands from 0 over 150ms.
- **Modal enter**: scrim fades in over 240ms; dialog scales `0.96 → 1.0` and fades over 320ms emphasized.
- **Screenshot reveal**: product screenshots fade + rise 16px on first scroll into view over 320ms emphasized.
### Page Transitions
Between page navigations the body cross-fades over 320ms; the fixed top-nav stays static. Smooth-scroll anchored links use 500ms emphasized easing.
### Reduced Motion
Respects `prefers-reduced-motion: reduce`. All `translate`, `scale`, and scroll-reveal transforms suppress. The CTA hover loses its glow lift — hover becomes background-colour-only. Modal entry becomes an instant fade rather than scale + fade. Screenshot reveals appear without the 16px rise.
## 9. Accessibility & A11y
### Contrast Pairs
| Pair | Ratio | Level |
|------|-------|-------|
| #ffffff white on #0c0e16 canvas | 19.27 | AAA |
| #ffffff white on #161922 surface | 17.55 | AAA |
| #ffffff on #356aff brand CTA | 4.51 | AA body / AAA large |
| #356aff brand on #0c0e16 canvas | 4.27 | AA large / non-text UI |
| #7d9bff brand-soft on #0c0e16 | 7.34 | AAA large / AA body |
| #9aa3b8 muted on #0c0e16 | 7.62 | AAA large / AA body |
### Focus Indicators
Focus ring is a **1.5px solid brand blue (`#356aff`)** border with a soft 3px blue tint halo (`rgba(53,106,255,0.12)`) on dark surfaces. The tinted halo gives the ring presence against near-black without the harsh look of a solid 3px outline. `:focus-visible` suppresses the ring on mouse interaction while preserving it on keyboard navigation. Note: full-saturation `#356aff` on `#0c0e16` lands at 4.27 — it clears AA for non-text UI components (3:1) and large text, so the blue is sound as a focus indicator and on large display copy; body-weight blue text uses the lighter `#7d9bff` (7.34) instead.
### ARIA Patterns
- **Top nav**: `<nav>` landmark with `aria-label="Primary"`. The "Get started for free" CTA is an `<a>` to the signup flow.
- **Hero signup**: `<form>` with `aria-label="Get started with Shortwave"`. The inline email input + CTA render as a paired `<input>` + `<button>` for screen readers even though they read as one affordance.
- **Feature tabs / segmented capability switcher**: `role="tablist"` with `role="tab"` children; `aria-selected` reflects the active capability panel.
- **Modal** (sign-in / waitlist): focus trap inside, Esc closes, click-outside closes, focus returns to the trigger. `role="dialog"` with `aria-labelledby` on the modal title.
### Keyboard Navigation
- Top nav: Tab moves logo → nav links → Sign in → Get started for free
- Hero signup: Tab focuses the input, then the CTA; Enter from the input submits
- Feature tablist: arrow keys move between tabs, Tab moves into the active panel
- Modal: Tab cycles interactive elements inside the dialog only
### Screen Reader Hints
Inline blue links use the lighter `#7d9bff` rather than the full `#356aff` precisely so body-size link text clears AA on the dark canvas. The full-voltage blue is reserved for the CTA fill (where white-on-blue carries the contrast at 4.51) and for large display accents. This keeps "blue means action" consistent while never letting an under-contrast blue land on body text.
### Reduced Motion
All transitions degrade to opacity-only when `prefers-reduced-motion: reduce` is set. The CTA glow lift suppresses (the colour change persists). Modal scale-in becomes a flat fade. Scroll-reveal screenshots appear without the rise.
## 10. Responsive Behavior
### Breakpoints
| Name | Width | Key Changes |
|------|-------|-------------|
| Mobile | <640px | Top nav collapses to logo + hamburger; hero h1 drops 64 → 36px; feature stacks 1-up; cards span full width with 16px page padding |
| Tablet | 640–1024px | Top nav keeps inline links; hero h1 settles at 48px; feature stacks 2-up |
| Desktop | 1024–1280px | Full top nav inline; hero h1 at 64px; feature stacks 3-up |
| Wide | >1280px | Content width caps at 1280px; gutters absorb the rest |
### Touch Targets
- Primary CTA: minimum 44×44px tap area
- Ghost / nav buttons: 40–44px height with 16px horizontal padding
- Email input field: 44px height
- Inline link tap-target: 44px row height even where text height is ~24px (line-height 1.55 × 16px adds spacing)
### Collapsing Strategy
- Top nav links collapse into a hamburger sheet below 640px; the sheet inherits the dark canvas
- Hero CTA + email input stack vertically on mobile — the inline-paired affordance becomes a stacked pair at full width
- 3-up feature grids drop to 2-up at tablet, 1-up at mobile — reduce columns, never reflow rows
- Product-screenshot frames scale proportionally; on mobile they crop to the most important panel rather than shrinking illegibly
### Image Behavior
Product screenshots carry their own intrinsic aspect ratios and downscale proportionally inside a 16px-radius frame with a soft shadow. The dark canvas is a flat CSS colour (no image asset), so it renders crisply at any resolution and pixel density.
### Container Queries
Used sparingly. Feature cards use container queries to switch their internal layout from icon-left to icon-top when the card narrows below ~280px, keeping the title legible in a 1-up mobile stack.
## 11. Content & Voice
### Tone
Modern, AI-forward, productivity-minded. Shortwave writes for power users who already know email is a workload — the voice leads with **automation and capability**, not with empathy theatre. Headlines name the outcome ("Automate your email with AI") rather than the pain ("Tired of your inbox?"). There is a quiet ex-Google-Inbox confidence in the copy: this team has built mail at scale before, and the writing assumes you know it.
### Microcopy Patterns
- **Button verbs**: "Get started for free", "Watch demo", "Sign in" — direct, outcome-named, never "Submit" or "Click here"
- **Error message recipe**: `[What went wrong] + [What to try]` — e.g., "We couldn't reach your account. Check your connection and try again."
- **Success confirmations**: short and concrete — "You're in. Check your inbox to finish setup."
- **Field labels**: minimal — usually a single word ("Email", "Work email") because the dark layout's whitespace makes function obvious
### Empty States
The empty-inbox state: "All caught up. Shortwave will surface what needs you." — action-implying, never just "No messages". The unconnected-account state names the next move: "Connect Gmail to start automating."
### CTA Verb Conventions
- Primary action: **"Get started for free"** (hero, nav, closing band)
- Secondary action: **"Watch demo"**, **"Sign in"**
- Tertiary text: **"Learn more"**, **"See how it works"**
- Avoided: "Submit", "Click here", "Buy now" — the relationship is framed as starting (free), not buying
## 12. Dark Mode & Theming
**The marketing site is natively dark.** Unlike sites that run light-with-a-dark-band, Shortwave's captured brand state is dark end to end — a near-black navy canvas (`#0c0e16`) carrying white type and one electric blue. The dark register isn't a mode toggle on the marketing surface; it *is* the surface, and it deliberately mirrors the temperature of the product's own dark theme so the site and the app read as one continuous environment.
The token system is built dark-first: surfaces lighten upward from the floor (`#0c0e16` → `#11141d` → `#161922` → `#1d212c`), borders are white-at-low-opacity rather than dark grey, and shadows are near-black-soft because elevation on dark comes from tonal lift and hairlines, not from heavy cast. If a light variant were ever needed, the mapping would invert: canvas → `#ffffff`, white text → a near-black ink, white hairlines → 8% black, and the blue `#356aff` would hold its value as the one constant across both modes (it clears contrast on both white and near-black).
The brand position: a dark canvas reads as **software you work inside** — IDE-adjacent, power-user-coded, serious about throughput. A light marketing site would push Shortwave toward the consumer-mail category it is explicitly not in.
## 13. Lineage & Influences
Shortwave's visual lineage runs through three traditions. First, **Google Inbox / Material's product DNA** — Shortwave was founded by ex-Google-Inbox engineers, and the site inherits Inbox's bias toward bundling, automation, and a single confident accent colour, translated into a darker, more developer-grade register. Second, the **dark developer-tool aesthetic** popularised by Linear and Vercel — near-black canvas, white type, tonal surface layering, and restraint as a signal of seriousness. Third, the **single-saturated-blue discipline** that runs through Stripe and the broader productivity-SaaS canon — one electric blue (`#356aff`) carrying every action, no rainbow gradients despite being an AI product.
Where most 2020s AI products reach for purple-to-pink gradients, neon glows, and shimmer, Shortwave rejects that vocabulary almost entirely. The page is dark, flat-ish, and chromatically disciplined — the AI-forward positioning is carried by the *copy* ("Automate your email with AI") and the product screenshots, not by gradient theatre. The blue is the only voltage, and it's a confident, almost institutional blue rather than a synthetic AI-violet. Poppins for display adds the one note of warmth — its rounded geometry keeps the dark, precise canvas from reading cold or hostile, the same way a friendly onboarding face softens a technical product.
What Shortwave rejects: AI-gradient washes, multi-colour brand systems, fully-pill consumer buttons, exclamation-mark microcopy, and light-mode marketing brochure energy. The brand is dark-minimalist, capability-led, one-voltage.
**Influences:**
- Google Inbox — the founders' prior product; bundling + automation DNA, single-accent discipline, [killedbygoogle.com/google-inbox](https://killedbygoogle.com)
- Linear — dark developer-grade canvas, tonal layering, restraint-as-seriousness, [linear.app](https://linear.app)
- Vercel — near-black canvas with white type and a single confident accent, [vercel.com](https://vercel.com)
- Stripe — single-saturated-blue discipline across a productivity surface, [stripe.com](https://stripe.com)
- Poppins (Indian Type Foundry) — the geometric display face that warms the dark canvas, [fonts.google.com/specimen/Poppins](https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Poppins)
## 14. Do's and Don'ts
**Do**
- Build on the dark near-black navy canvas (`#0c0e16`) — the brand is natively dark, not light-with-a-band
- Keep type white (`#ffffff`) for primary copy at every level — display and body alike
- Reserve `#356aff` as the single voltage — primary CTA fill, focus ring, active underline, info accent
- Use the lighter `#7d9bff` for inline blue *text* on dark so body-size links clear AA contrast
- Set display in Poppins (700 hero), body in the neutral grotesque — never mix the two roles
- Land controls (buttons, inputs) at 8px radius, cards at 12px, hero shells at 16px
- Layer surfaces tonally (`#0c0e16` → `#161922` → `#1d212c`) for elevation instead of heavy shadow
- Use 8% white hairlines (`rgba(255,255,255,0.08)`) as dividers — never solid grey
- Reserve the blue-tinted glow for the primary CTA hover — the one place colour and lift combine
- Give the product screenshot the heaviest shadow and the 16px frame — it's the hero object
- Lead copy with capability and automation ("Automate your email with AI"), confident and direct
**Don't**
- Don't put the page on a light/cream canvas — the dark floor is the whole register
- Don't render body in a serif — `Times` in the raw probe is the unloaded fallback, not the shipped face
- Don't set body copy in Poppins — it reads soft and brochure-ish; Poppins is display-only
- Don't introduce a second brand colour — the blue carries every action, full stop
- Don't reach for AI-violet gradients, neon glows, or shimmer — Shortwave rejects that vocabulary
- Don't use full-saturation `#356aff` for body-size link text on dark — it sits at the AA edge; use `#7d9bff`
- Don't make buttons fully pill — 8px reads software-grade; 9999px is reserved for small announcement chips
- Don't carry elevation with heavy black drop shadows on the dark canvas — lean on tonal lift + hairlines
- Don't use pure `#000` for the canvas — `#0c0e16` carries a faint navy that keeps the dark from going flat
- Don't use exclamation marks in microcopy — the voice is confident, not giddy
- Don't break the radius hierarchy — 8px controls, 12px cards, never the reverse
## 15. Agent Prompt Guide
### Quick Color Reference
```
Canvas: #0c0e16
Surface: #161922
Surface-elev: #1d212c
Text (white): #ffffff
Text-soft: #c4cad8
Text-muted: #9aa3b8
Brand: #356aff
Brand-hover: #2a59e6
Brand-soft: #7d9bff
Brand-tint: rgba(53,106,255,0.12)
Hairline: rgba(255,255,255,0.08)
On-brand: #ffffff
```
### Example Component Prompts
- "Create a Shortwave-style hero: dark near-black navy canvas (#0c0e16), 64px / 700 Poppins headline 'Automate your email with AI' in white with -0.03em tracking and 1.0 line-height, then an 18px / 400 deck beneath in #c4cad8 at 1.55 line-height. Below: a primary blue CTA (#356aff fill, white text, 8px radius, 10×16px padding) labelled 'Get started for free' beside a ghost button (transparent, white text, 1px rgba(255,255,255,0.16) border) labelled 'Watch demo'. Max-width 1280px centred."
- "Design a Shortwave feature card: #161922 surface on a #0c0e16 page, 12px radius, 1px hairline border at rgba(255,255,255,0.08), 24px padding, soft near-black shadow (rgba(0,0,0,0.32) 0 4px 16px -4px). Inside: a 24px / 600 Poppins white title, then 16px / 400 body in #c4cad8 at 1.55 line-height, then an inline link in #7d9bff at the bottom. On hover the surface lightens to #1d212c and the hairline strengthens to 16% white."
- "Build a Shortwave product-screenshot band: dark canvas (#0c0e16), a centred app screenshot inside a 16px-radius frame with a heavy soft shadow (rgba(0,0,0,0.48) 0 16px 40px -12px), a 32px / 600 Poppins white section heading above it, and a 12px / 600 uppercase blue-soft (#7d9bff) overline label above that with 0.08em tracking."
- "Create the Shortwave nav: 64px tall, transparent over the dark canvas with a 1px rgba(255,255,255,0.08) bottom hairline on scroll. Wordmark left in white. Centred links (Product, Pricing, Blog) in 15px white, brand-soft blue (#7d9bff) on hover. Right side: a ghost 'Sign in' button (transparent, white, 1px 16%-white border, 8px radius), then a blue 'Get started for free' CTA (#356aff fill, white text, 8px radius)."
- "Build a Shortwave email signup: #11141d-fill input with a 1px rgba(255,255,255,0.16) border, 8px radius, 44px height, white text, placeholder 'Enter your work email' in #9aa3b8. On focus the border turns #356aff with a 3px rgba(53,106,255,0.12) tint halo. The 'Get started for free' blue CTA sits flush right of the input with no gap as one combined affordance."
- "Design a Shortwave AI-capability tile: #161922 surface, 12px radius, 8%-white hairline, 24px padding. A tinted-blue pill at top (rgba(53,106,255,0.12) fill, #7d9bff text, 9999px radius, 4×10px padding) reading 'AI', then a 20px / 600 white title, then 14px / 400 #9aa3b8 body. No bright gradients — the blue is the only colour event."
### Iteration Guide
1. **Canvas stays dark.** Anything other than the near-black navy `#0c0e16` breaks the brand — Shortwave is natively dark, not light-with-a-band.
2. **One blue voltage per fold.** If two `#356aff` CTAs are visible at once, demote one to a ghost or soft-blue button — the brand colour draws the eye, it doesn't paper the page.
3. **Poppins for display only.** Headlines in Poppins 700; body in the neutral grotesque. Body in Poppins reads brochure-soft; the hero in grotesque loses its warmth.
4. **`Times` is a ghost — ignore it.** If you saw `Times` in a probe, that's the unloaded fallback. Set body in an Inter-class sans, never a serif.
5. **Blue text uses `#7d9bff`, blue fills use `#356aff`.** Full-saturation blue on near-black is at the AA edge for body text — use the lighter blue for link text, the full blue for CTA fills and large accents.
6. **Layer surfaces tonally.** `#0c0e16` floor → `#161922` card → `#1d212c` hover. Don't reach for heavy black shadows to create depth on dark.
7. **8 / 12 / 16 — controls / cards / hero.** The radius hierarchy is invariant. Buttons aren't pill; pill is reserved for small announcement chips.
8. **No AI-violet, no gradients.** The AI positioning lives in the copy and the screenshots, not in gradient washes or neon glows. Keep it dark, flat, and one-voltage.
---
*Theme-toggle audit: score=0, signals=[native-dark]*
1. Visual Theme & Atmosphere
Shortwave’s marketing site opens on a dark near-black navy canvas (#0c0e16) carrying white type (#ffffff) and a single electric brand blue (#356aff). It is the visual posture of a tool that takes itself seriously: built by the team behind Google Inbox, Shortwave positions email not as a consumer toy but as a workspace, and the dark canvas signals “this is software you live inside,” not a brochure you skim. The page reads like an app’s own dark theme escaped onto the web — the marketing surface and the product surface share one temperature.
The typographic split is the second signal. Display copy is set in Poppins — a geometric, near-circular sans pinned at 64px / 700 for the hero — while body copy runs in Shortwave’s loaded UI sans (the raw audit captured Times, but Times is the unloaded fallback; the rendered face is the product’s own neutral grotesque, and the body chain leads with an Inter-class sans). Poppins gives headlines a friendly, almost rounded confidence that softens the dark canvas; the neutral body keeps long-form copy legible and machine-precise. The contrast between rounded-geometric display and neutral-grotesque body is deliberate — warmth up top, precision in the running text.
There is exactly one voltage on the page. Where most AI products reach for purple-pink gradients and neon glows, Shortwave commits to a single saturated blue. #356aff is the only chromatic event: it fills the “Get started for free” CTA at an 8px radius, tints links, and underlines the active nav state. Everything else is white, slate, or near-black. The restraint reads as confidence — the product doesn’t need to shout in five colours.
The atmosphere is product-forward minimalism on dark glass. Surfaces lift from the canvas through tonal layering (#0c0e16 → #11141d → #161922 → #1d212c) and 8% white hairlines rather than heavy drop-shadow stacks. Shadows exist but stay soft and near-black — they read as ambient depth, not Material-style elevation drama. The whole composition feels engineered: a dark IDE-adjacent register where the blue is the cursor and the white is the code.
The register throughout is modern, AI-forward, and productivity-minded. Headlines lead with capability and automation (“Automate your email with AI”) rather than feelings. The page trusts the reader to be a power user — someone who knows what an inbox-zero workflow costs and wants the machine to carry it.
Key Characteristics:
- Dark near-black navy canvas (
#0c0e16) — the marketing site is natively dark, not light-with-a-dark-band - White type as the dominant ink (
#ffffff) — pure white at every level on the dark floor - One electric brand blue (
#356aff) — the singular chromatic voltage, nothing competes with it - Poppins for display (geometric, rounded, friendly) at up to 64px / 700 hero
- Neutral grotesque body (Inter-class) —
Timesin the raw probe is the unloaded fallback, never the rendered face - Tonal surface layering on dark glass instead of shadow-stack elevation
- 8% white hairlines (
rgba(255,255,255,0.08)) as the default divider — never solid grey - CTA lands at 8px radius — rectangular-soft, never fully-pill
- Soft near-black ambient shadows; a blue-tinted glow reserved for the primary CTA hover
- AI-forward, power-user voice — capability-led, automation-minded, never giddy
2. Color Palette & Roles
Canvas / Primary
- Canvas (
#0c0e16): the dark near-black navy floor for every page. The marketing site is natively dark — there is no light variant in the captured brand. - Canvas Elev (
#11141d): one tonal step up from the floor — grouped section backings, input fills. - White (
#ffffff): the dominant text colour — display headlines, body copy, primary nav links all sit in pure white.
Brand
- Brand Blue (
#356aff): the singular voltage. Primary CTA fill (“Get started for free”), active-state underline, focus ring, info accent. RGB 53, 106, 255. - Brand Hover (
#2a59e6): pressed/hover state on the primary blue — denser, slightly darker. - Brand Soft (
#7d9bff): a lighter blue for inline link text and accent labels on the dark canvas, where full-saturation#356affsits at the edge of body contrast. - Brand Tint (
rgba(53,106,255,0.12)): 12% blue wash for soft chips, badge fills, and the focus halo.
Text / Neutral Scale
- White (
#ffffff) — display + body, the dominant ink - Text Soft (
#c4cad8) — secondary running-text, slightly dimmed from pure white - Text Muted (
#9aa3b8) — captions, metadata, timestamps, secondary deck (cool slate)
Surface
- Surface (
#161922): the default card surface on the dark canvas. - Surface Elev (
#1d212c): nested or hovered card surface — one tonal step brighter.
Interactive
- Link (
#7d9bff): inline body links — lighter blue for legibility on near-black. - Link Hover (
#356aff): hover brightens toward the full brand voltage; underline thickens. - CTA (
#356afffill,#fffffftext): primary conversion button. - Disabled (
#9aa3b8text onrgba(255,255,255,0.04)): drained slate on a faint fill.
Borders
- Hairline (
rgba(255,255,255,0.08)): the default 8% white divider — never solid grey. - Hairline Soft (
rgba(255,255,255,0.04)): 4% white for very subtle splits. - Hairline Strong (
rgba(255,255,255,0.16)): 16% white for ghost-button edges and focused inputs.
Shadow Colors
Shortwave’s shadows stay near-black and soft on the dark canvas — they read as ambient depth rather than Material elevation. The one chromatic shadow is the blue-tinted glow beneath the primary CTA on hover (rgba(53,106,255,0.30)), tying the only colour event on the page to the only lift event.
rgba(0,0,0,0.32) 0 1px 2px 0— ambientrgba(0,0,0,0.32) 0 4px 16px -4px— cardrgba(0,0,0,0.48) 0 16px 40px -12px— elevated popover / modalrgba(53,106,255,0.30) 0 8px 24px -6px— primary CTA hover glow
Semantic
- Success (
#3ecf8eonrgba(62,207,142,0.14)) — confirmation; cool mint-green, never neon - Warning (
#f0b429onrgba(240,180,41,0.14)) — advisory amber, legible on near-black - Danger (
#ff5c5conrgba(255,92,92,0.14)) — form-error red, bright enough to read on dark - Info (
#356affonrgba(53,106,255,0.14)) — informational; reuses the brand blue
3. Typography Rules
Font Family
Display: Poppins, system-ui, -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto, sans-serif. Poppins is a geometric sans with near-circular bowls (o, e, a) and even stroke weight — it gives the dark hero a rounded, approachable confidence. Used at weights 500–700, peaking at 700 for the 64px hero.
Body: "Inter", system-ui, -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif. The raw probe captured Times for body — this is the unloaded fallback, not the rendered face. The shipped UI sans is a neutral grotesque (Inter-class); the chain leads with Inter so substitutions land in the same metric family rather than reflowing to a serif. Body weights: 400 (copy), 500 (labels), 600 (emphasis).
Mono: ui-monospace, SFMono-Regular, "SF Mono", Menlo, Monaco, Consolas, "Liberation Mono", monospace — used for keyboard shortcuts and the rare code/command callout in feature copy.
The page runs a two-family system: Poppins carries every display role (geometric warmth), the neutral grotesque carries every body and UI role (machine precision). The split is the typographic fingerprint — never set body in Poppins, never set the hero in the grotesque.
Hierarchy
| Role | Font | Size | Weight | Line Height | Letter Spacing | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| display-hero | Poppins | 64 | 700 | 1.0 | -0.03em | Hero “Automate your email with AI” — peak moment |
| display-lg | Poppins | 56 | 700 | 1.05 | -0.02em | Section opener on major bands |
| h1 | Poppins | 40 | 700 | 1.1 | -0.018em | Page / feature-spread headline |
| h2 | Poppins | 32 | 600 | 1.2 | -0.012em | Feature block heading |
| h3 | Poppins | 24 | 600 | 1.25 | -0.005em | Sub-feature / card title |
| h4 | Inter | 20 | 600 | 1.3 | 0 | Inline emphasis title, footer column heads |
| body-lg | Inter | 18 | 400 | 1.55 | 0 | Hero deck — the line beneath the hero h1 |
| body | Inter | 16 | 400 | 1.55 | 0 | Default running text |
| body-sm | Inter | 14 | 400 | 1.5 | 0 | Card meta, captions in flow |
| label | Inter | 13 | 500 | 1.4 | 0 | Form labels, nav micro-labels |
| overline | Inter | 12 | 600 | 1.4 | 0.08em | Section eyebrow, uppercase |
| caption | Inter | 12 | 500 | 1.4 | 0.02em | Timestamps, helper text |
| button | Inter | 15 | 600 | 1.2 | 0 | CTA + nav button label |
| code | mono | 14 | 400 | 1.55 | 0 | Keyboard-shortcut / command callout |
Principles
- Two families, one job each. Poppins owns display (rounded-geometric warmth); the neutral grotesque owns body and UI (machine precision). Never cross the two — body in Poppins reads soft and brochure-ish, the hero in grotesque loses its friendliness.
Timesis a fallback ghost. The raw probe sampledTimesfor body because the web font hadn’t loaded. Never set body copy in a serif — the shipped face is a sans, and the chain leads with Inter so unloaded states fall back to a sans, not a serif.- Negative tracking only on display. The 64px hero rides at
-0.03em; mid displays at-0.012emto-0.018em; body and captions sit at zero. Geometric sans like Poppins need slightly tighter tracking at large sizes to avoid looking loose. - Tight leading at large sizes. The hero sits at 1.0 line-height — Poppins compresses vertically at display sizes, the way an app’s onboarding masthead does.
- Generous body leading. Body runs at 1.55 — lush by SaaS standards. The extra leading keeps long-form feature copy calm against the dark canvas.
- Uppercase only on overlines. Positive tracking (
0.08em) is reserved for the 12px uppercase eyebrow; everything else is sentence case. - Inter is the production-safe substitute for the body face — it shares the metrics the chain expects. For display, Poppins has no acceptable swap; falling back to a default geometric (Montserrat, Geist) changes the brand’s rounded character.
4. Component Stylings
Buttons
button-primary — The signature blue CTA. #356aff fill, white text at 15px / 600, 8px radius, 10×16px padding. Used for “Get started for free” and every primary conversion. There is exactly one primary CTA per band.
button-primary-hover — Pointer hover. Background flips to the denser #2a59e6; a soft blue-tinted glow (rgba(53,106,255,0.30) 0 8px 24px -6px) lifts beneath. No transform, no scale.
button-ghost — Secondary action on the dark canvas. Transparent fill, white text, 1px 16%-white hairline border (rgba(255,255,255,0.16)), 8px radius. Used for “Watch demo” or “Sign in” beside the primary CTA.
button-soft — Tertiary action. A 12% blue wash fill (rgba(53,106,255,0.12)), brand-soft blue label (#7d9bff), no border, 8px radius. The tinted-blue surface telegraphs a blue-family action without the full saturation of the primary.
Cards
card — Feature panel on the dark canvas. #161922 surface, white text, 12px radius, 1px 8%-white hairline (rgba(255,255,255,0.08)), 24px padding, soft near-black card shadow. The surface lift plus hairline is the elevation language — the shadow only deepens the read, it doesn’t carry it.
card-hover — Surface lightens #161922 → #1d212c; the hairline strengthens 8% → 16% white over 240ms. No translate.
feature-tile — Smaller nested tile inside a feature grid. #11141d fill, 4%-white hairline, 12px radius, 20px padding. Used where card-on-card stacking would lose contrast.
Badges, Tags, Pills
badge-pill — Tinted-blue announcement chip. rgba(53,106,255,0.12) fill, #7d9bff text at 12px / 500, 9999px radius, 4×10px padding. Used for “New” or “AI” markers at the top of the hero. At most one per band.
category-tag — Slate rectangular tag with 8px radius inside feature cards to mark “Inbox”, “Calendar”, “AI Assistant”. 12px / 600 uppercase overline with 0.08em tracking, #9aa3b8 text.
Inputs / Forms
input — #11141d fill, 1px 16%-white hairline (rgba(255,255,255,0.16)), 8px radius, 8×12px padding, white text, muted placeholder (#9aa3b8). On focus the border turns brand blue (#356aff) and a soft 3px blue tint halo (rgba(53,106,255,0.12)) appears — a soft ring, not a hard outline.
email-input-hero — Inline email signup on the hero. Same fill and radius; the “Get started for free” CTA sits flush right as a combined affordance, no gap.
Navigation
top-nav — Transparent over the dark canvas at the top of the page, 64px height, 1px 8%-white bottom hairline once scrolled. Wordmark flush left in white, nav links centred in white body, “Sign in” ghost button + blue “Get started for free” CTA flush right.
nav-link — White (#ffffff) at rest, no underline. On hover the link turns brand-soft blue (#7d9bff); the active page gets a 1.5px brand-blue underline.
Tooltips & Toasts
tooltip — #1d212c fill, white text at 13px / 500, 8px radius, 8×12px padding, soft near-black shadow. Used on keyboard-shortcut callouts inside product screenshots.
toast — #161922 fill, 12px radius, 8%-white hairline, white text, 16×20px padding. Semantic toasts carry a 2px left accent strip in the matching semantic colour (success mint, danger red).
5. Layout Principles
Spacing System
- Base unit: 4px
- Scale:
0 · 4 · 8 · 12 · 16 · 24 · 32 · 48 · 64 · 96 - Section padding (vertical): 64–96px for major bands — generous, product-tour cadence
- Card internal padding: 24px on
card; 20px on nestedfeature-tile - Inter-card gutters: 24px between cards in a 3-up grid; 16px in dense 4-up grids
Grid & Container
- Max content width: 1280px on the inner grid with 24px gutters
- Prose width: 720px for long-form feature body — narrower than the page gutter to keep reading flow tight
- Header height: 64px
- Feature grid pattern: 3-up at desktop, 2-up at tablet, 1-up at mobile — never 4+ columns of prose
Whitespace Philosophy
The dark canvas does the heavy lifting for breathing room — large fields of near-black around white type and blue accents read as calm and premium without needing extra padding. Sections get 64–96px of vertical room top and bottom. Because the page is uniformly dark, there are no light/dark band alternations to manage; rhythm comes from surface tonal shifts (#0c0e16 floor → #161922 card clusters) rather than full-band colour swaps.
Section Cadence
A typical page runs:
- Dark hero (64px Poppins white headline, 18px deck, blue CTA + ghost “Watch demo”)
- Product screenshot band (the app rendered on the dark canvas, often inside a browser/window chrome frame)
- Feature stack (3-up cards on the dark floor — surface
#161922, hairline, soft shadow) - AI-capability spread (alternating image/copy rows, blue accent labels)
- Social-proof band (logos or testimonials, muted slate metadata)
- Dark CTA close (“Get started for free” — full-bleed near-black, centred blue CTA)
The blue appears at most a handful of times per page — it’s the conversion signal, not a decorative thread.
6. Shapes & Radius Scale
| Tier | Value | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Micro | 2px | Inline tags, fine indicators (rare) |
| Small | 4px | Tight chips, nested controls |
| Standard | 8px | Buttons, inputs, ghost CTAs — the signature control shape |
| Comfortable | 12px | Cards, toasts, feature tiles |
| Featured | 16px | Hero shell, product-screenshot frame |
| Pill | 9999px | Announcement / badge chips only |
The system rounds every shape uniformly on all four corners — no compound radii. The single rule: controls (buttons, inputs) at 8px, cards at 12px, hero shells at 16px, and the fully-pill radius is reserved for small announcement chips. Buttons stay rectangular-soft at 8px rather than fully pill — it reads as software-grade and precise, not consumer-bubbly.
7. Depth & Elevation
| Level | Treatment | Use |
|---|---|---|
| 0 — Flat | no shadow, sits on canvas | Hero copy, section backings (~70% of surfaces) |
| 1 — Ambient | rgba(0,0,0,0.32) 0 1px 2px 0 | Sticky nav at scroll, inputs |
| 2 — Card | rgba(0,0,0,0.32) 0 4px 16px -4px | Feature cards, screenshot frames |
| 3 — Elevated | rgba(0,0,0,0.48) 0 16px 40px -12px, rgba(0,0,0,0.32) 0 4px 12px -4px | Dropdowns, popovers, modals |
| 4 — Brand glow | rgba(53,106,255,0.30) 0 8px 24px -6px | Primary blue CTA on hover only |
| 5 — Modal | scrim rgba(6,7,12,0.72) + dialog with elevated shadow | Sign-in / waitlist modal |
Shadow Philosophy
On a dark canvas, drop shadows can’t do the same lifting work they do on white — a near-black shadow on near-black is nearly invisible. Shortwave therefore leans on tonal surface layering plus hairlines for most elevation (#0c0e16 floor → #161922 card → #1d212c hover), and uses soft near-black shadows only to add ambient separation under cards and popovers. The single chromatic lift is the blue glow under the CTA on hover — the only place colour and elevation combine. The product-screenshot frame gets the heaviest shadow, framing the app as the hero object.
8. Interaction & Motion
Easing
- Standard:
cubic-bezier(0.4, 0, 0.2, 1)— hover colour swaps, surface lightening, hairline transitions - Emphasized:
cubic-bezier(0.2, 0, 0, 1)— modal entry, section reveals on scroll
Durations
| Bucket | Value | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Fast | 150ms | Hairline tone swaps, focus-ring fades, link colour shifts |
| Standard | 240ms | Button hover, card surface lightening, nav underline |
| Slow | 320ms | Modal entry, screenshot reveal on scroll |
Per-Component Recipes
- Primary button hover: background
#356aff→#2a59e6over 240ms standard; blue glow (rgba(53,106,255,0.30) 0 8px 24px -6px) fades in over 240ms. No transform, no scale. Colour + glow only. - Ghost button hover: hairline strengthens
rgba(255,255,255,0.16)→rgba(255,255,255,0.28), fill picks up a faint 4% white wash over 240ms. - Card hover: surface lightens
#161922→#1d212c, hairline 8% → 16% white over 240ms standard. No translate. - Link hover: brand-soft blue
#7d9bffbrightens toward#356affover 150ms; underline thickens 1 → 1.5px. - Input focus: border turns
#356aff, 3px blue tint halo (rgba(53,106,255,0.12)) expands from 0 over 150ms. - Modal enter: scrim fades in over 240ms; dialog scales
0.96 → 1.0and fades over 320ms emphasized. - Screenshot reveal: product screenshots fade + rise 16px on first scroll into view over 320ms emphasized.
Page Transitions
Between page navigations the body cross-fades over 320ms; the fixed top-nav stays static. Smooth-scroll anchored links use 500ms emphasized easing.
Reduced Motion
Respects prefers-reduced-motion: reduce. All translate, scale, and scroll-reveal transforms suppress. The CTA hover loses its glow lift — hover becomes background-colour-only. Modal entry becomes an instant fade rather than scale + fade. Screenshot reveals appear without the 16px rise.
9. Accessibility & A11y
Contrast Pairs
| Pair | Ratio | Level |
|---|---|---|
| #ffffff white on #0c0e16 canvas | 19.27 | AAA |
| #ffffff white on #161922 surface | 17.55 | AAA |
| #ffffff on #356aff brand CTA | 4.51 | AA body / AAA large |
| #356aff brand on #0c0e16 canvas | 4.27 | AA large / non-text UI |
| #7d9bff brand-soft on #0c0e16 | 7.34 | AAA large / AA body |
| #9aa3b8 muted on #0c0e16 | 7.62 | AAA large / AA body |
Focus Indicators
Focus ring is a 1.5px solid brand blue (#356aff) border with a soft 3px blue tint halo (rgba(53,106,255,0.12)) on dark surfaces. The tinted halo gives the ring presence against near-black without the harsh look of a solid 3px outline. :focus-visible suppresses the ring on mouse interaction while preserving it on keyboard navigation. Note: full-saturation #356aff on #0c0e16 lands at 4.27 — it clears AA for non-text UI components (3:1) and large text, so the blue is sound as a focus indicator and on large display copy; body-weight blue text uses the lighter #7d9bff (7.34) instead.
ARIA Patterns
- Top nav:
<nav>landmark witharia-label="Primary". The “Get started for free” CTA is an<a>to the signup flow. - Hero signup:
<form>witharia-label="Get started with Shortwave". The inline email input + CTA render as a paired<input>+<button>for screen readers even though they read as one affordance. - Feature tabs / segmented capability switcher:
role="tablist"withrole="tab"children;aria-selectedreflects the active capability panel. - Modal (sign-in / waitlist): focus trap inside, Esc closes, click-outside closes, focus returns to the trigger.
role="dialog"witharia-labelledbyon the modal title.
Keyboard Navigation
- Top nav: Tab moves logo → nav links → Sign in → Get started for free
- Hero signup: Tab focuses the input, then the CTA; Enter from the input submits
- Feature tablist: arrow keys move between tabs, Tab moves into the active panel
- Modal: Tab cycles interactive elements inside the dialog only
Screen Reader Hints
Inline blue links use the lighter #7d9bff rather than the full #356aff precisely so body-size link text clears AA on the dark canvas. The full-voltage blue is reserved for the CTA fill (where white-on-blue carries the contrast at 4.51) and for large display accents. This keeps “blue means action” consistent while never letting an under-contrast blue land on body text.
Reduced Motion
All transitions degrade to opacity-only when prefers-reduced-motion: reduce is set. The CTA glow lift suppresses (the colour change persists). Modal scale-in becomes a flat fade. Scroll-reveal screenshots appear without the rise.
10. Responsive Behavior
Breakpoints
| Name | Width | Key Changes |
|---|---|---|
| Mobile | <640px | Top nav collapses to logo + hamburger; hero h1 drops 64 → 36px; feature stacks 1-up; cards span full width with 16px page padding |
| Tablet | 640–1024px | Top nav keeps inline links; hero h1 settles at 48px; feature stacks 2-up |
| Desktop | 1024–1280px | Full top nav inline; hero h1 at 64px; feature stacks 3-up |
| Wide | >1280px | Content width caps at 1280px; gutters absorb the rest |
Touch Targets
- Primary CTA: minimum 44×44px tap area
- Ghost / nav buttons: 40–44px height with 16px horizontal padding
- Email input field: 44px height
- Inline link tap-target: 44px row height even where text height is ~24px (line-height 1.55 × 16px adds spacing)
Collapsing Strategy
- Top nav links collapse into a hamburger sheet below 640px; the sheet inherits the dark canvas
- Hero CTA + email input stack vertically on mobile — the inline-paired affordance becomes a stacked pair at full width
- 3-up feature grids drop to 2-up at tablet, 1-up at mobile — reduce columns, never reflow rows
- Product-screenshot frames scale proportionally; on mobile they crop to the most important panel rather than shrinking illegibly
Image Behavior
Product screenshots carry their own intrinsic aspect ratios and downscale proportionally inside a 16px-radius frame with a soft shadow. The dark canvas is a flat CSS colour (no image asset), so it renders crisply at any resolution and pixel density.
Container Queries
Used sparingly. Feature cards use container queries to switch their internal layout from icon-left to icon-top when the card narrows below ~280px, keeping the title legible in a 1-up mobile stack.
11. Content & Voice
Tone
Modern, AI-forward, productivity-minded. Shortwave writes for power users who already know email is a workload — the voice leads with automation and capability, not with empathy theatre. Headlines name the outcome (“Automate your email with AI”) rather than the pain (“Tired of your inbox?”). There is a quiet ex-Google-Inbox confidence in the copy: this team has built mail at scale before, and the writing assumes you know it.
Microcopy Patterns
- Button verbs: “Get started for free”, “Watch demo”, “Sign in” — direct, outcome-named, never “Submit” or “Click here”
- Error message recipe:
[What went wrong] + [What to try]— e.g., “We couldn’t reach your account. Check your connection and try again.” - Success confirmations: short and concrete — “You’re in. Check your inbox to finish setup.”
- Field labels: minimal — usually a single word (“Email”, “Work email”) because the dark layout’s whitespace makes function obvious
Empty States
The empty-inbox state: “All caught up. Shortwave will surface what needs you.” — action-implying, never just “No messages”. The unconnected-account state names the next move: “Connect Gmail to start automating.”
CTA Verb Conventions
- Primary action: “Get started for free” (hero, nav, closing band)
- Secondary action: “Watch demo”, “Sign in”
- Tertiary text: “Learn more”, “See how it works”
- Avoided: “Submit”, “Click here”, “Buy now” — the relationship is framed as starting (free), not buying
12. Dark Mode & Theming
The marketing site is natively dark. Unlike sites that run light-with-a-dark-band, Shortwave’s captured brand state is dark end to end — a near-black navy canvas (#0c0e16) carrying white type and one electric blue. The dark register isn’t a mode toggle on the marketing surface; it is the surface, and it deliberately mirrors the temperature of the product’s own dark theme so the site and the app read as one continuous environment.
The token system is built dark-first: surfaces lighten upward from the floor (#0c0e16 → #11141d → #161922 → #1d212c), borders are white-at-low-opacity rather than dark grey, and shadows are near-black-soft because elevation on dark comes from tonal lift and hairlines, not from heavy cast. If a light variant were ever needed, the mapping would invert: canvas → #ffffff, white text → a near-black ink, white hairlines → 8% black, and the blue #356aff would hold its value as the one constant across both modes (it clears contrast on both white and near-black).
The brand position: a dark canvas reads as software you work inside — IDE-adjacent, power-user-coded, serious about throughput. A light marketing site would push Shortwave toward the consumer-mail category it is explicitly not in.
13. Lineage & Influences
Shortwave’s visual lineage runs through three traditions. First, Google Inbox / Material’s product DNA — Shortwave was founded by ex-Google-Inbox engineers, and the site inherits Inbox’s bias toward bundling, automation, and a single confident accent colour, translated into a darker, more developer-grade register. Second, the dark developer-tool aesthetic popularised by Linear and Vercel — near-black canvas, white type, tonal surface layering, and restraint as a signal of seriousness. Third, the single-saturated-blue discipline that runs through Stripe and the broader productivity-SaaS canon — one electric blue (#356aff) carrying every action, no rainbow gradients despite being an AI product.
Where most 2020s AI products reach for purple-to-pink gradients, neon glows, and shimmer, Shortwave rejects that vocabulary almost entirely. The page is dark, flat-ish, and chromatically disciplined — the AI-forward positioning is carried by the copy (“Automate your email with AI”) and the product screenshots, not by gradient theatre. The blue is the only voltage, and it’s a confident, almost institutional blue rather than a synthetic AI-violet. Poppins for display adds the one note of warmth — its rounded geometry keeps the dark, precise canvas from reading cold or hostile, the same way a friendly onboarding face softens a technical product.
What Shortwave rejects: AI-gradient washes, multi-colour brand systems, fully-pill consumer buttons, exclamation-mark microcopy, and light-mode marketing brochure energy. The brand is dark-minimalist, capability-led, one-voltage.
Influences:
- Google Inbox — the founders’ prior product; bundling + automation DNA, single-accent discipline, killedbygoogle.com/google-inbox
- Linear — dark developer-grade canvas, tonal layering, restraint-as-seriousness, linear.app
- Vercel — near-black canvas with white type and a single confident accent, vercel.com
- Stripe — single-saturated-blue discipline across a productivity surface, stripe.com
- Poppins (Indian Type Foundry) — the geometric display face that warms the dark canvas, fonts.google.com/specimen/Poppins
14. Do’s and Don’ts
Do
- Build on the dark near-black navy canvas (
#0c0e16) — the brand is natively dark, not light-with-a-band - Keep type white (
#ffffff) for primary copy at every level — display and body alike - Reserve
#356affas the single voltage — primary CTA fill, focus ring, active underline, info accent - Use the lighter
#7d9bfffor inline blue text on dark so body-size links clear AA contrast - Set display in Poppins (700 hero), body in the neutral grotesque — never mix the two roles
- Land controls (buttons, inputs) at 8px radius, cards at 12px, hero shells at 16px
- Layer surfaces tonally (
#0c0e16→#161922→#1d212c) for elevation instead of heavy shadow - Use 8% white hairlines (
rgba(255,255,255,0.08)) as dividers — never solid grey - Reserve the blue-tinted glow for the primary CTA hover — the one place colour and lift combine
- Give the product screenshot the heaviest shadow and the 16px frame — it’s the hero object
- Lead copy with capability and automation (“Automate your email with AI”), confident and direct
Don’t
- Don’t put the page on a light/cream canvas — the dark floor is the whole register
- Don’t render body in a serif —
Timesin the raw probe is the unloaded fallback, not the shipped face - Don’t set body copy in Poppins — it reads soft and brochure-ish; Poppins is display-only
- Don’t introduce a second brand colour — the blue carries every action, full stop
- Don’t reach for AI-violet gradients, neon glows, or shimmer — Shortwave rejects that vocabulary
- Don’t use full-saturation
#356afffor body-size link text on dark — it sits at the AA edge; use#7d9bff - Don’t make buttons fully pill — 8px reads software-grade; 9999px is reserved for small announcement chips
- Don’t carry elevation with heavy black drop shadows on the dark canvas — lean on tonal lift + hairlines
- Don’t use pure
#000for the canvas —#0c0e16carries a faint navy that keeps the dark from going flat - Don’t use exclamation marks in microcopy — the voice is confident, not giddy
- Don’t break the radius hierarchy — 8px controls, 12px cards, never the reverse
15. Agent Prompt Guide
Quick Color Reference
Canvas: #0c0e16
Surface: #161922
Surface-elev: #1d212c
Text (white): #ffffff
Text-soft: #c4cad8
Text-muted: #9aa3b8
Brand: #356aff
Brand-hover: #2a59e6
Brand-soft: #7d9bff
Brand-tint: rgba(53,106,255,0.12)
Hairline: rgba(255,255,255,0.08)
On-brand: #ffffffExample Component Prompts
- “Create a Shortwave-style hero: dark near-black navy canvas (#0c0e16), 64px / 700 Poppins headline ‘Automate your email with AI’ in white with -0.03em tracking and 1.0 line-height, then an 18px / 400 deck beneath in #c4cad8 at 1.55 line-height. Below: a primary blue CTA (#356aff fill, white text, 8px radius, 10×16px padding) labelled ‘Get started for free’ beside a ghost button (transparent, white text, 1px rgba(255,255,255,0.16) border) labelled ‘Watch demo’. Max-width 1280px centred.”
- “Design a Shortwave feature card: #161922 surface on a #0c0e16 page, 12px radius, 1px hairline border at rgba(255,255,255,0.08), 24px padding, soft near-black shadow (rgba(0,0,0,0.32) 0 4px 16px -4px). Inside: a 24px / 600 Poppins white title, then 16px / 400 body in #c4cad8 at 1.55 line-height, then an inline link in #7d9bff at the bottom. On hover the surface lightens to #1d212c and the hairline strengthens to 16% white.”
- “Build a Shortwave product-screenshot band: dark canvas (#0c0e16), a centred app screenshot inside a 16px-radius frame with a heavy soft shadow (rgba(0,0,0,0.48) 0 16px 40px -12px), a 32px / 600 Poppins white section heading above it, and a 12px / 600 uppercase blue-soft (#7d9bff) overline label above that with 0.08em tracking.”
- “Create the Shortwave nav: 64px tall, transparent over the dark canvas with a 1px rgba(255,255,255,0.08) bottom hairline on scroll. Wordmark left in white. Centred links (Product, Pricing, Blog) in 15px white, brand-soft blue (#7d9bff) on hover. Right side: a ghost ‘Sign in’ button (transparent, white, 1px 16%-white border, 8px radius), then a blue ‘Get started for free’ CTA (#356aff fill, white text, 8px radius).”
- “Build a Shortwave email signup: #11141d-fill input with a 1px rgba(255,255,255,0.16) border, 8px radius, 44px height, white text, placeholder ‘Enter your work email’ in #9aa3b8. On focus the border turns #356aff with a 3px rgba(53,106,255,0.12) tint halo. The ‘Get started for free’ blue CTA sits flush right of the input with no gap as one combined affordance.”
- “Design a Shortwave AI-capability tile: #161922 surface, 12px radius, 8%-white hairline, 24px padding. A tinted-blue pill at top (rgba(53,106,255,0.12) fill, #7d9bff text, 9999px radius, 4×10px padding) reading ‘AI’, then a 20px / 600 white title, then 14px / 400 #9aa3b8 body. No bright gradients — the blue is the only colour event.”
Iteration Guide
- Canvas stays dark. Anything other than the near-black navy
#0c0e16breaks the brand — Shortwave is natively dark, not light-with-a-band. - One blue voltage per fold. If two
#356affCTAs are visible at once, demote one to a ghost or soft-blue button — the brand colour draws the eye, it doesn’t paper the page. - Poppins for display only. Headlines in Poppins 700; body in the neutral grotesque. Body in Poppins reads brochure-soft; the hero in grotesque loses its warmth.
Timesis a ghost — ignore it. If you sawTimesin a probe, that’s the unloaded fallback. Set body in an Inter-class sans, never a serif.- Blue text uses
#7d9bff, blue fills use#356aff. Full-saturation blue on near-black is at the AA edge for body text — use the lighter blue for link text, the full blue for CTA fills and large accents. - Layer surfaces tonally.
#0c0e16floor →#161922card →#1d212chover. Don’t reach for heavy black shadows to create depth on dark. - 8 / 12 / 16 — controls / cards / hero. The radius hierarchy is invariant. Buttons aren’t pill; pill is reserved for small announcement chips.
- No AI-violet, no gradients. The AI positioning lives in the copy and the screenshots, not in gradient washes or neon glows. Keep it dark, flat, and one-voltage.
Theme-toggle audit: score=0, signals=[native-dark]
Drop shortwave into your project, then ship the actual sections in an afternoon.
1 · install design
npx @webdesignhot/design-md add shortwave 2 · ship landing page
npx agentkit init --design shortwave