brand-art-direction

name: brand-art-direction description: "Material Design 3 / Vuetify 4 art-direction charter for the Vue SSR Starter Kit (e-xode/vue-ssr): the opinionated, screenshot-verifiable brand-identity layer above design-scss and design-ux. Defines the clean-minimal direction (single indigo brand accent, neutral-gray chrome, bordered flat MD3 surfaces, 8px rhythm, restraint over decoration) as DECIDABLE screenshot-checkable systems: quiet surface rhythm, canonical hover/elevation per component archetype with sibling consistency, palette roles, decorative restraint, and an evidence-based pre-delivery checklist graded by the visual-qa agent. Trigger on ANY visual/finition or polish work on rendered views: card hovers, surface backgrounds, elevation, accent usage, hero/CTA styling. Load BEFORE design-scss/design-ux when styling views. Don't use for: SCSS token/mixin mechanics (→ design-scss), UX methodology (→ design-ux), Vuetify component API (→ vuetify-components), design routing (→ vue-ssr-design), marketing copy (→ content-strategy)."

Brand Art Direction — Clean Minimal (MD3)

Owns the opinionated visual identity of the Vue SSR Starter Kit. design-scss says how to write SCSS; design-ux says how to reason about hierarchy; this skill says what the kit should feel like and which restrained devices carry that feeling. Load it first for any visual work on rendered views.

Golden rule of this charter: if you cannot confirm it on a rendered screenshot, it is not done. Every guardrail below is written to be answered from a PNG, not from intent. The visual-qa agent is the authoritative gate; this charter is the rubric it grades against.

Positioning

The starter kit is a clean, minimal, production-grade Material Design 3 foundation. It must read as trustworthy, modern, and developer-grade. The signature is restraint: bordered flat surfaces, a single indigo brand accent, generous whitespace on an 8px rhythm, and elevation that appears only on interaction. Never decorative, never noisy. A forker should inherit a coherent, quiet, professional base they can extend — not a themed showcase.

This is the opposite of a "wow" brand: the win condition is calm consistency, not visual spectacle. When in doubt, do less.

Live primitives only (read this first)

This charter relies exclusively on primitives that actually render in this project:

• Tokens from src/styles/variables.scss ($spacing-*, $border-radius-*, $shadow-sm..xl, $transition-*, $breakpoint-*, $gray-50..900, $white, $accent-indigo).
• The 11 mixins in src/styles/mixins.scss (notably hover-lift, transition, flex-*, respond-to), auto-injected via _inject.scss.
• Typography (Inter body, IBM Plex Mono mono) and the Vuetify theme + defaults in src/plugins/vuetify.js (indigo #4f46e5 primary, neutral-gray secondary, flat bordered cards, rounded: lg, tonal alerts).

It does NOT use _animations.scss / _utilities.scss classes (.glass, .text-gradient-*, .hover-glow-*, .animate-fade-up, .delay-*, .skeleton): they are not in the injection chain and emit no CSS in this project. Do not reference them — they render nothing. Consequently prefers-reduced-motion is NOT honored globally: any motion you add must carry its own @media (prefers-reduced-motion: reduce) guard. ➜ See skill: design-scss — token/mixin map (note: its _utilities/_animations listings are aspirational, not live here).

The direction (what it must look like on screen)

1. Quiet surfaces — only two: white surface and a light-gray background/surface-variant. Section boundaries are marked by the hairline outline border or a token shadow, never a saturated color band.
2. One brand color — indigo #4f46e5 (primary) carries identity: CTAs, links, active states, focus. Neutral gray is the chrome. There is no second expressive accent family.
3. Borders over shadows — MD3 outlined style. Cards are flat (elevation 0) and bordered by default; shadow appears only on hover/interaction, drawn from $shadow-*.
4. Whitespace is the device — rhythm comes from the 8px spacing scale and breathing room, not from decoration.
5. Restrained motion — animate transform/opacity only, with a self-contained reduced-motion guard. Short and purposeful ($transition-fast/$transition-base).
6. Characterful but sober type — Inter for UI, IBM Plex Mono for code/monospace moments. Weight and size create hierarchy; no gradient text, no display flourishes.
7. Feedback colors stay feedback — success/warning/error appear only on status, never as decoration.

System 1 — Quiet surface rhythm

A page is built from exactly two surfaces: white (surface, $white) and light gray (background $gray-50 / surface-variant $gray-100). No third tinted surface, no colored section band.

Cadence rules, all screenshot-checkable:

• Alternate quietly. Adjacent sections may switch surface to create rhythm; the switch is subtle, separated by the outline hairline or a soft $shadow-sm/$shadow-md.
• Readable, not loud. On the PNG you can tell one section from the next, but nothing shouts. A jarring color jump between sections is a defect (this is a minimal kit, not a warm-canvas brand).
• No scatter. Surface changes form an intentional structure down the page, not a random sprinkle.

System 2 — Canonical hover/elevation per archetype (kills inconsistent states)

Every interactive surface has exactly one sanctioned hover, decided by its archetype. Peers in the same grid share an archetype, therefore an identical hover. Mixed hovers within one block = 🔴.

Verify by capturing :hover on the first and last card of a block and comparing the two PNGs — they must match.

System 3 — Decorative restraint

• No dead-utility decoration. This kit has no live gradient/glass/glow primitives. Do not reach for .glass, .text-gradient-*, or .hover-glow-* — they render nothing. If you want a decorative panel, build it from live tokens (a $gray-100 block, a hairline outline divider).
• One accent moment per section, max. The indigo accent earns attention by being rare.
• Decorations stay inside their shape. An accent bar/border on a rounded card uses overflow: hidden + a pseudo-element. Never a raw border-left/border-top on a border-radius element, and never a ::before/::after offset outside the box — both produce square corners poking past the radius.

System 4 — Palette roles

Indigo functional brand; gray neutral chrome; feedback colors for feedback only; never invent a decorative color. Full role map + contrast rule: references/palette-roles.md.

Anti-overload guardrails (rank above everything; when in doubt, do less)

• Restraint first. Whitespace, borders, and one indigo accent are the identity. Adding color/shadow/motion usually subtracts from it.
• Sibling consistency. Visual peers (same grid/section) are identical in hover, shadow, border, and decoration.
• Motion self-guards. Animate transform/opacity only; include a prefers-reduced-motion: reduce block (no global handler exists here).
• Contrast holds. Any text on a colored chip/button/surface meets WCAG AA. Decorative-only color is exempt (but this kit has almost none).
• Decorations stay inside their shape. See System 3.

Pre-delivery checklist (every item answered from a screenshot)

Capture the page(s) with scripts/screenshots.mjs, then confirm from the PNGs:

1. Surface rhythm — in <page>-desktop.png, are sections quietly distinguishable (hairline/shadow), with no loud color band?
2. Sibling hover — in the first-card vs last-card :hover clips of each block, is the treatment identical?
3. Canonical hover — does each surface use exactly its archetype's hover (no rogue glow, no lift on a nav row)?
4. No dead decoration — is every intended decorative effect actually visible (nothing relying on a dead utility class that renders nothing)?
5. Color roles — does only indigo read as the brand/CTA color, with feedback colors confined to status?
6. Contrast — does text on any colored surface pass WCAG AA?
7. Reduced motion — in the --reduced-motion capture, are entrance/hover animations static/absent (proving the component's own guard works)?
8. Responsive — at mobile width, any overflow, collapse, or broken spacing?
9. Rendering integrity — do borders/decorations respect the corner radius (no straight bar past a rounded corner)? Any clipping, escaped decoration, overlap, clipped focus ring, or text overflow? (Objective bugs, charter-independent.)

Any 🔴/🟠 from visual-qa → fix and re-capture. Done means the PNGs are clean.

Routing table

How to evolve this charter

The charter is meant to live, not freeze.

• Tune intensity — if a surface or shadow reads too loud or too flat, adjust the token in src/styles/variables.scss (or the Vuetify theme) in one place and re-capture.
• Add a device — append it to references/signature-devices.md with its exact live token/mixin and a snippet; it must earn its place against "one accent per section" and use only injected primitives.
• Add a hover archetype — only if a genuinely new surface kind appears; add a row to System 2 with its single sanctioned hover.
• Promote a color role — a deliberate identity change: update references/palette-roles.md, change the Vuetify theme, note it in the changelog, re-capture all pages.