Saturday, October 24, 2026

Visual specification

1. Color Specification

• Primary hue: 34° (trophy amber). A Detroit blowout is triumph, and triumph wants a saturated single hue drenched edge to edge. 34° pushes the recent gold cluster (44–52°) toward orange so it reads as its own ground, and it answers late October without turning into a Halloween costume. It sits just under the mandate's 40–80 target; the justification is triumph plus seasonal warmth plus differentiation from five recent golds.
• Neutral palette (warm umber): 50 #F7F1E6, 100 #EADCC4, 200 #D3BD94, 300 #B2975F, 400 #8A6E3C, 500 #654E28, 600 #5E4414, 700 #3E2D0C, 800 #2A1D0B, 900 #1C1004
• Accent (oxblood): light #DD7154, default #A82E15, dark #6A180B, glow #C9472A
• Secondary accent: oxblood is the only second register; used as a fill chip for the winning side and the margin, never as small text on amber.
• Background: page ground #D07C0C (amber drench), band/callout bg #BE7310, raised surface #ECA428, knockout footer field #1C1004
• Text colors: primary #1C1004, secondary #2A1D0B, faint #3E2D0C; on the knockout field, ink #FCEAC8, muted #F3BC54

2. Typography

• Hero phrase rendering: the FIGURE is the object. 128–111 is set in display (Alfa Slab One) at the hero step, hero_scale clamp, centred, near-black ink on the amber flood, arriving by a left-to-right wipe like a flip-board. The h1 phrase "Pistons run away with it" sits one step down at 4xl, caps, centred, directly beneath the number as its caption; together the number and its caption are the single h1.
• Type treatment: use the ramp steps as textStyles. hero for the score; 4xl for the caption line; 2xl for satellite figures (golf −13, moon 98.8%, SPY −0.52%, 41.7°F); lede/md for the deck and satellite labels; base for any body; sm/xs tracked caps for micro labels and the footer box-score. Mid-register is mandatory: the 2xl satellite numbers and the lede deck fill the gap between the poster score and the fine print.

3. Layout Specification

• Composition: three / radial / broken / center / measured / interrupted / footer-only / drenched / hero-only / figure. The score is the fixed point of a scoreboard, so it sits dead center and the day's other facts orbit it; the near-symmetry of that orbit is broken once (the oxblood margin chip pulled off-axis toward the 128) and that break is the focus.
• CSS grid/flex structure: display: grid; grid-template-columns: 1fr minmax(auto, 920px) 1fr; place-items: center; with satellites absolutely positioned at radial offsets around the center cell at 1440.
• Major dimensions:
  • Hero orbit area: min-height: 88vh
  • No sidebar.
  • Max content width: max-width: none; padding: 96px 6vw. Full-width canvas, not a centered measure column (body copy inside the callout/about caps at ~66ch).
  • Section spacing on a 1.5× base; one deliberate large gap (the caesura) between the orbit and the home callout.
• Nav placement: deferred to the foot (footer-only). The mark lives top-center of the amber hero, stacked above the score, inside the first fold at 1440 and 360.
• Hero phrase grid zone: center cell, rows 2–4, the 128–111 figure spanning ~720px wide at 1440 with the caption beneath; the orbit satellites occupy columns 1 and 3 at staggered heights.
• Home callout slot: on /, directly below the orbit section and above the footer box-score band, occupying the caesura gap. Full width, today's bgAlt/text/textMuted/accent/borderStrong. No copy or styling authored here.

4. Component Character

• Border radius: cards/chips 2px, the oxblood margin chip 2px, the circular satellites full; buttons 2px. Physical, hard-edged, no soft corners.
• Border treatment: hairlines in border (#94590C) around satellites; section rules in borderStrong (#2A1D0B). Bordered, not shadowed.
• Shadow: none. Depth comes from value (the amber flood, the dark footer field), not elevation.
• Density: measured. Satellites breathe; one large gap acts as the caesura.
• Interactive states: links underline-thicken on hover; the margin chip lifts opacity on hover; footer nav numbers shift to oxblood on hover.

5. Signal Integration

• Where signals live: the score is the center; everything else orbits as satellites, then repeats as a box-score row in the footer.
• Sports scores: 128–111 is the hero figure at hero scale, near-black on amber, winning side 128 tagged with an oxblood +17 chip (cream text). The caption names it.
• Quote: Napoleon Hill, "Opportunity often comes disguised in the form of misfortune or temporary defeat." Set small in the footer box-score band with attribution visible; it is NOT the hero.
• Golf: Butterfield Bermuda satellite, −13 at 2xl, labeled "Hirata / Blanchet, tied."
• Market: SPY 759.97 with an oxblood down-tick −0.52% satellite.
• Weather: 41.7°F clear, Aldie, as a satellite.
• Moon: a filled amber disc at 98.8%, full moon, the satellite pulled slightly to break symmetry.
• Music: The War on Drugs, Guided by Voices — one quiet line in the footer, framed as the rotation it is, never beside the score as an event.
• Holiday/season: Halloween in 7 days noted small in the footer upcoming line; the amber already carries the season.

Self-check

1. Hero quotability: Yes — "Pistons run away with it, 128–111" is a fan's line a Detroit follower would screenshot.
2. Because-of chain: Yes — a triumphant score demands a figure at poster scale (figure object, radial center), a physical loud slab (alfa-rubik), an amber triumph drench, and a scoreboard orbit grid.
3. Render feasibility: Yes — 128–111 at 160px Alfa Slab fits ~720px inside the 920px center cell at 1440 without overflow.
4. Canvas floor feasible: Yes — a drenched amber flood with a centered orbit and a knockout footer easily clears 78%.
5. Phone: Yes — at 360 the figure stacks 128 over 111 at the hero step (~110px, three digits ~200px) inside the first fold with its caption, no cut.

Rationale

The phrase is a composed Detroit score, "Pistons run away with it, 128–111," the one signal today that is unambiguously Doug's. A blowout is a number, so the composition leads with the object: hero_object figure, the score at poster scale, dead center, with everything else in the day treated as satellites that orbit it. Radial axis and a three-column grid give those satellites their positions; the near-symmetry of the orbit is broken once, the oxblood margin chip and the full-moon disc pulled off-axis, and that single violation is the focus the composition mandate asks for.

A score that runs away with it wants weight and physicality, not elegance, so the chassis is alfa-rubik, an ultra-bold fatface slab that has never shipped here and whose numbers read like a fairground flip-board at 160px. Its single display weight and roman-only cut force weight: regular and lead: roman; the caps, centred setting and type-as-texture ("DETROIT" ghosted amber-on-amber behind the score) are the decisions carrying the typographic variance. The palette is triumph made literal: a 34° trophy-amber drench across ~70% of the viewport, the gold-standard scoreboard flood, pushed off the recent gold cluster toward orange, with one oxblood accent doing exactly one job, marking the seventeen-point margin.

Layout serves the figure end to end. Footer-only defers the nav to a knockout box-score band at the foot where the day's facts belong, and plants the brand mark top-center of the hero so it sits in the first fold the owner keeps asking for; because a bright amber is a saturated mid-tone, the contract's contrast test fails the full-colour mark, so it renders single-color at 6.9:1 and will not sink. At 360 the orbit collapses to hero-only: the score stacks 128 over 111 like a board, caption beneath, satellites flattened into a column below. The home callout takes the caesura gap between the orbit and the footer.

Composition rationale

A scoreboard centers its score, so I moved hero_zone off the mandate's interleaved to center and columns off two-asymmetric to three: the figure is the fixed sun and the three-column grid hosts the satellites that orbit it, with symmetry broken once (the oxblood margin chip and the full-moon disc pulled off-axis) as the focus. I moved collapse off split-to-sequence to hero-only because a radial orbit has no split to sequence — at 360 the number must own the first fold and the satellites flatten below it. Radial, drenched, footer-only and figure stay on the starting tuple because a triumphant single number is exactly what they describe.