Thursday, November 12, 2026

Self-check

1. Hero quotability: Yes — two imperatives, seven words, readable with nothing around them.
2. Because-of chain: Yes — cutting gives a duotone with no neutrals, no texture and no motion, and "what's left" gives the work index as the object, biggest first.
3. Render feasibility: Yes — SPACEMAN at 128px is about 670px wide in an 800px track, and the h1 at 2xl sets one sentence per line inside 1100px.
4. Canvas floor feasible: Yes — rail, hero zone, a 240px mint band and the next row fill about 75% of 1440×900.
5. Phone: Yes — band 120px plus the h1 at 2xl in five short lines lands by about 420px, and the longest word, DOESN'T, fits 328px.

Rationale

The phrase is "Cut what doesn't matter. Ship what's left." It comes from the Ueshiba quote and the reading-list piece about software as sculpture, put in Doug's terms. The second sentence promises something, so the page shows what's left: seven projects, set as the largest object, biggest first. That makes it a list day. The phrase sits above the list as a standfirst h1 at 2xl, and the first project title takes marquee scale. Row sizes step down the ramp from hero to 2xl, which is where the accelerating rhythm comes from. It is the terracotta specimen's type waterfall applied to work titles.

A ledger has to hang off one edge, so the shell moves out of the way into a left rail. That placement has not shipped in the window and it avoids the rejected top bar. The rail carries the mark at 48px in original colours on the darkest mulberry, and a one-sentence nav. The chassis is anybody-franklin, which has not shipped in fourteen builds. Wide heavy italic caps make short project names read as built objects, and the italic gives "ship" forward lean without tipping into parody at 2xl. Franklin answers Anybody's square grotesk skeleton in the body. Caps, italic and heavy are the type moves. Alignment stays left and texture stays none despite recency, because a ledger reads from one rail and a decorative texture would contradict the phrase. Motion is none for the same reason.

The palette follows the cut: two hues, no neutral plane. Mulberry at 304° takes the only band the mandate leaves open and suits a 4:52 sunset. Mint at 150° sits inside the mandate's target range as the ink and as the one flooded field, the Spaceman row, which runs off the right edge. Duotone is off the recent-formula list, and no ground material is used. At 360 the rail becomes a top band, the mint row goes full-bleed under the phrase, and the titles keep stepping down.

Composition rationale

"Ship what's left" makes the work index the object, so hero_object moves off statement to list, with the phrase as its standfirst. shell_posture moves to marginal because a left rail has not shipped in the window and it gives rail-to-band a real rail to collapse. symmetry moves onto the discouraged left-weighted because a ledger has to hang off one left edge, which is also a standing owner rule. The remaining starting values stay because the idea needs them: horizontal rows, a waterfall that speeds up as titles shrink, three tracks (rail, title, meta), and a mint band that runs off the right edge.