Gradients

Wherever a brand surface needs depth — the app icon ground, the gradient variant of the lockup, an internal cover — this recipe is used and no other. The angle is not negotiable: 150° keeps the light entering from the same side everywhere.

It is not a page decoration. The product works on flat surfaces; Depth appears on identity pieces, never behind data.

Four allowed pairs: any stretch of the cold scale, in order. Because they all share the hue, the midpoint of each pair is itself a family blue.

Terracotta, jade and honey never enter a gradient. They are solid-detail colours — their midpoint with any blue is a murky grey or an olive that does not exist in 04 · Color. Terracotta touches the family as flat ink, never as a stop.

When the agent is present — voice, work in progress — the family flows as a mesh. The four stops are fixed and the speeds are state: 0.35 at rest, 1.4 active, 0 under reduced motion.

It is the live exception of 09 · Motion applied to colour: the flow dies the instant the state ends. It is never a page background and never runs behind text or data — which is why this field carries not a single word.

Paper is the system’s third gradient: a dot field of a single accent over a deep ground, at speed 0.06 — it breathes rather than moves. Over dark grounds the accent uses its dark grade, the same one dark mode uses.

It is bounded by landing law: never behind running copy, product proof, navigation or the booking calendar. It is weather, not content.