Kentō

# Kentō

## Philosophy

Kentō is a flat woodblock-print interface sliced by deliberate digital signal corruption. Named for the kentō registration mark that aligns each color block on a woodblock press, the language pulls that mark a few pixels out of true on purpose: near-black sumi contours frame every panel, poster-flat color planes sit on warm parchment, and headlines ghost into the red and green channels like a misregistered print. Calm negative space meets confrontational brutalist clarity — the glitch is the craft, never random damage.

### Values

- Treat negative space as an active compositional force, not leftover area.
- Draw structure with inked contours and frame lines before any shadow or blur.
- Keep color fields flat and poster-like, echoing inked blocks rather than gradients.
- Make every digital artifact deliberate: the registration offset and scanlines sharpen identity, never reduce clarity.
- Compose with asymmetric gravity so each screen reads like a curated print poster.
- Balance poetic woodblock calm against harsh utility so the interface feels crafted and immediate at once.

### Anti-Values

- Soft glassmorphism, blur, or neumorphic depth.
- Symmetrical grids that erase directional tension.
- Smooth gradients or color glow standing in for printed flatness.
- Random illegible glitch damage with no system behind it.
- Tiny low-contrast controls that disappear into the parchment.
- A white or pastel-wash ground that drops the printed-sheet identity.

### Visual Character

- thick near-black sumi ink contours framing every major panel and control
- warm parchment ground with generous print-margin negative space around one dominant column
- flat vermilion, indigo, and pine color planes with no gradients, one field dominating each region
- registration offset: headlines and mastheads ghost into the red and green channels like a misregistered print
- deliberate scanline bands on headers and media frames, plus hard offset ink shadows and double-rule dividers
- asymmetric compositions with vertical cartouche labels and stepped, clipped panel corners

## Tokens

### Colors

| Name | Value |
|------|-------|
| primary | `#C53A2F` |
| secondary | `#1F3A5F` |
| accent | `#2A8C6E` |
| background | `#F3E9D2` |
| surface | `#FBF5E6` |
| surface_2 | `#ECDFC2` |
| text | `#171311` |
| muted | `#6F6149` |
| border | `#171311` |
| on_accent | `#FBF5E6` |
| error | `#A12822` |
| success | `#2F6B50` |
| warning | `#B06A1A` |
| info | `#1F3A5F` |

### Typography

- **Base Size**: 17px
- **Body Font**: Shippori Mincho B1
- **Heading Font**: Zen Kaku Gothic New
- **Mono Font**: Share Tech Mono
- **Heading Weight**: 900
- **Heading Transform**: none
- **Letter Spacing**: -0.01em
- **Line Height**: 1.6
- **Scale Ratio**: 1.25
- **Google Fonts Url**: https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Shippori+Mincho+B1:wght@400;500;700;800&family=Share+Tech+Mono&family=Zen+Kaku+Gothic+New:wght@400;500;700;900&display=swap

### Radii

- **None**: 0px
- **Sm**: 0px
- **Md**: 0px
- **Lg**: 0px
- **Full**: 9999px

### Shadows

- **Sm**: 4px 4px 0 #171311
- **Md**: 8px 8px 0 #171311
- **Press**: 2px 2px 0 #171311

### Spacing

- **Base**: 8px
- **Scale**: [4,8,12,16,24,32,48,64,96]

### Surfaces

- **Treatment**: flat woodblock paper
- **Card Style**: flat parchment panels with sumi contours, hard offset shadows, occasional stepped corners and scanline bands
- **Bg Pattern**: fine woodblock paper grain

### Borders

- **Default Width**: 3px
- **Accent Width**: 5px
- **Style**: solid
- **Character**: near-black sumi ink contours with emphatic outer frames and double-rule dividers

### Motion

- **Duration**: 160ms
- **Easing**: cubic-bezier(0.2, 0.9, 0.2, 1)
- **Philosophy**: snappy; press translates the hard offset shadow

## Rules

### Composition

Anchor each screen with one dominant narrative panel, a narrow utility rail of vertical cartouche labels, and smaller slabs pinned around it. Use asymmetry, but keep reading order obvious through strong inked framing and label systems.

### Hierarchy

Poster-weight Zen Kaku headlines and numeric mono status blocks dominate by scale and contour weight; supporting copy sits in a restrained Shippori Mincho serif; utility labels use Share Tech Mono microtype and vertical cartouches.

### Density

Moderate: enough tools and data to feel operational, with intentional gaps so the print-inspired calm survives.

### Signature

The registration offset — a single reusable primitive that ghosts headlines, badges, and panel edges into the red and green channels, like a color block printed a few pixels off its kentō mark. Supported by deliberate scanline bands, stepped/clipped corners, double-rule dividers, and hard offset ink shadows.

## Layout

### Grid

Desktop uses a 12-column asymmetric composition with a wide main sheet, a narrow utility rail, and offset slabs. Tablet collapses to a single wide sheet with the rail moving below. Mobile becomes a single-column stack with full-width actions; dense data scrolls horizontally only where necessary.

### Whitespace

Preserve large top and side print-margin breathing space around the dominant sheet; padding feels like printed margins, generous for narrative blocks and tighter for data modules.

### Density

balanced

### Responsive

Single-column stack on mobile; hide non-essential nav links; minmax(0,1fr) columns and min-width:0 children so grids never overflow; cap and center contained content on ultra-wide while the hero spans 100vw.

### Breakpoints

- **Mobile**: 0-759px
- **Tablet**: 760-1000px
- **Desktop**: 1001px+

## Guidance

### Do

- Let one color field dominate each region while neighbors stay parchment.
- Wear an inked sumi contour on cards, inputs, buttons, tables, and alerts so structure reads instantly.
- Preserve large breathing areas; let some zones stay intentionally sparse.
- Use the registration offset on headlines and mastheads, and scanline bands on headers and media frames, sparingly.
- Style every form control with the same inked frame language.
- Keep interactions tactile through hard offset shadows and pressed states.

### Don't

- Fill every area with decoration; emptiness is part of the style.
- Use smooth gradients, glass blur, or soft neumorphic depth.
- Center everything; the language depends on directional tension.
- Treat the glitch as random damage or illegible distortion.
- Leave browser-default checkboxes, selects, or buttons visible.
- Default to a white or pastel ground that loses the printed-sheet identity.

### Accessibility

Body 17px on high-contrast sumi-on-parchment; reserve the registration offset for large display type so body copy stays crisp; respect prefers-reduced-motion by settling all reveals immediately; every control has a visible focus state via the hard offset shadow.

## Imagery Direction

### Pairs With

surimono-signal

### Summary

Glitched woodblock prints: flat poster color planes in vermilion, indigo, and pine on warm parchment, framed by heavy sumi contours and interrupted by deliberate scanline bands and RGB registration offset.

### Subjects

- a leaping carp
- cresting waves
- a single object filling the frame
- a mid-distance figure or motif

### Usage

Hero and feature imagery only; keep one dominant color field, reserve quiet parchment space for asymmetric gravity, and never wallpaper the glitch.

---
version: "alpha"
name: "Kentō"
description: "Agent-curated design language exported from Katagami as DESIGN.md."
colors:
  primary: "#C53A2F"
  secondary: "#1F3A5F"
  accent: "#2A8C6E"
  background: "#F3E9D2"
  surface: "#FBF5E6"
  surface_2: "#ECDFC2"
  text: "#171311"
  muted: "#6F6149"
  border: "#171311"
  on_accent: "#FBF5E6"
  error: "#A12822"
  success: "#2F6B50"
  warning: "#B06A1A"
  info: "#1F3A5F"
typography:
  headline-lg:
    fontFamily: "Zen Kaku Gothic New"
    fontSize: "2.075rem"
    fontWeight: 700
    lineHeight: 1.1
    letterSpacing: "-0.01em"
  headline-md:
    fontFamily: "Zen Kaku Gothic New"
    fontSize: "1.66rem"
    fontWeight: 600
    lineHeight: 1.15
    letterSpacing: "-0.01em"
  body-md:
    fontFamily: "Shippori Mincho B1"
    fontSize: "17px"
    fontWeight: 400
    lineHeight: 1.6
    letterSpacing: "-0.01em"
  label-md:
    fontFamily: "Share Tech Mono"
    fontSize: "0.75rem"
    fontWeight: 600
    lineHeight: 1
    letterSpacing: "0.08em"
rounded:
  none: "0px"
  sm: "0px"
  md: "0px"
  lg: "0px"
  full: "9999px"
spacing:
  base: "8px"
  xs: "4px"
  sm: "8px"
  md: "12px"
  lg: "16px"
  xl: "24px"
  2xl: "32px"
  3xl: "48px"
  4xl: "64px"
  step-8: "96px"
components:
  color-reference-primary:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.primary}"
  color-reference-secondary:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.secondary}"
  color-reference-accent:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.accent}"
  color-reference-background:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.background}"
  color-reference-surface:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.surface}"
  color-reference-surface_2:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.surface_2}"
  color-reference-text:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.text}"
  color-reference-muted:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.muted}"
  color-reference-border:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.border}"
  color-reference-on_accent:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.on_accent}"
  color-reference-error:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.error}"
  color-reference-success:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.success}"
  color-reference-warning:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.warning}"
  color-reference-info:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.info}"
  button-primary:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.primary}"
    textColor: "#ffffff"
    typography: "{typography.label-md}"
    rounded: "{rounded.md}"
    padding: "{spacing.md}"
  card-surface:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.surface}"
    textColor: "{colors.text}"
    rounded: "{rounded.md}"
    padding: "{spacing.md}"
  input-default:
    backgroundColor: "{colors.surface}"
    textColor: "{colors.text}"
    rounded: "{rounded.md}"
    height: "44px"
---

# Kentō

## Overview

Kentō is a flat woodblock-print interface sliced by deliberate digital signal corruption. Named for the kentō registration mark that aligns each color block on a woodblock press, the language pulls that mark a few pixels out of true on purpose: near-black sumi contours frame every panel, poster-flat color planes sit on warm parchment, and headlines ghost into the red and green channels like a misregistered print. Calm negative space meets confrontational brutalist clarity — the glitch is the craft, never random damage.

### Values

- Treat negative space as an active compositional force, not leftover area.
- Draw structure with inked contours and frame lines before any shadow or blur.
- Keep color fields flat and poster-like, echoing inked blocks rather than gradients.
- Make every digital artifact deliberate: the registration offset and scanlines sharpen identity, never reduce clarity.
- Compose with asymmetric gravity so each screen reads like a curated print poster.
- Balance poetic woodblock calm against harsh utility so the interface feels crafted and immediate at once.

### Anti-Values

- Soft glassmorphism, blur, or neumorphic depth.
- Symmetrical grids that erase directional tension.
- Smooth gradients or color glow standing in for printed flatness.
- Random illegible glitch damage with no system behind it.
- Tiny low-contrast controls that disappear into the parchment.
- A white or pastel-wash ground that drops the printed-sheet identity.

### Visual Character

- thick near-black sumi ink contours framing every major panel and control
- warm parchment ground with generous print-margin negative space around one dominant column
- flat vermilion, indigo, and pine color planes with no gradients, one field dominating each region
- registration offset: headlines and mastheads ghost into the red and green channels like a misregistered print
- deliberate scanline bands on headers and media frames, plus hard offset ink shadows and double-rule dividers
- asymmetric compositions with vertical cartouche labels and stepped, clipped panel corners

## Colors

Use the YAML color tokens as the normative palette. The prose below names the roles agents should preserve when generating UI.

| Token | Value |
|-------|-------|
| primary | `#C53A2F` |
| secondary | `#1F3A5F` |
| accent | `#2A8C6E` |
| background | `#F3E9D2` |
| surface | `#FBF5E6` |
| surface_2 | `#ECDFC2` |
| text | `#171311` |
| muted | `#6F6149` |
| border | `#171311` |
| on_accent | `#FBF5E6` |
| error | `#A12822` |
| success | `#2F6B50` |
| warning | `#B06A1A` |
| info | `#1F3A5F` |

## Typography

- **Headline-Lg**: Zen Kaku Gothic New, 2.075rem, weight 700, line-height 1.1.
- **Headline-Md**: Zen Kaku Gothic New, 1.66rem, weight 600, line-height 1.15.
- **Body-Md**: Shippori Mincho B1, 17px, weight 400, line-height 1.6.
- **Label-Md**: Share Tech Mono, 0.75rem, weight 600, line-height 1.

## Layout

### Spacing Tokens

- **Base**: `8px`
- **Xs**: `4px`
- **Sm**: `8px`
- **Md**: `12px`
- **Lg**: `16px`
- **Xl**: `24px`
- **2xl**: `32px`
- **3xl**: `48px`
- **4xl**: `64px`
- **Step-8**: `96px`

### Grid

Desktop uses a 12-column asymmetric composition with a wide main sheet, a narrow utility rail, and offset slabs. Tablet collapses to a single wide sheet with the rail moving below. Mobile becomes a single-column stack with full-width actions; dense data scrolls horizontally only where necessary.

### Whitespace

Preserve large top and side print-margin breathing space around the dominant sheet; padding feels like printed margins, generous for narrative blocks and tighter for data modules.

### Density

balanced

### Responsive

Single-column stack on mobile; hide non-essential nav links; minmax(0,1fr) columns and min-width:0 children so grids never overflow; cap and center contained content on ultra-wide while the hero spans 100vw.

### Breakpoints

- **Mobile**: 0-759px
- **Tablet**: 760-1000px
- **Desktop**: 1001px+

## Elevation & Depth

### Shadows

- **Sm**: 4px 4px 0 #171311
- **Md**: 8px 8px 0 #171311
- **Press**: 2px 2px 0 #171311

## Shapes

### Rounded

- **None**: `0px`
- **Sm**: `0px`
- **Md**: `0px`
- **Lg**: `0px`
- **Full**: `9999px`

### Surfaces

- **Treatment**: flat woodblock paper
- **Card Style**: flat parchment panels with sumi contours, hard offset shadows, occasional stepped corners and scanline bands
- **Bg Pattern**: fine woodblock paper grain

### Borders

- **Default Width**: 3px
- **Accent Width**: 5px
- **Style**: solid
- **Character**: near-black sumi ink contours with emphatic outer frames and double-rule dividers

## Components

### Composition

Anchor each screen with one dominant narrative panel, a narrow utility rail of vertical cartouche labels, and smaller slabs pinned around it. Use asymmetry, but keep reading order obvious through strong inked framing and label systems.

### Hierarchy

Poster-weight Zen Kaku headlines and numeric mono status blocks dominate by scale and contour weight; supporting copy sits in a restrained Shippori Mincho serif; utility labels use Share Tech Mono microtype and vertical cartouches.

### Density

Moderate: enough tools and data to feel operational, with intentional gaps so the print-inspired calm survives.

### Signature

The registration offset — a single reusable primitive that ghosts headlines, badges, and panel edges into the red and green channels, like a color block printed a few pixels off its kentō mark. Supported by deliberate scanline bands, stepped/clipped corners, double-rule dividers, and hard offset ink shadows.

## shadcn/ui Usage

When the target app uses shadcn/ui, copy DESIGN.md with shadcn instead of the plain DESIGN.md. It contains the same Katagami design-language source plus the shadcn/ui primitives, imports, theme variables, component recipes, and preview-shot guidance.

DESIGN.md with shadcn: `/language/en-019ef8ba-eb77-7e21-ba70-1f1eed4e6b02/DESIGN.with-shadcn.md`.

The shadcn page also exposes optional machine-readable files for automation, but the human-facing handoff is DESIGN.md with shadcn.

Install recommended primitives with `npx shadcn@latest add button card input textarea select dialog sheet tabs badge separator checkbox switch slider tooltip dropdown-menu table`.

Use these primitives in shadcn apps:
- button
- card
- input
- textarea
- select
- dialog
- sheet
- tabs
- badge
- separator
- checkbox
- switch
- slider
- tooltip
- dropdown-menu
- table

Implementation rule for agents: import shadcn primitives from `@/components/ui/*`, apply the generated CSS variables first, then compose the language-specific recipes from the companion MD. Katagami remains the source of truth; shadcn names are the implementation surface.

## Do's and Don'ts

- Do Let one color field dominate each region while neighbors stay parchment.
- Do Wear an inked sumi contour on cards, inputs, buttons, tables, and alerts so structure reads instantly.
- Do Preserve large breathing areas; let some zones stay intentionally sparse.
- Do Use the registration offset on headlines and mastheads, and scanline bands on headers and media frames, sparingly.
- Do Style every form control with the same inked frame language.
- Do Keep interactions tactile through hard offset shadows and pressed states.
- Don't Fill every area with decoration; emptiness is part of the style.
- Don't Use smooth gradients, glass blur, or soft neumorphic depth.
- Don't Center everything; the language depends on directional tension.
- Don't Treat the glitch as random damage or illegible distortion.
- Don't Leave browser-default checkboxes, selects, or buttons visible.
- Don't Default to a white or pastel ground that loses the printed-sheet identity.

### Accessibility

Body 17px on high-contrast sumi-on-parchment; reserve the registration offset for large display type so body copy stays crisp; respect prefers-reduced-motion by settling all reveals immediately; every control has a visible focus state via the hard offset shadow.

## Imagery Direction

### Pairs With

surimono-signal

### Summary

Glitched woodblock prints: flat poster color planes in vermilion, indigo, and pine on warm parchment, framed by heavy sumi contours and interrupted by deliberate scanline bands and RGB registration offset.

### Subjects

- a leaping carp
- cresting waves
- a single object filling the frame
- a mid-distance figure or motif

### Usage

Hero and feature imagery only; keep one dominant color field, reserve quiet parchment space for asymmetric gravity, and never wallpaper the glitch.

```json
{
  "$schema": "https://ui.shadcn.com/schema/registry-item.json",
  "name": "kento",
  "type": "registry:theme",
  "title": "Kentō shadcn Theme",
  "cssVars": {
    "theme": {},
    "light": {
      "background": "#F3E9D2",
      "foreground": "#171311",
      "card": "#FBF5E6",
      "card-foreground": "#171311",
      "popover": "#FBF5E6",
      "popover-foreground": "#171311",
      "primary": "#C53A2F",
      "primary-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "secondary": "#1F3A5F",
      "secondary-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "muted": "#6F6149",
      "muted-foreground": "#171311",
      "accent": "#2A8C6E",
      "accent-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "destructive": "#A12822",
      "border": "#171311",
      "input": "#171311",
      "ring": "#2A8C6E",
      "chart-1": "#C53A2F",
      "chart-2": "#1F3A5F",
      "chart-3": "#2A8C6E",
      "chart-4": "#2F6B50",
      "chart-5": "#B06A1A",
      "sidebar": "#FBF5E6",
      "sidebar-foreground": "#171311",
      "sidebar-primary": "#C53A2F",
      "sidebar-primary-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "sidebar-accent": "#1F3A5F",
      "sidebar-accent-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "sidebar-border": "#171311",
      "sidebar-ring": "#2A8C6E",
      "radius": "0px"
    },
    "dark": {
      "background": "#0f1115",
      "foreground": "#f8fafc",
      "card": "#181b22",
      "card-foreground": "#f8fafc",
      "popover": "#181b22",
      "popover-foreground": "#f8fafc",
      "primary": "#C53A2F",
      "primary-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "secondary": "#252a33",
      "secondary-foreground": "#f8fafc",
      "muted": "#252a33",
      "muted-foreground": "#a1a1aa",
      "accent": "#2A8C6E",
      "accent-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "destructive": "#A12822",
      "border": "#303642",
      "input": "#303642",
      "ring": "#2A8C6E",
      "chart-1": "#C53A2F",
      "chart-2": "#1F3A5F",
      "chart-3": "#2A8C6E",
      "chart-4": "#2F6B50",
      "chart-5": "#B06A1A",
      "sidebar": "#181b22",
      "sidebar-foreground": "#f8fafc",
      "sidebar-primary": "#C53A2F",
      "sidebar-primary-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "sidebar-accent": "#2A8C6E",
      "sidebar-accent-foreground": "#ffffff",
      "sidebar-border": "#303642",
      "sidebar-ring": "#2A8C6E",
      "radius": "0px"
    }
  },
  "meta": {
    "source": "katagami",
    "languageId": "en-019ef8ba-eb77-7e21-ba70-1f1eed4e6b02",
    "slug": "kento",
    "componentManifest": [
      "button",
      "card",
      "input",
      "textarea",
      "select",
      "dialog",
      "sheet",
      "tabs",
      "badge",
      "separator",
      "checkbox",
      "switch",
      "slider",
      "tooltip",
      "dropdown-menu",
      "table"
    ],
    "installCommand": "npx shadcn@latest add button card input textarea select dialog sheet tabs badge separator checkbox switch slider tooltip dropdown-menu table",
    "nativeTokenNames": {
      "colors": [
        "accent",
        "background",
        "border",
        "error",
        "info",
        "muted",
        "on_accent",
        "primary",
        "secondary",
        "success",
        "surface",
        "surface_2",
        "text",
        "warning"
      ],
      "typography": [
        "base_size",
        "body_font",
        "google_fonts_url",
        "heading_font",
        "heading_transform",
        "heading_weight",
        "letter_spacing",
        "line_height",
        "mono_font",
        "scale_ratio"
      ],
      "radii": [
        "full",
        "lg",
        "md",
        "none",
        "sm"
      ],
      "shadows": [
        "md",
        "press",
        "sm"
      ],
      "spacing": [
        "base",
        "scale"
      ],
      "surfaces": [
        "bg_pattern",
        "card_style",
        "treatment"
      ],
      "borders": [
        "accent_width",
        "character",
        "default_width",
        "style"
      ],
      "motion": [
        "duration",
        "easing",
        "philosophy"
      ]
    }
  }
}
```