minimalist-academic-cover

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name: minimalist-academic-cover description: Generate minimalist academic-style cover images via Python/Pillow — black (#000000) solid background, centered bold white title (120px), thin subtitle (76px) below. ONLY text on black — no graphics, icons, dates, or logos. TRIGGER: activates when user mentions "simple cover", "minimalist cover", "academic cover", or "cover" without further qualifiers. For "detailed cover", "complex cover", "report-style cover", or "detailed cover"/"complex cover", do NOT use this skill — instead generate a detailed infographic with --style professional or --style scientific.

Minimalist Academic Cover Generator

Generate minimalist academic-style video covers using Python/Pillow — pure black (#000000) background with centered white text. No graphics, no NotebookLM infographic generation needed.

When to Activate vs. When to Use Detailed Infographic

Trigger	Action	Style
"simple cover", "minimalist cover", "academic cover"	✅ Use this skill	--style editorial — solid bg, pure text
"detailed cover", "complex cover", "report cover", "infographic cover"	❌ Skip this skill; generate detailed infographic instead	--style professional or --style scientific — rich graphics, data viz, layout

Workflow Steps

Step 1: Prerequisites

Requires Python 3 with Pillow:

pip install Pillow

Also requires a Chinese-capable font installed. On macOS these are built-in (PingFang, STHeiti). On Linux, install fonts-wqy-microhei.

Step 2: Generate Cover with Python/Pillow

Run the following Python script to generate a 1920×1080 pure black cover with bright yellow centered titles and dark stroke outline. Customize title/caption for the topic.

Design rules:

• Font sizes: title 130px, subtitle 86px (+10 over default)
• Titles: bright yellow (#FFD700) with dark brown stroke (width 3)
• Caption: light gray with stroke (width 2)
• All content must fit within the center 60% of the canvas (y: 216-864)
• If caption is too long, split into two lines to prevent canvas overflow

from PIL import Image, ImageDraw, ImageFont

W, H = 1920, 1080
img = Image.new('RGB', (W, H), color=(0, 0, 0))
draw = ImageDraw.Draw(img)

# Chinese-capable font — adjust path per OS
font_path = '/System/Library/Fonts/STHeiti Light.ttc'  # macOS

title1 = '[video-title-line-1]'
title2 = '[video-title-line-2]'
cap1 = '[caption-line-1]'
cap2 = '[caption-line-2 (split if too long)]'

font_title = ImageFont.truetype(font_path, 130)
font_sub = ImageFont.truetype(font_path, 86)

BRIGHT_YELLOW = (255, 215, 0)   # #FFD700
LIGHT_GRAY = (200, 200, 200)
STROKE_COLOR = (30, 20, 0)      # dark brown outline

# Compute text bboxes
b1 = draw.textbbox((0, 0), title1, font=font_title)
tw1, th1 = b1[2] - b1[0], b1[3] - b1[1]
b2 = draw.textbbox((0, 0), title2, font=font_title)
tw2, th2 = b2[2] - b2[0], b2[3] - b2[1]
b3 = draw.textbbox((0, 0), cap1, font=font_sub)
tw3, th3 = b3[2] - b3[0], b3[3] - b3[1]
b4 = draw.textbbox((0, 0), cap2, font=font_sub)
tw4, th4 = b4[2] - b4[0], b4[3] - b4[1]

gap_1_2 = 80
gap_2_3 = 140
gap_cap = 15

total_height = th1 + gap_1_2 + th2 + gap_2_3 + th3 + gap_cap + th4
block_top = (H - total_height) // 2

# Title line 1 — centered, bright yellow with stroke
tx1, ty1 = (W - tw1) // 2, block_top
draw.text((tx1, ty1), title1, fill=BRIGHT_YELLOW, font=font_title,
          stroke_width=3, stroke_fill=STROKE_COLOR)

# Title line 2 — below with gap, same style
tx2, ty2 = (W - tw2) // 2, ty1 + th1 + gap_1_2
draw.text((tx2, ty2), title2, fill=BRIGHT_YELLOW, font=font_title,
          stroke_width=3, stroke_fill=STROKE_COLOR)

# Caption line 1 — light gray with stroke
tx3, ty3 = (W - tw3) // 2, ty2 + th2 + gap_2_3
draw.text((tx3, ty3), cap1, fill=LIGHT_GRAY, font=font_sub,
          stroke_width=2, stroke_fill=STROKE_COLOR)

# Caption line 2 — below caption line 1
tx4, ty4 = (W - tw4) // 2, ty3 + th3 + gap_cap
draw.text((tx4, ty4), cap2, fill=LIGHT_GRAY, font=font_sub,
          stroke_width=2, stroke_fill=STROKE_COLOR)

img.save('input/cover.png')

Adjust font sizes by changing ImageFont.truetype() arguments (title 130, subtitle 86 recommended). Adjust vertical spacing by changing gap_1_2, gap_2_3, gap_cap. If caption fits in one line, omit cap2 and adjust total_height accordingly.

Step 3: Copy to Output Path

cp input/cover.png output/video/cover.png

Step 4: Verify Output

Confirm the output file exists at input/cover.png and is a valid PNG (check it visually).

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Design Specification

1. Core Visual Elements

• Background — MUST be solid black (#000000). No gradients, textures, decorative lines, or background images. This ensures absolute visual focus.
• Main Title — Extra Large font size (130px), Bold weight, Sans-serif. Centered horizontal alignment. Bright yellow (#FFD700) with dark brown outline stroke (width 3).
• Subtitle — Same style as main title (bright yellow #FFD700, stroke width 3). Placed below main title with gap (~80px).
• Caption — Font size 86px. Light gray (#C8C8C8) with outline stroke (width 2). Placed below subtitle. Split into two lines if content is too long.
• Content constraint — All text elements must fit within the center 60% of the canvas (y: 216-864) to ensure visual composition is tight and centered.
• Strictly forbidden — graphics, icons, illustrations, decorative lines, dates, author names, logos, watermarks. Only title + subtitle + caption exist on the canvas.

2. Generation Logic

• Semantic Alignment — The system must receive the core academic/research topic from the notebook's research sources and render the identified thesis as the title.
• Minimalist Constraint — Maximize informational negative space. Strip all small text, dates, author names, and logos. Only the title and subtitle are information carriers, delivering maximum visual impact.
• Defensive Design — If complex graphic instructions are detected (gradients, images, decorations), fall back to the pure solid-color + text template, ensuring the cover maintains a rigorous academic tone.

3. Default Parameters

Parameter	Value
Canvas	1920 × 1080
Orientation	landscape
Infographic style	editorial
Detail level	concise (minimal detail)
Background	#000000 (black)
Title color	bright yellow #FFD700 with stroke
Subtitle color	bright yellow #FFD700 with stroke
Caption color	light gray #C8C8C8 with stroke
Content area	center 60% (y: 216-864)

4. Use Case

This skill is designed for deep-dive educational/explanatory video covers about academic or research topics. The design philosophy ensures viewers focus on the core finding from the first second — risk/insight comes from the content itself, not decorative visuals.

Based on the Fable 5 safety crisis design, the core message principle is: the risk comes not from external prompts, but from the collapse of internal task chains within the model.