consulting-tasteful-design

name	consulting-tasteful-design
description	The house authority on visual TASTE — the look-and-feel north star every skill defers to when making something seen: a video or motion graphic, a social graphic or carousel, a slide/pitch deck, a proposal, a landing page, the metrics dashboard, an email header — any rendered artifact. Use whenever the goal is "make it look good / on-brand / bold / not AI slop", or when choosing palette, type, layout, or motion. It does NOT redefine the brand tokens — those are canonical in the project's root /DESIGN.md; this skill carries the cross-medium PRINCIPLES (the "bold, not boring" stance), the anti-AI-slop checklist, and the rules for translating the brand into MOTION/video that the still-graphics kit doesn't cover.
metadata	{"tags":"design, taste, brand, visual, motion, look-and-feel, anti-slop, house-authority"}

Consulting Tasteful Design — the look-and-feel north star

The shared visual-taste authority for the practice. Other skills make the artifact; this skill decides whether it looks like us and whether it looks good. consulting-graphics (stills), consulting-hyperframes-video (motion), consulting-proposal-designer, and the dashboard all defer here for principles, and to the brand canon below for exact tokens.

It's the visual counterpart to our writing voice — same DNA (specificity, conviction, say-it-out-loud, no hype), translated from sentences to pixels. The stance is bold, not boring.

Canon — read these, never invent brand facts

1. The project's root /DESIGN.md — the brand source of truth: the exact palette (--ink / --navy / --accent / --signal / --tint …), the type roles, and the standard footer signature (Recoup mark · Sidney Swift · recoupable.com), plus the "bold, not boring" principles. Pull exact colors, fonts, the logo, and the footer from here — don't restate or guess them. For stills it also owns the template set (framework-blocks, statement, stat, editorial). For anything it doesn't cover (e.g. audience) — or if the project has no DESIGN.md at all (e.g. this plugin installed in another repo) — ask the user for brand values, or scaffold one; never invent.
2. consulting-copy-writer/references/voice-principles.md — governs every word that appears (headlines, captions, labels, CTAs).

Brand character at a glance (exact values live in DESIGN.md): deep ink/navy color fields with one electric "signal" blue as the energy accent; Space Grotesk for display, Plus Jakarta Sans for body, Instrument Serif italic for the occasional editorial moment; every piece closes with the Recoup mark + "Sidney Swift" · recoupable.com footer.

Principles — bold, not boring

These match DESIGN.md and extend across every medium. (They deliberately retire the old "no color / 40% empty / decoration is a sin" rules — those made work forgettable.)

1. Commit to a color field. Each artifact has a dominant field — full-bleed dark (--ink/--navy, high-conviction) or crisp light (--paper/--tint, scannable). Pale, washed-out gradients are banned — they read as generic. Go all the way dark, or keep it crisp-light.
2. One thing is huge. A hook, a number, or a framework — legible as a thumbnail. Display type runs big; the focal element dwarfs everything else.
3. Color carries meaning. --accent for structure (rules, labels, numbers); --signal for one energy pop per piece — the word/number you want the eye to hit. Never rainbow it.
4. Make it saveable. Real numbers, named frameworks, worked examples with receipts. Build things people screenshot and re-share — the specificity is the design (mirrors "specificity as proof").
5. Vary expression across a series. Same DNA, different composition. If two pieces look interchangeable, the brief failed — vary the field, layout, and dominant element.
6. Texture is allowed; clutter isn't. A dotwave motif or a single signal glow adds depth. Decoration that carries no meaning still gets cut — but "interesting" is a goal, not a sin.
7. Mobile-first. If the hook doesn't land at phone-thumbnail scale, it fails. Test small.

Translating it to motion & video

What DESIGN.md doesn't cover — how the brand moves. consulting-hyperframes-video reads this section.

• The color field is the scene. Commit each scene to a dark or light field; carry it through. One saturated --signal glow for depth is on-brand — a washed-out gradient with nothing to say is the slop tell. Don't confuse the two.
• One thing huge per beat. A scene shows one idea — a hook line, a count-up number, a framework reveal. Don't crowd a frame; let beats sequence the story.
• Signal accent is the motion focal. A line wipe, a highlighted word, a number ticking up — one energy moment per scene, not everything moving. Motion directs the eye to the signal.
• Type in motion. Space Grotesk display animates in with intent — ease, stagger, one timeline; never bounce-everything or spin for its own sake. (Mechanics: consulting-hyperframes-video/ engine/hyperframes-animation.)
• Close on the signature. End on the footer lockup (Recoup mark + Sidney Swift · recoupable.com) as the endcard, adapted to the field's light/dark.
• Deterministic + validated. Respect the render rules (npx hyperframes lint && validate).

The anti-AI-slop checklist (the tells to avoid)

• A pale, washed-out purple→blue gradient hero with a generic glowing orb and no focal point. (Our look commits to a saturated field + one signal glow behind a huge focal element — not this.)
• Glassmorphism / frosted cards stacked everywhere.
• Emoji as bullets; emoji in headlines.
• 4+ font families, or default system-font soup (we use Space Grotesk + Plus Jakarta + Instrument Serif).
• Rainbow / 6-color palettes with no --accent vs --signal discipline.
• Fake/placeholder numbers, lorem ipsum, generic "synergy" stock imagery.
• Every element the same visual weight — no clear hook, no "one thing huge".
• Motion: everything sliding/spinning/zooming at once.
• A series where every piece looks interchangeable (sameness).

Hit any? Fix before shipping.

Pre-ship checklist (run on every visual)

1. Tokens pulled from DESIGN.md — palette, type, logo, footer not invented.
2. Committed color field (fully dark or crisp light); no pale gradient.
3. One huge focal element; hierarchy obvious in a 1-second glance.
4. --accent for structure, one --signal pop; AA contrast on text.
5. Real content / real numbers; copy passes voice-principles.md (no hype, say-it-out-loud).
6. Footer signature present; reads at phone scale.
7. Within a series, this piece looks distinct from its siblings.
8. Motion (if any) serves meaning, one timeline, closes on the signature.

How a skill should use this

Read this skill → pull exact tokens from DESIGN.md → pick a composition that fits the content (a graphics template, or a HyperFrames frame-preset curated to brand) → design to the bold-not-boring principles → run the pre-ship checklist before calling it done. Keep the DNA consistent across a set, vary the expression within it.