Biennale Yellow — Frame (video / frame layer)

Overview

Biennale Yellow at frame scale is a literary-editorial system in the register of an art biennale catalogue: warm parchment, a single deep indigo ink, and solar yellow as atmosphere. No cards, no buttons, no shadows, no rounded corners — the structural vocabulary is just paper, ink, and yellow. Depth is delivered by soft radial sun blooms, not elevation.

The voice is three faces in rigid roles: Instrument Serif (weight 400, tight line-height, negative tracking) carries every display, numeral, and quote from 40px to 720px+; Archivo carries body and the wide-tracked uppercase micro-label; JetBrains Mono carries every date, figure, and the pagenum. Text is always ink — contrast comes from size and weight, never color. The mood sits between a folded museum brochure and a slow-reading literary quarterly: confident, atmospheric, deeply restrained.

Key characteristics at frame scale:

• Warm parchment ground on every frame; never white, never gray.
• Single ink ({colors.ink}) for all type and all rules; solar yellow as bloom / panel / tile.
• Instrument Serif 400 display (tight, negative-tracked); Archivo body + micro-labels; JetBrains Mono data.
• 1px hairline rules are the only border — no thicker weight exists; no shadows, no rounded corners.
• Sun bloom is the primary depth layer on every frame; an ember counter-bloom adds warm-cool tension.
• Editorial-restrained — sparse reads as elegant; crowding breaks the catalogue feel.

The Frame

Frame Craft Bar

Three eyeball tests gate every frame before any structural check:

• Squint — one Instrument Serif moment dominates at 3–6× its neighbor; the sun bloom centers the eye.
• Silence — frames read 55–60% empty; the ledger is the one dense exception (density via quiet hairline repetition, not richness).
• Restraint — one ink color for all type and rules; one sun bloom per frame (+ optional subordinate ember); never invert (no yellow text on ink).
• Reference — aim at an art-biennale catalogue / slow exhibition poster / literary quarterly; failure looks like a flat CMS template (no bloom) or a bordered-card deck.

• Primary: 1920×1080 (16:9). Display authored in **cqw** (px ÷ 1920 × 100 = cqw).
• Vertical: 1080×1920 (9:16). Square: 1080×1080 (1:1).
• Safe area: pad-edge 4cqw (40–76px equivalent) — the elegance depends on edge negative space; only blooms, tiles, and panels bleed.

The container law (load-bearing). Every frame ground sets container-type: size; ALL frame-relative units are cqw/cqh against it — never vw. Hairlines stay 1px; bloom sizes scale as % of the frame.

Colors

Tokens identical to the source. {colors.paper} is the universal ground; {colors.ink} (deep indigo navy) is every line of type and every rule — there is no secondary text color. {colors.sun} deploys three ways: the bloom (radial atmosphere), the yellow-panel (full-bleed poster fill, ink on top), and the block-tile underprint. {colors.sun-soft}/haze are bloom mid/outer stops. {colors.ember} appears only as a 15–22% counter-bloom — never a fill, never text. The system never inverts — ink on sun is correct; yellow text on ink does not exist.

Typography

Two ramps. The reading/data ramp (Archivo body 0.85cqw ink, micro-labels in px, JetBrains Mono data) carries copy + chrome; the display ramp (Instrument Serif ledger-title 1.55cqw → numeral-jumbo 28cqw) carries every headline, numeral, and quote.

• Legibility floor: any load-bearing line ≥ 1.4cqw; mono/labels in px are chrome only.
• Fit-to-measure: size the headline to its length. Cap the block at ≤ 78cqw; ≤3 words → display; 4–6 → headline; 7+ → headline-sm. The jumbo numeral is a divider's whole point — don't shrink it.
• Instrument Serif is weight 400 only (its contrast is the weight signal), tight line-height (0.84–1.06), negative tracking; micro-labels uppercase Archivo 600, ≥0.16em; mono for all numerals/dates. No bold serif, no second text color, no mono in body/display.

Depth & Surface

Atmospheric, not structural. Depth from:

• Sun bloom — the primary layer: a layered radial (sun 70–95% core → sun-soft → haze 18–22% → paper 0%), 42–70% of the frame. One per frame.
• Ember bloom — a 15–22% peach counter-bloom in the opposite corner; always subordinate.
• Block-tile underprint — translucent yellow rectangles on an 8×4 grid (cover/colophon).
• Yellow panel — the one "hard" color statement: a flooded column/third, ink on top.
• Hairline rules — 1px ink for structural separation (soft 18–20% variant for dense rows).

Ceiling: zero box-shadow, zero text-shadow, zero rounded corner, no border thicker than 1px.

Shapes

• 0 radius on everything — strict rectangles. Blooms are edgeless (they fade into paper).

Components

• sun-bloom / ember-bloom / block-tile — the atmospheric depth set. yellow-panel — the poster-fill statement.
• hairline-rule — the only border (1px ink; soft variant for dense rows).
• strand-row / ledger-row / footer-band — the editorial list, tabular calendar, and metadata strip.
• vertical-rail — rotated chapter marker. pagenum — the bottom-right mono chrome.

Frame Treatments

Recipe: ground · container · composes · focal · chrome · accent · silence · Fixed/Free · density. A sun bloom + bottom-right pagenum on every frame; sparse is the default.

1 · Cover (identity · move: display + sun bloom · left)

Ground paper + a large sun-bloom (left-of-center) + an ember counter-bloom (opposite corner). Composes micro-label, display, date-rail, footer-band, pagenum. Focal a 2-line Instrument Serif display (italic key word) in ink, left, under a micro-label. Chrome a serif date-rail top-right; a 4-column footer-band at the foot. Accent the sun bloom + yellow. Silence the bloom holds the open space. Fixed ink type, one bloom, 1px footer rules, no shadow. Free title, date, footer cells. Density low.

2 · Chapter Divider (section · move: jumbo numeral · vertical rail)

Ground paper + a corner-anchored sun-bloom. Composes vertical-rail, numeral-jumbo, headline-sm. Focal a single huge Instrument Serif numeral-jumbo (≈28cqw) dominating, with a serif title beneath. Chrome a rotated vertical-rail label up the left edge; pagenum. Accent the bloom behind the numeral. Silence ~60%. Fixed serif 400, jumbo numeral, rail label. Free the ordinal, title, rail text. Density low.

3 · Ledger (catalog · move: hairline tabular rows · the dense frame)

Ground paper (bloom optional, subtle). Composes headline-sm + micro-label topbar, ledger-rows. Focal a 4-column tabular calendar — mono date · serif title · sans venue · mono duration — separated by hairline-soft rules under a 1px ink header rule. Chrome pagenum. Accent none — density through quiet repetition, not color. Silence tight — the density exception (achieved by repetition, not richness). Fixed hairline rules, mono dates, serif titles. Free rows, venues. Density dense-exception.

4 · Manifesto / Quote (quote · move: italic serif · centered bloom)

Ground paper + a centered sun-bloom. Composes numeral-lg quote mark, display-it, attribution. Focal a 2-line Instrument Serif italic display-it quote in ink, centered, under an oversized serif quote mark. Chrome a micro-label attribution. Accent the centered bloom. Silence ~60% — deliberately open. Fixed italic serif, one bloom, ink. Free quote, attribution. Density low.

5 · Poster Panel (statement · move: yellow panel · split)

Ground paper with a full-bleed {colors.sun} yellow-panel (column or third). Composes yellow-panel, micro-label, headline. Focal an Instrument Serif headline in ink sitting on the sun panel (ink-on-yellow — a signature). Chrome micro-label; pagenum. Accent the panel itself. Silence the paper side stays open. Fixed ink-on-sun, panel meets paper directly (no border), no shadow. Free headline, panel side/width. Density low.

6 · Strand List (programme · move: numbered editorial rows · left)

Ground paper + a subtle sun-bloom. Composes micro-label, headline-sm, strand-rows. Focal a numbered list — serif numeral + serif title + sans body, hairline-soft separators. Chrome micro-label; pagenum. Accent the bloom. Silence moderate; rows breathe. Fixed serif numerals, hairline-soft rules. Free items, copy. Density standard.

Composition Rules

Do

• Start on warm parchment; add one sun bloom (optionally an ember counter-bloom) — atmosphere is the depth.
• Set every line in ink; use Instrument Serif 400 (tight, negative-tracked) for display, Archivo body, JetBrains Mono for all numerals/dates.
• Make every separator a 1px ink hairline (soft variant for dense rows); flood a yellow panel for poster moments (ink on top).
• Keep micro-labels uppercase Archivo 600, 0.16–0.32em; pin the pagenum bottom-right.
• Lean sparse; left/asymmetric on cover/chapter/list, centered on manifesto.

Don't

• No drop shadows, no rounded corners, no bordered cards, no border thicker than 1px.
• No second text color; no bold Instrument Serif; no inverted ink grounds.
• No mono for body/display; no font substitutes.
• Don't crowd the canvas — sparse reads as elegant; don't omit the bloom (flat parchment reads as a CMS template).
• Don't blow a headline edge-to-edge — step the ramp down.

Aspect-Ratio Behavior

pad-edge holds on the short edge; display clamps use the shorter axis so portrait doesn't blow out headlines. Keep load-bearing lines ≥ 1.4cqw. Ledger/strand fixed first columns may tighten on 9:16.

Approved Entities

No real customers, logos, or vendors are defined in the source — render any such mark as a placeholder. Programme titles, venues, and dates are content; the system supplies paper, ink, yellow.

Numerals & Claims (hard rule)

Never invent figures, dates, durations, or counts at frame scale. Render slots as — figure —, {metric}, NN JUN, N m. Ledger dates/durations and chart values especially carry placeholders until the script supplies them. Chapter ordinals (01, 02…) are decorative.

Pre-Render Self-Audit

• Squint — one serif display moment dominates; the bloom centers the eye.
• Silence — sparse frames 55–60% open; only the ledger runs dense (via repetition, not richness).
• One color — ink for all text + rules; sun for bloom/panel/tile; ember counter-bloom only; no inversion.
• Type — Instrument Serif 400 tight negative-tracked, fit-to-measure; micro-labels uppercase 0.16em+; mono numerals; ≥1.4cqw floor.
• Depth — 0 shadow, 0 rounded corner, 1px hairlines only; one sun bloom present.
• Anchor — left on cover/chapter/list, centered on manifesto; pagenum bottom-right.
• Fabrication — every numeral/date traces to the script, else placeholder.

Known Gaps

• Motion intentionally out of scope. frame.md specifies composition only; the source's 280ms crossfade is a deck mechanic.
• Instrument Serif + Archivo + JetBrains Mono via Google Fonts. CJK: Smiley Sans (display) / Noto Serif SC (body) / Noto Sans SC (labels); italic serif and mono tabular figures have no exact Hanzi equal — keep ledger dates Latin.
• 9:16 / 1:1 are guidance; the min(vw,vh) clamp pattern keeps display from blowing out — verify per ratio.
• Sun/ember blooms, block tiles, yellow panels, and hairline rules are CSS-only; no external imagery is required.