SYSTEMS
FOR.
SCALE.
00 / COLOR
PALETTE.
Two ink scales, one signal accent, six semantic tones. Dark-mode primary. No saturation in greys (pure technical neutrals).
INK · 11 STEPS
ink#000000
ink#0C0C0C
ink#1A1A1A
ink#262624
ink#34332F
ink#3D3D3A
ink#5A5A55
ink#80807A
ink#A8A8A0
ink#C8C5BC
0#F3F1EC
PAPER · 5 STEPS · LIGHT-MODE INK
1000#F7F5F0
900#F3F1EC
800#E8E5DD
700#D8D5CC
600#C0BDB4
SIGNAL · 9 TOKENS · USE SPARINGLY
SEAFOAM · PRIMARY
--signal-seafoam
SEAFOAM · 2
--signal-seafoam-2
SEAFOAM · DEEP
--signal-seafoam-deep
RED · DANGER
--signal-red
RED · 2
--signal-red-2
AMBER · WARN
--signal-amber
GREEN · SUCCESS
--signal-green
BLUE · INFO
--signal-blue
VIOLET
--signal-violet
01 / TYPE
TYPOGRAPHY.
Archivo carries the loud headlines. Geist handles body. SF Mono is the technical chrome — labels, data, code, status. No serifs.
DISPLAY
Archivo
Aa01
400 · 600 · 700 · 800 · 900
BODY
Geist
Aa01
400 · 500 · 600 · 700
MONO
SF Mono
Aa01
SYSTEM · ui-monospace fallback
SCALE
DISPLAY 1PROPULSION.
DISPLAY 2FOR SCALE.
DISPLAY 3Built in Portland.
H1Industrial systems reference.
H2Tokens. Primitives. Patterns.
H3Technical neutrals · one signal.
BODY LGBuilt for dense data and long reads alike — Geist at 16/1.55 reads as confidently at hero scale as it does in column.
BODYDefault body copy. Sentence rhythm tight, paragraphs disciplined. No ornament.
MONO$ select tokens. → 11 ink steps. 6 signals. 11 spacing. 3 radii.
LABELSECTION · CHANNEL · TIMESTAMP
02 / SCALE
SPACING.
4px base. Eleven steps. Used for padding, gaps, gutters. Larger jumps top-end (48 → 64 → 96 → 128) for editorial whitespace at section breaks.
--s-00px0
--s-14px0.25rem
--s-28px0.5rem
--s-312px0.75rem
--s-416px1rem
--s-624px1.5rem
--s-832px2rem
--s-1248px3rem
--s-1664px4rem
--s-2496px6rem
--s-32128px8rem
03 / RADIUS
RADII.
Sharp by default. 0 is the standard; 2 and 4 reserved for inputs and chips where edges feel too aggressive. Never above 4.
--r-0 · 0px · DEFAULT
--r-1 · 2px · INPUTS
--r-2 · 4px · CHIPS
04 / STROKE
STROKES.
Three weights. Hairlines for tables and dividers. Structural for buttons and frames. Loud — 2px in accent — for active states only.
--w-hair · 1px · DIVIDERS
--w-struct · 1.5px · STRUCTURAL
--w-loud · 2px · ACTIVE / ACCENT
05 / MOTION
MOTION.
Three curves, four durations. Linear for industrial chrome (status, ticker). Out-curve for response to user. In-out for transports.
--e-linear · linear
USE: TICKER · STATUS BARS · MARQUEES
--e-out · cubic(0.2,0,0,1)
USE: HOVER · TAP · MICRO-FEEDBACK
--e-in-out · cubic(0.6,0,0.4,1)
USE: PAGE · DRAWER · MODAL
DURATIONS
--d-1
80 ms
SNAP · TAP
--d-2
160 ms
DEFAULT
--d-3
240 ms
TRANSPORT
--d-4
400 ms
REVEAL
06 / ICONS
ICONS.
20px nominal, 1.5px stroke, square caps + miter joins. Monoline. No fills. Built on a 24-grid with 2px optical padding.
PLUS
MINUS
ARROW
BACK
CHEVRON
CLOSE
MENU
SEARCH
DOC
MAIL
CLOCK
SHIELD
TREND
TARGET
FLAG
ALERT
07 / BUTTONS
BUTTONS.
Square edges, mono labels, uppercase. Press translates 1px. Accent variant inverts on hover. Ghost is for secondary action only.
SIZES · SM 28 · MD 36 · LG 48
08 / INPUTS
INPUTS.
Bottom-rule only. No box. Mono input text — fields read like terminal prompts. Focus shifts the rule to accent.
09 / TAGS
TAGS.
Inline status. Use color sparingly — most metadata reads in default outline. Reserve solid ink fill for emphasis, accent for “this matters.”
DEFAULTINK / EMPHATICACCENT / HOT● LIVE▲ DRAFT■ FAILED
10 / CARDS
CARDS.
Surface 800 fill, 1px line, no shadow. Numbered top-left for series. Cards never round.
01 / GENERATOR● LIVE
ZERO·POINT.
Free websites that emerge from a brief. Hosted on .nertia.ai. Upgrade for a custom domain.
02 / GENERATORBETA
DESIGN·SYS.
Industrial token systems. Brief → emerge → tune → export. JSON, CSS, Tailwind, Figma.
03 / LABUNSTABLE
LAB / WIP.
Snippets, prototypes, asset starters. Nothing here ships. Raw material for future builds.
11 / ALERTS
ALERTS.
Mono body. Color through a 4px left bar — the rest of the alert stays neutral. Never a tinted background.
INFO · build queued. position 2 of 4. ETA 12s.
OK · system locked. tokens written to /sites/propulsion-news.
WARN · slug exists. appended hash → propulsion-news-3a2f.
FAIL · generation timed out. retrying with fallback model.
12 / STATS
STATS.
Display numbers, mono labels. Delta in green/red. For dashboards and case-study evidence rows. Always grouped — singular stats look anemic.
SITES BUILT2,841↑ 18.2% / 30D
UPGRADE RATE3.4%↑ 0.6 / 30D
P50 EMERGE8.2s↓ 1.1 / 30D
COST / GEN$0.04FLAT / 30D
13 / BARS
BARS.
Horizontal bars on hairlines. Reads like a console rank. Default unit is normalized 0-100; can also stand for raw counts.
14 / VOICE
VOICE.
Propulsion-driven. Declarative. Technical. Applied AI GTM, not generative buzzwords. Numbers when possible. Active voice. No SaaS clichés.
DO ✓
“Frameworks for propulsion.”
Short. Confident. Implies motion. The reader fills the meaning in.
“4 systems emerged. Pick one.”
Imperative. Numbers. Trusts the user to act.
“Applied AI GTM pipelines.”
Names the work, not the trend. Pipelines, not motions.
DON'T ✕
“Empower your brand journey.”
Empty verbs. Buzz. Says nothing.
“We've crafted a delightful experience.”
Adjective stack. First-person plural. Marketing voice.
“Synergize your go-to-market motion.”
SaaS speak. “Motion” is filler. Pretends activity equals output.
15 / LOGO
LOGO.
A trending-up arrow whose dip-and-peak silhouette reads as the “n” in nertia. SF Mono Regular 12 for the wordmark. Period rendered in the seafoam accent.
ICON · ↗12 / regular
7.2 × 12 UNITS · CURRENTCOLOR
WORDMARK · ↗ nertia.aiinline lockup
76 × 12 UNITS · 9 GLYPHS + ICON
STACKED LOCKUP · ICON ABOVE WORDMARK
STACK · CENTERED80 × 28 UNITS
USE FOR HERO · MARKETING · OG IMAGES
SCALE · WORDMARK × 1 · 2 · 4 · 8
×112 PT
×224 PT
×448 PT
×896 PT
×13160 PT
COLOR · 6 PERMITTED CONTEXTS
ON · BG
ON · SURFACE
ON · INK·1000
ON · PAPER·900
ON · ACCENT
DO NOT · MUTE
CLEAR SPACE · 1 GLYPH ON ALL SIDES
MIN MARGIN = 1 EM (≈ 12 PX AT 12 PT)
MISUSE · 4 PROHIBITED
↗ nertia.aiNO ITALIC
↗ nertia.aiNO BOLD
↗ nertia.aiNO TRACKING
↗ nertia.aiNO RESET FONT
FILES · 4 SHIPPED
nertia-icon.svg14 × 14↗currentColor
nertia-wordmark.svg76 × 12↗ nertia.aicurrentColor
nertia-stack.svg80 × 28stackedcurrentColor
favicon.svg32 × 32↗ + dotpaper-900 + accent
v1.0.0 · 2026.05.04
n.[ds]
CHANGELOG
v1.0.0 — initial industrial direction
v0.9 — color & type pairings locked
v0.8 — scrapped Inter-only stack
NEXT
16 / PATTERNS — page templates
17 / DARK / LIGHT MODE PARITY
18 / MOTION TOKENS