// brand
signal radar
the kern design system. one family, lowercase, always. colour is strictly semantic — never decorative, never invented. the whole interface is an instrument panel, not a marketing site.
// identity
the mark.
a glowing green signal-radar / emission-core. a bright signal-green core with concentric rings of green dots on a near-black rounded square, with a soft green radial bloom. the simplified single-ring variant is used at small sizes.
// colour tokens
seven hues. no others.
green = running / active / cta. amber = transitional / warn. crimson = error. gray = standby. every colour carries meaning; none are decorative. body text defaults to zinc-300 over bg-core.
| token | hex | meaning |
|---|---|---|
bg-core | #050506 | absolute base background. near-black. page background. |
bg-surface | #0b0c10 | cards, panels, elevated surfaces. |
grid-bounds | #161920 | inactive dots, dotted dividers, scrollbar thumbs. |
signal-high | #4cf5a0 | primary brand accent — signal green. running / active / cta. |
signal-low | #4c525e | standby / offline / muted text. |
warn-vector | #f5a04c | warnings / transitional states. amber. |
fault-vector | #f54c4c | errors / terminated. crimson. |
// dot grammar
status as light.
status is rendered as arrays of light-emitting micro-nodes driven by pure-math shader functions. each state has a colour and an animation:
signal-green, traveling wave. running / active.
amber, slow breathe. starting / installing.
crimson, rapid blink. error / terminated.
gray, static. standby / offline.
// typography
one family. mono always.
jetbrains mono everywhere. no sans-serif, no serifs. base 13px, line-height 1.4, antialiased. headings are the same family, lowercase and terse.
note: jetbrains mono has no wdth (stretch) axis — it is fixed-width by nature. hierarchy is achieved through weight, size, and colour, never font-stretch.
// boundaries
dotted matrix, not solid lines.
boundaries are dotted-matrix fills, not solid 1px borders — radial dots on a 6px tile. avoid solid borders except for focus rings, which are signal-green and must never be reset.
↑ dotted divider (matrix-border) · dot-grid accent (matrix-grid-faint)
// voice
lowercase. terse. technical.
the kern voice is consistent across every surface. it reads like a console log, not a press release.
// in the wild
any server. one panel.
stream stdout. pipe stdin.
start. stop. restart. gracefully.
updates itself. signed.
signal lost
no instances registered
source of truth: WEBSITE_MASTER_PROMPT.md §3. reproduced faithfully in the tailwind theme and component library.