Honest materials
Protects: honesty. Night: light glows. Day: ink does not, so paper tone and rules create depth. Ledger: alignment, columns and rules do the work. Folio: ink on plain paper, with nothing that moves.
Seven principles, one shared core.
Night and Day are modes: what the light is doing. Study, Ledger and Folio are surfaces: what the thing is and how it is used. Each answers the same questions about depth, emphasis, state, motion and density.
The principles
One thing at a time
Protects: focus. Night: one lit thing per view. Day: one dark block or heavy mark. Ledger: one lead per region. Folio: one lead per page.
Keep it calm
Protects: calm. Night: plenty of space and few items. Day: the same, with wide margins. Ledger: long lists are welcome when grouped and aligned. Folio: a clear grid, with ideas kept together across pages.
Tell the truth about state
Protects: trust. Night: the colour of the light changes. Day: ink colour changes, with a word beside it. Ledger: state has its own column for comparison. Folio: date the information, for example “as at 30 October”.
Movement needs a reason
Protects: stillness. Night: light responds to the hand. Day: the same, but much fainter. Ledger: fast responses and no ambient movement. Folio: none.
Everyone can read it
Protects: access. Night: AA contrast, a clear focus ring and full keyboard use. Day: the same, with colours darkened for paper. Ledger: real tables, full keyboard use and a layout that works on a phone. Folio: it makes sense in black and white, PDFs are tagged, and link addresses are printed.
Talk like a person
Protects: dignity. Night: “One answer is waiting”, not “1 pending item”. Day: the same voice. Ledger: shorter labels in plain language. Folio: it makes sense without you there to explain it.
Marks inside panels
Coloured top or left border bars on rounded panels are not Lamplight. Use an internal straight Lead line to mark a region, or a Thread to connect a sequence. Functional one-pixel boundaries can still separate or identify controls and content.
Fixed and flexible
Three things are fixed everywhere: everyone can read it; state is never carried by colour or motion alone; and red is for genuine errors. Everything else is a default a mode or surface can answer in its own way. Token and class drift checks protect the build.
Ledger
The working desk serves material people scan, compare and return to. Use alignment and rules for depth, one lead per region, a labelled state column, quick responses and grouped, aligned rows. Ledger leads are lighter than Focal Catch, which remains one per view.
Folio
The sheet that leaves the room serves print and PDF and always uses ink. Use rule weight and type size for depth, one lead per page, dated states, no motion and a clear page grid. The paper is the ground. Replace interactive controls with their current values and adapt wide content so it is not clipped.