# Mod — style guide for coding agents

> Generated from the Aesthetary record for **Mod**.
> Research: **Partly sourced** · Build guidance: recorded in 6 of 8 research dimensions.
> 9 sources attached.

## How to use this

Paste this file into your agent as context before asking it to design or build something in this visual language. It states what is established, what is our interpretation, and what nobody has established. Treat all three differently.

**The most important section is "Not researched yet".** Its purpose is to stop you and your agent inventing rules that sound right and are not recorded anywhere.

## What this language is

**Defining:** Concentric targets, bold stripes, flat colour fields, rounded bubble type

**Recognise it by:** Flat unmodulated colour fields in a small primary-weighted palette, organised by concentric targets and bold stripes with hard edges and no grain or modelling, carrying heavy rounded bubble display lettering. The diagnostic condition is flatness plus geometric repetition at poster scale: it is a poster language, not a layout language, and it does not survive being asked to organise a long page. Memphis puts unrelated shapes together with no compositional relationship; this is tightly ordered and repetitive. Op Art uses the same geometry for optical effect rather than for graphic snap.

**Family:** Retro & Period Revival
**Era:** mid-century
**Native medium:** print_poster

**Scope:** The British Pop graphic goods and television graphics of about 1964–67 that were sold and described as 'mod' (Carnaby Street boutiques, the Ready Steady Go! title sequences), when 'mod' became an adjective for bold graphic goods for young consumers; the RAF-roundel target, a Pop Art image, later became the emblem of mods and the mod revival. The late-1950s subculture is evidenced through dress, music and scooters, not through this graphic language.

## What it is arguing

Sharpness is the whole point. A small number of flat colours in crisp geometric relationships, executed cleanly, signals modernity and youth without needing ornament or texture to carry it.

**It refuses:** Refuses gradient, ornament and any softness in the edge between two colours; its texture, where it has one, is pasted print.

## What it is not

Commonly confused with these. Getting the difference right matters more than getting the surface right:

- Op Art
- Memphis

## Established rules

Grouped by what kind of claim each is. A requirement of the language and our own interpretation are not interchangeable.

**How to read each rule.** Every rule states two separate things, and neither stands in for the other:

- **Kind of claim** (the heading): From our catalogue entry · Our reading · Documented · Source attached.
- **Evidence** (how it is established): Graded by our research brief · No source attached (`DOCUMENTED`) · From our catalogue entry (`SUPPORTED`) · Our reading (`CURATORIAL`) · Not researched yet (`UNKNOWN`) · No grade recorded (no grade in the record). Where a claim has its own canonical label, the Evidence line gives that label instead of the grade.
- **Product area**: which of the twelve areas the rule belongs to (Layout, Typography, Color, Imagery, Surface, Interface, Motion, Motif, Technique, Form, Hierarchy, Density), mapped from its raw area label in bold. "Context" means the rule is about the Aesthetic (its name, origin, lineage) rather than a part of the design. "Not mapped" means the raw area has no single area yet.
- The code in brackets is the `grade` field at `implementationConstraints.tokenRules.value.rules[].provenance.grade` in https://aesthetary.com/data/mod.json. "From our catalogue entry" means: Stated in Aesthetary’s existing catalogue entry. An outside source is named only where one is linked to the claim.

### From our catalogue entry

_Carried over from Aesthetary's original catalogue entry. The reasoning behind it was never recorded._

- **layout** — Composition: concentric targets, stripes.
  - Kind of claim: From our catalogue entry · Evidence: From our catalogue entry · Product area: Layout
- **typography** — Typography: display custom, blobby/circular, heavy.
  - Kind of claim: From our catalogue entry · Evidence: From our catalogue entry · Product area: Typography
- **color** — Colour: primary, flat fields.
  - Kind of claim: From our catalogue entry · Evidence: From our catalogue entry · Product area: Color
- **form / motif / surface / technique** — Form / motif / surface / technique: target, stripe, hard edge.
  - Kind of claim: From our catalogue entry · Evidence: From our catalogue entry · Product area: not mapped

### Our reading

- **hierarchy** — Rank by concentric position — the target centre leads. Radial rather than vertical, which is the interesting problem.
  - Kind of claim: Our reading · Evidence: Our reading · Product area: Hierarchy
- **motion** — Rotation and concentric expansion. Nothing that introduces depth or easing softness.
  - Kind of claim: Our reading · Evidence: Our reading · Product area: Motion

## Found in research

What research established from sources Aesthetary opened and checked. Each line names its area, how it is known, and where it is scoped. "Seen in the work" means the source documents particular works or products rather than the Aesthetic as a whole.

- **Imagery** — Mod emblems include appropriated national symbols such as the Union Flag and the RAF roundel.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:imagery-1` · Covers Wikipedia paraphrasing Jobling and Crowley (1996).
- **Imagery** — The roundel/target entered as Pop-art imagery (Jasper Johns, Peter Blake). Its attachment to mods came afterwards, through the Who, and it later became the emblem of the mod revival.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:imagery-2` · Covers 1960s Pop art to the late-1970s revival.
- **Imagery** — In mid-1960s British Pop design, Paul Clark used the target on mugs, dishes and coasters; with the Union Jack, the target fitted the mid-sixties trend for design derived from Op art and hard-edge abstraction.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:imagery-3` · Covers Pop design goods, c. 1965-68.
- **Imagery** — Pete Townshend wore the first Union Jack jacket in 1965, which Artforum calls an Op art coup; the Union Jack immediately became iconic attire.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:imagery-4` · Covers 1965-66 Swinging London.
- **Imagery** — 'Mod' stopped naming a subculture and became an adjective for bold, graphic clothing and goods for young consumers; placing the imagery in that phase is Aesthetary's reading.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:imagery-5`
- **Imagery** — The roundel's meaning in pop-music history is contested; a scholarly study treats it as a battle of competing mythologies.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:imagery-6` · Covers abstract only; full text not accessed.
- **Surface** — At the level of the subculture's objects, the surfaces documented are gleaming chrome and customised two-tone and candyflake scooter paint.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:surface-1` · Covers scooters, not graphics.
- **Surface** — 1960s youth fashion exploited new man-made materials (plastics, synthetic fibres).
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:surface-2` · Covers 1960s fashion broadly, not mod graphics.
- **Surface** — The Ready Steady Go! studio sets were collages of typographic and photographic fragments torn from newspapers and pop magazines.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:w2-surface-1` · Covers RSG! set design by Nicholas Ferguson, from 1964..
- **Surface** — The set designer deliberately sought a surface and texture that evoked Pop, leaning on typographic samples to get it.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:w2-surface-2` · Covers RSG! sets; Pop set design for a mod-audience programme..
- **Surface** — The collage surfaces were layered week on week, pasted over each other like posters on a hoarding.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:w2-surface-3` · Covers RSG! sets..
- **Surface** — The set flats were painted black and white with signal red as the one exception.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:w2-surface-4` · Covers RSG! sets; bears on colour more than surface..
- **Motion** — Ready Steady Go!, whose most avid followers were mods, used a title sequence crudely animated with a rostrum bench camera to Manfred Mann's '5,4,3,2,1' (late 1963).
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:w2-motion-1` · Covers One programme's title sequences, 1963-66; the programme is described as representing mod codes, not as mod graphics per se..
- **Motion** — The documented movement is a staggered zoom towards the lettering, accelerating with the music until the words overfill the screen.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:w2-motion-2` · Covers RSG! '5,4,3,2,1' sequence, late 1963..
- **Motion** — A 1964 sequence moves the camera into circular Op-art forms (a pair of round sunglasses) that become a new surface for successive images.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:w2-motion-3` · Covers RSG! 'Hubble Bubble' sequence, summer 1964..
- **Motion** — The early Ready Steady Go! sequences celebrated surface through archetypal pop symbols such as the target; a later sequence introduced a more hallucinatory vision.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:w2-motion-4` · Covers RSG! title sequences 1963-66..
- **Technique** — Paul Clark silk-screen printed Pop decoration onto cheap, mass-produced goods, popular in Carnaby Street boutiques such as Gear.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:technique-1` · Covers Paul Clark and Pop design goods, c. 1965-69; one designer.
- **Technique** — Customisation (repainting and over-accessorising scooters) is the subculture's own documented making practice.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:technique-2` · Covers scooters.
- **Form** — Mod motifs were applied to three-dimensional goods (mugs, dishes, coasters, cardboard clocks) as surface decoration, not as three-dimensional organisation.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:form-1` · Covers Pop design goods.
- **Form** — The subculture's defining 3D object is the Italian scooter, prized for clean-lined curving shapes and customised with many mirrors.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:form-2` · Covers subject, not the graphic register.

## Positions by area

The overall position recorded for each area. "No overall position recorded" means rules exist for the area but no position above them; the rules still apply. It is not the same as "Not established", which means nobody has researched the area.

- **Layout** — Specified
- **Typography** — Specified
- **Color** — Specified
- **Imagery** — Specified
- **Surface** — Specified
- **Motion** — Specified
- **Motif** — Specified
- **Technique** — Specified
- **Interface** — Outside this language. The area does not apply; this is not a gap in the research.

## Design grammar — web primitives

A starting grammar for a website in Mod: flat primary fields with hard edges, the target and the stripe as the only motifs, heavy rounded capitals, and every page unit treated as a poster rather than a column of text.

Three kinds of line: **On the record** names a rule this record holds (its wording is under Established rules) and states what it becomes on the web. **Web translation** is Aesthetary's choice for the web, derived from the rules it cites; change it if you have a reason, keep the cited rule. **Not specified by the source** means the research reached this but the sources say nothing about it; **Not researched yet** means the research has not reached it yet. Either way, follow the instruction and do not invent a rule. Structured version: `designGrammar` in data/mod.json.

### Colour

| Role | Value | Contrast | Use | Kind |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| ground | `#FFFFFF` | — | The page and most posters. | Web translation |
| ink | `#111111` | 18.9:1 | Text, edges and rules. | Web translation |
| red | `#D7262B` | 5.0:1 (white on it) | The one exception, the target's centre, primary buttons. | Web translation |
| blue | `#1D3F9A` | 9.4:1 (white on it) | The target's outer rings, poster fields. | Web translation |
| yellow | `#F6C700` | 11.8:1 (ink on it) | Poster fields only; never text. | Web translation |

Other accents the record supports:

- Black, white and signal red (recorded as "Ready Steady Go! set flats: black and white, signal red the one exception"): `#111111 / #FFFFFF / #D7262B`

- **On the record · From our catalogue entry** · `token_rule:color-5` → Use a small primary palette in flat, unmodulated fields.
- **On the record · Our reading** · `claim:dcc:failure-1` → No gradient or grain between colours.
- **Web translation** — Red, blue and white carry the target; yellow is a field, never text. _Why:_ The roundel and flag are the documented emblems; yellow on white fails contrast. (`claim:kcc:imagery-1`, `token_rule:color-5`)

### Typography

Family: heavy rounded display (Chango), with Rubik for body. Stack: `"Chango", "Arial Black", sans-serif`

| Role | Size | Weight | Line height | Case | Tracking | Measure | Use |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| display | 4.5rem | 400 | 0.95 | uppercase | not specified | 18ch | Poster statements, one per unit. |
| heading | 1.5rem | 400 | 1.1 | uppercase | not specified | — | Card and field names. |
| body | 1.125rem | 500 | 1.5 | not specified | not specified | 60ch | Running text, in Rubik. |
| label | 0.8125rem | 800 | 1.3 | uppercase | 0.1em | — | Labels and kinds, in Rubik. |

- **On the record · From our catalogue entry** · `token_rule:typography-4` → Set display in a heavy, rounded, blobby custom display class.
- **Web translation** — Chango for display, Rubik for body. _Why:_ Chango is heavy and circular in the way the record describes; Rubik keeps the rounded terminals at reading sizes. Both are our choice. (`token_rule:typography-4`, `typography`)
- **Web translation** — Make the lettering the thing the eye travels to: large, and allowed to overfill its frame. _Why:_ The documented title movement zooms toward the lettering until the words overfill the screen. (`claim:kcc:w2-motion-2`)

### Grid and layout

No column grid: a run of posters, each one statement, and inside each poster, order by concentric position.

Tokens: poster-rule `10px`

- **On the record · From our catalogue entry** · `token_rule:layout-3` → Compose with concentric targets and stripes.
- **On the record · Our reading** · `token_rule:hierarchy-13` → Rank by concentric position: the target centre leads.
- **Web translation** — Break a long page into full-width posters separated by a heavy ink rule. _Why:_ It is a poster language and does not survive organising a long page, so the page becomes a sequence of posters. (`claim:failure-4`, `claim:v1-distinguishing`)
- **Not specified by the source** — The sources do not specify a column system. _Instead:_ Do not impose a 12-column grid; if a page needs one, state it as a decision.

### Shape and geometry

Tokens: radius `0` · radius-round `999px` · border `4px solid #111111` · shadow `none`

- **On the record · From our catalogue entry** · `token_rule:surface-8` → Target, stripe and hard edge.
- **On the record · Our reading** · `claim:failure-2` → No soft edges.
- **On the record · Our reading** · `claim:failure-3` → No depth or shadow.
- **Web translation** — The circle is the only curve; every other corner is square. _Why:_ The target is the motif; everything else is flat field and hard edge. (`token_rule:layout-3`, `token_rule:surface-8`)

### Imagery

- **On the record · Documented** · `claim:kcc:imagery-1` → The emblems are appropriated national symbols: the Union Flag and the RAF roundel.
- **On the record · Documented** · `claim:kcc:imagery-3`, `claim:kcc:form-1` → The target was printed on goods as surface decoration, not as three-dimensional form.
- **On the record · Documented** · `claim:kcc:w2-surface-1`, `claim:kcc:w2-surface-3` → Where there is texture, it is pasted print: torn type and photographs layered like posters.
- **Web translation** — Draw the target and the flag as flat marks; do not present them as facts about the subculture. _Why:_ The marks were Pop imagery sold as mod, and the roundel's meaning is contested. (`claim:idr:mo-r1`, `claim:kcc:imagery-6`)

### Which Mod

The Pop goods and television graphics of about 1964–67 sold as "mod", not the early subculture, whose record is dress, music and scooters.

- **On the record · Documented** · `claim:idr:mo-r1` → The marks were Pop imagery before they were mod; build the Carnaby Street and Ready Steady Go! register.
- **On the record · Documented** · `claim:idr:boundary-pop-art` → Not Pop Art: Mod is that imagery applied to goods and television graphics for young consumers.

### Components

Anatomy, tokens and states below are Web translation: Aesthetary's specification for the screen. Each value line after them says whether it restates a rule this record holds.

#### Button

A flat primary lozenge with round ends and a heavy ink edge, lettered in the rounded display face.

- Anatomy: flat primary fill; 4px ink border; fully round ends; label in heavy rounded capitals
- Tokens: fill `#D7262B` · label `#FFFFFF` · border `4px solid #111111` · radius `999px` · shadow `none` · transition `none`
- State, default: Red field, white capitals, ink edge.
- State, hover: The field swaps to blue. Instantly, no fade.
- State, focus: 4px ink outline, 3px outside the edge.
- State, active: The field swaps to ink.
- State, disabled: White field, ink edge, label struck through.
- Accessibility: White on red is 5.0:1 and white on blue 9.4:1.
- Accessibility: At least 44px tall.
- Accessibility: Disabled is shown by a strike-through, not by fading.
- **Web translation** — Fill the button with one flat primary and edge it in ink; no gradient, no shadow. _Why:_ Flat primary fields and the hard edge are the record's colour and surface rules; the lozenge is our screen form. (`token_rule:color-5`, `token_rule:surface-8`, `claim:failure-3`)
- **Web translation** — Give the button fully round ends. _Why:_ The display class is blobby and circular, and the circle is the language's one curve. (`token_rule:typography-4`, `token_rule:layout-3`)

#### Card

A small poster: one flat field, one statement, a heavy ink frame.

- Anatomy: flat field in one primary or white; 6px ink frame; heading in rounded capitals; one line of body
- Tokens: border `6px solid #111111` · radius `0` · padding `1.25rem` · shadow `none`
- State, default: Flat field in its frame.
- State, hover: The frame thickens to 10px.
- State, focus: 4px ink outline outside the frame.
- Accessibility: Text sits on white, yellow (ink text) or on red and blue (white text) only.
- Accessibility: Yellow is never a text colour.
- **Web translation** — Make each card a poster: one flat field, one statement. _Why:_ A poster language, not a layout language: each unit carries one thing at poster scale. (`claim:v1-distinguishing`, `claim:failure-4`)
- **Web translation** — Keep every edge hard: no radius on the frame, no soft edge between colours. _Why:_ The cited rule belongs to the Aesthetic's own medium; applying it to a screen component or motion is our translation. (`token_rule:surface-8`, `claim:failure-2`)

#### Input

A white field with a heavy ink edge, its label in heavy body capitals above.

- Anatomy: white field; 4px ink border; label above, 800 weight
- Tokens: border `4px solid #111111` · radius `0` · background `#FFFFFF`
- State, default: 4px ink edge.
- State, focus: The edge turns red and a 4px ink outline sits outside it.
- State, error: A red bar below, white message beginning "Error:".
- State, disabled: Label struck through.
- Accessibility: A visible label on every field.
- Accessibility: Errors are written, not only coloured.
- **Web translation** — Draw the field as a flat white box with a hard ink edge. _Why:_ Flat fields and hard edges, the record's surface rule, applied to entry. (`token_rule:surface-8`, `token_rule:color-5`)

#### Navigation

A row of links in heavy capitals; the current one carries a small target.

- Anatomy: links in heavy body capitals; a concentric target marking the current page; ink rule beneath the row
- Tokens: rule `6px solid #111111` · marker `target: red / white / blue`
- State, default: Ink capitals, underlined 3px.
- State, hover: Underline turns red.
- State, focus: 4px ink outline.
- State, current: A target before the label; no link.
- Accessibility: aria-current on the current page.
- Accessibility: The target is decoration; the current page is also written as plain text.
- **Web translation** — Mark the current page with a target: the centre leads. _Why:_ Rank by concentric position; the target is the language's first motif. (`token_rule:hierarchy-13`, `token_rule:layout-3`)

### Motion

Durations, easing and the rest of this specification are Web translation: Aesthetary's choice for the screen.

- Durations: entrance 900ms, stagger 100ms, state 0ms
- Easing: entrance `linear`, state `none`
- Transforms: scale from the centre (concentric expansion) and rotation only
- Entrance: A target's rings expand from the centre once, ring by ring.
- Hover: An instant swap of flat fill.
- Reduced motion: Everything is simply there: no expansion, no zoom.
- **Web translation** — Rotation and concentric expansion; nothing that introduces depth or easing softness. _Why:_ The cited rule belongs to the Aesthetic's own medium; applying it to a screen component or motion is our translation. (`token_rule:motion-14`)
- **Web translation** — A title may arrive as a staggered zoom toward its lettering, once, in steps. _Why:_ The documented Ready Steady Go! movement is a staggered zoom toward the lettering; on a page it plays once and never loops. (`claim:kcc:w2-motion-2`, `claim:kcc:w2-motion-1`)

### Deliberately not added

- **Interface conventions** (components): The source never addressed the screen. The four components are contemporary translations of documented rules.
- **A column system and density** (gridLayout): The record specifies a poster language, not a page layout; density is not specified by the source.
- **Three-dimensional form** (shapeGeometry): Research found the motifs applied to goods as surface decoration; form beyond that is not researched yet.

## Coverage — what has been looked at

One row per research dimension a research pass considered. "Not researched yet" (`UNKNOWN`) means exactly that; a dimension can carry an Aesthetary recommendation and still be unresearched, and those are different things.

| Research dimension | Evidence | Resolved by | Carries a rule |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Composition | Specified · From our catalogue entry | follows the recorded claim | yes |
| Typography | Specified · From our catalogue entry | follows the recorded claim | yes |
| Hierarchy | Specified · Our reading | Aesthetary decided | yes |
| Colour | Specified · From our catalogue entry | follows the recorded claim | yes |
| Density | Not specified by the source | Aesthetary decided | no |
| Imagery | Specified | Aesthetary decided | yes |
| Form / motif / surface / technique | Not specified by the source: form · Specified: motif, surface, technique | follows the recorded claim | yes |
| Motion | Specified | Aesthetary decided | yes |

Unresearched: Imagery, Motion. Where a rule appears for one of these it is Aesthetary's implementation recommendation, not a property of the language, and its Evidence line above says so.

## Not researched yet

Nobody has established a position for this language on:

- Form

**Do not fill these in.** An absent position is absent research, not permission and not a blank for you to complete. If the work needs a decision in one of these areas, make it on other grounds and do not attribute it to this language.

## Grade your own work

18 checks: 7 mechanically testable, 9 needing a person to look, 0 needing a source Aesthetary does not hold, 2 with no recorded position. 2 further research dimensions produced no rule (Density, Imagery). This rubric is silent on them. Scores do not add up. A failure against a required rule and a departure from something we invented are not the same result, and no total should let them cancel.

### Recognition — does this read as the intended Aesthetic?

- **[visual_human · recognition signature · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Strip every logo, word and borrowed image out of your work, then show it to someone who knows the collection. Do they land on this Aesthetic? The signature to hold is: Flat unmodulated colour fields in a small primary-weighted palette, organised by concentric targets and bold stripes with hard edges and no grain or modelling, carrying heavy rounded bubble display lettering. The diagnostic condition is flatness plus geometric repetition at poster scale: it is a poster language, not a layout language, and it does not survive being asked to organise a long page. Memphis puts unrelated shapes together with no compositional relationship; this is tightly ordered and repetitive. Op Art uses the same geometry for optical effect rather than for graphic snap.
  - _If it fails:_ The work may be competent and still read as a different Aesthetic, or as none. Nothing below matters until this passes.

### Fidelity — are its defining rules present?

- **[unassessable · no recorded position · Evidence: Not researched yet (`UNKNOWN`)]** Nothing is recorded as a requirement of this Aesthetic. There is no rule here that your work must hold — which means nothing you do can fail this dimension, and nothing you do can satisfy it either. That is missing research, not freedom: our research brief does record failure modes to avoid, listed under avoidance below. They are recorded judgement, not requirements.
  - _If it fails:_ Not applicable. An empty dimension is an absence of research, never a pass and never a failure.

### Implementation — were those rules translated appropriately into this medium?

- **[visual_human · From our catalogue entry · Evidence: From our catalogue entry]** Your work may depart from this — but knowingly, not by accident. Composition: concentric targets, stripes.
  - _If it fails:_ A defensible departure, and you should be able to say why you made it.
- **[visual_human · From our catalogue entry · Evidence: From our catalogue entry]** Your work may depart from this — but knowingly, not by accident. Typography: display custom, blobby/circular, heavy.
  - _If it fails:_ A defensible departure, and you should be able to say why you made it.
- **[visual_human · Our reading · Evidence: Our reading]** Your work may depart from this — but knowingly, not by accident. Rank by concentric position — the target centre leads. Radial rather than vertical, which is the interesting problem.
  - _If it fails:_ A defensible departure, and you should be able to say why you made it.
- **[visual_human · From our catalogue entry · Evidence: From our catalogue entry]** Your work may depart from this — but knowingly, not by accident. Colour: primary, flat fields.
  - _If it fails:_ A defensible departure, and you should be able to say why you made it.
- **[visual_human · From our catalogue entry · Evidence: From our catalogue entry]** Your work may depart from this — but knowingly, not by accident. Form / motif / surface / technique: target, stripe, hard edge.
  - _If it fails:_ A defensible departure, and you should be able to say why you made it.
- **[visual_human · Our reading · Evidence: Our reading]** Your work may depart from this — but knowingly, not by accident. Rotation and concentric expansion. Nothing that introduces depth or easing softness.
  - _If it fails:_ Nothing. No one has researched the dimension yet, and this is only what Aesthetary would do. Departing from it costs you nothing.

### Avoidance — known failure modes, neighbour drift, cloning

- **[mechanical · recorded failure mode · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Check your work against this: No gradient or grain; where there is texture, it is pasted print.
  - _If it fails:_ A failure mode recorded in our research brief: recorded judgement about what weakens this Aesthetic, not a requirement of the language.
- **[mechanical · recorded failure mode · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Check your work against this: No soft edges.
  - _If it fails:_ A failure mode recorded in our research brief: recorded judgement about what weakens this Aesthetic, not a requirement of the language.
- **[mechanical · recorded failure mode · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Check your work against this: No depth or shadow.
  - _If it fails:_ A failure mode recorded in our research brief: recorded judgement about what weakens this Aesthetic, not a requirement of the language.
- **[mechanical · recorded failure mode · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Check your work against this: No use as a long-form layout system.
  - _If it fails:_ A failure mode recorded in our research brief: recorded judgement about what weakens this Aesthetic, not a requirement of the language.
- **[visual_human · recorded failure mode · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Have you made any of these changes? Each one moves the work into a neighbouring Aesthetic: Against Memphis: ordered repetition versus deliberate arbitrariness. Both use bright flat shapes; Memphis makes them disagree. Against Op Art: graphic snap versus optical vibration. Anti-signature: let the shapes stop agreeing and it becomes Memphis. Push to equal-value complementaries and it becomes Op Art or Psychedelic.
  - _If it fails:_ You have built the neighbour. That may be fine — but name which Aesthetic you are in.
- **[mechanical · declared closure · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Check your work against this: Not open: softening edges.
  - _If it fails:_ This one is closed, not open. The record says generation must not go here.
- **[mechanical · declared closure · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Check your work against this: No gradient or grain; where there is texture, it is pasted print.
  - _If it fails:_ This one is closed, not open. The record says generation must not go here.
- **[mechanical · declared closure · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Check your work against this: Not open: stretching to long-form layout..
  - _If it fails:_ This one is closed, not open. The record says generation must not go here.
- **[visual_human · neighbour drift · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Could your work be mistaken for Op Art? That language is: Pattern engineered to produce motion in a static image
  - _If it fails:_ Not necessarily wrong, but you are closer to Op Art than to this Aesthetic.

### Accessibility — the Aesthetic preserved without its inaccessible practice

- **[unassessable · no recorded position · Evidence: Not researched yet (`UNKNOWN`)]** Does this Aesthetic conflict with any usability floor? Nobody has recorded one for it.
  - _If it fails:_ Nothing — and that is the problem. An unrecorded conflict is not an absent one. Hold AA on reading matter and decide the rest on other grounds.

**Not covered at all:** Density: Not specified by the source; Imagery: Specified. These research dimensions produced no rule, so there is no check. Treat them as unscored, never as passed and never as failed.

## Rules for the agent

1. Do not invent rules for any area listed under **Not researched yet**.
2. Do not treat an absent position as permission to do anything you like — say that the language has no position, and decide on other grounds.
3. Keep our interpretations separable from the language's own requirements. If asked to justify a choice, cite which kind of claim it came from.
4. If you need something this record does not contain, say so rather than producing a confident answer from the aesthetic's name.
5. When you self-score against "Grade your own work", score only checks marked `mechanical`. Declare `visual_human` and `evidence_dependent` checks unjudged rather than guessing, and never score an `unassessable` one.
6. Evidence "Not researched yet" (`UNKNOWN`) is never a failure. It means nobody researched the dimension, so departing from what is written there costs nothing and must not be reported as a defect. "No grade recorded" is not a grade either: do not treat it as our decision or as an outside source.
7. In **Design grammar**, a "Web translation" line is our choice for the web and may be changed with a reason; the rules it cites may not. Never present a translation as a property of the language.

## Provenance

- Record: `mod` · status `draft` · research `not_researched`
- Full structured record: https://aesthetary.com/data/mod.json
- Human-readable record: https://aesthetary.com/a/mod.html
- This file is a snapshot. The record may have changed since; check the page above.

_Aesthetary is an alpha. Where a page says nothing, nobody has done the work yet._