madebymustafa/design-taste/retro-print

retro-print

One identity: a risograph poster that just came off the drum — straight print, honest misregistration.

1. PALETTE (Fixed)

• Paper: #F4EDDE (warm print stock). Alternate panel: #EBE2CF (slightly pulled).
• Ink: #21201C (print black).
• Inks — exactly two, at most: riso red #E4572E and riso blue #355E8C. If the brief needs one, use red. If two, red + blue. Never a third.
• NO gradients, NO antialiased-looking shadows (no box-shadow blurs), NO pure white backgrounds, NO screenshots-in-browser.

2. TYPOGRAPHY (Fixed)

• Display: a single-weight condensed/display poster face (Anton, Archivo Narrow 800, or the system's heaviest), uppercase, clamp(2.8rem, 8vw, 7rem), tight leading 0.95–1.0. Poster volume, not editorial whisper.
• Body: a quiet serif (Newsreader, Georgia) at 16–18px, 1.6–1.7 — the print contrast to the shouting display.
• Labels/metadata: monospaced caps (IBM Plex Mono), letter-spacing: 0.1em, 10–12px, ink or red.
• The signature: misregistration offsets — display text with text-shadow: 2px 2px 0 var(--riso-red) (or blue). Apply to 2–3 headings max, never body. One offset direction per page.

3. TEXTURE & DETAIL (The Craft That Sells It)

• Halftone: dot fields via repeating-radial-gradient (radial-gradient(var(--ink) 1.2px, transparent 1.3px) at 8–12px grid), capped at ~2 panels per page. Inverse (paper dots on ink field) counts as one.
• Rough edges: elements may sit flush to viewport edges, section separators can be full-bleed ink rules — print bleed, not web padding.
• Stamps: mono caps in a circle or pill with a dashed ink border, rotated 1–3°, max two per page (e.g., one in the nav, one in an attribution). Stamp = dashed, always.
• Halftone numbers: big display numerals (01, 02) in red with blue offset.
• No emoji. No linear icons — typographic markers (✳, →, ◆) or drawn dot-grid marks only.

4. COMPOSITION (Fixed)

• Poster grid: asymmetric columns (5/7 or 4/8), one giant element per viewport, rules (1–2px ink) doing the separation instead of cards.
• Hero: kicker stamp → giant display headline (offset applied) → body serif block right-aligned in 4/12 → two-line mono colophon under ("SKITTIE VOL. 02 — PRINTED IN FIVE COLORS").
• Features: numbered print index — big figure + serif name + body description on hairline-divided rows.
• Pricing: three poster cards — paper / ink field (paper type) / paper + red; 2px ink borders, square corners. The ink card is the featured.
• Photographs (if any): duotone — grayscale → sepia → hue-rotate toward ink, contrast 1.15, with a 1.5px ink frame. Grain via faint noise if available.

5. MOTION (Almost None — Prints Don't Move)

• One entrance: sections reveal with a 200ms snap-up (6px), like paper landing.
• Hover: link color flips to red, 100ms. Nothing drifts, nothing rolls, no parallax — the illusion is physical print.
• QR/archive jokes allowed in copy, not in motion.

6. CHECKLIST (Fail the Page If…)

• [ ] More than two ink colors (red + blue max) in use.
• [ ] Any gradient or blurred shadow.
• [ ] Any pure white background.
• [ ] Any emoji.
• [ ] Display type not uppercase or smaller than ~2.8rem.
• [ ] Body text set in a sans.
• [ ] No texture anywhere (no halftone, no misregistration, no stamp) — that's the identity.
• [ ] Misregistration offset applied to body text.