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Denzel design system

Blog and magazine website: a white page, serif titles over sans-serif text, near-black ink, grey meta and one orange accent for categories and hovers.

The style

Denzel is a website template for blogs and magazines: a home page of picked, trending and latest stories, a page listing every post, a page for each category, each author and each post, site-wide search and a newsletter box. It should feel like a printed magazine: calm, editorial and dense, with many stories on one page held apart by thin black rules rather than by boxes or colour.

The look is built from very few parts. The page is White, with no coloured bands: the only colour blocks are photos. Titles and the menu are Ink (#1c2522); excerpts and the post text are Body (#707a88), the meta under every card (author, date) is Grey (#999999) in small capitals, and the one accent, Accent (#e38836), marks every category label and every hover of a link, button or icon. Blocks are separated by a Black 1px divider with 30 below it; the sidebar widgets sit in boxes with a 1px Frame hairline.

Two fonts carry it: Noto Serif JP for page titles, card titles, the headings of the post text and the menu (weights 500 to 700), and Poppins for section titles, text, meta, buttons and fields. Both at normal letter spacing; titles at a 1.4 line height, the short sans-serif texts at 1.2. Motion is limited to a few springs: card photos that settle from 110% to 100% on hover, a slider that steps one card to the left every 5 s, a veil that clears from the slider's photos, and a menu that opens with a spring. Nothing appears on scroll and nothing counts up.

Colours

  • Ink#1c2522ink · secondary · on-surfaceInk: headings, post titles, the menu, the footer text, the search button's hairline and its hover fill, the social icons.
  • Body#707a88body · on-surface-variantBody: excerpts, page descriptions, post text, the breadcrumb's separators and current page.
  • Grey#999999greyGrey: meta (author, date, dots), View All, the breadcrumb links of the post and author pages, the current menu link.
  • Accent#e38836accent · primaryAccent: category labels on the cards; the hover colour of menu links, View All, the pill button and the social icons.
  • Navy#203656navyNavy: the breadcrumb links of a category page, the author page's social icons, typed newsletter text and the focused field's hairline.
  • Pink#fe4f70pinkPink: the category page's breadcrumb links on hover (used nowhere else).
  • White#ffffffwhite · on-primary · on-secondary · neutral · surfaceWhite: the page, the header bar, the search dialog, text on the Ink button.
  • Black#000000blackBlack: the 1px dividers between the blocks of a column and above every sidebar widget and footer column.
  • Rulergba(0, 0, 0, 0.2)ruleRule: the 1px dividers inside the sidebar widgets.
  • Frame#999999frame · outlineFrame: the 1px hairline around the sidebar widgets and the pill button.
  • Veilrgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2)veilVeil: the dark cover over the slider's photos, cleared on hover.
  • Scrimrgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6)scrimScrim: behind the search dialog.
  • Search#333333searchSearch: the search dialog's typed text and result titles.
  • Search line#eeeeeesearch-lineSearch Line: the line between the search field and the results.
  • Search hover#f3f3f3search-hoverSearch Hover: the highlighted search result.
  • Field#ebebebfieldField: the 1px hairline of the newsletter field at rest.
  • Error#e5484derrorError: a form message after a failed send.

Typography · Noto Serif JP, Poppins

  • title
    28px · 700 · 1.4
    Denzel
  • h3
    22px · 700 · 1.4
    Build a site that feels designed
  • h4
    18px · 600 · 1.4
    Build a site that feels designed
  • card-xl
    24px · 600 · 1.4
    Denzel
  • card-lg
    18px · 600 · 1.4
    Build a site that feels designed
  • card-md
    16px · 600 · 1.4
    Build a site that feels designed
  • card-sm
    14px · 600 · 1.4
    Build a site that feels designed
  • nav
    14px · 500 · 1.4
    Build a site that feels designed
  • section-title
    18px · 700 · 1.2
    Build a site that feels designed
  • paragraph
    16px · 400 · 1.2
    Build a site that feels designed
  • body
    16px · 400 · 1.4
    Build a site that feels designed
  • small
    14px · 400 · 1.2
    Build a site that feels designed
  • meta
    12px · 400 · 1.2
    Build a site that feels designed
  • tiny
    12px · 400 · 1.2
    Build a site that feels designed

Corners

  • pill · 9999px
  • field · 8px
  • dialog · 16px
  • dot · 10px

Spacing

  • gutter · 40px
  • gutter-phone · 20px
  • gutter-tablet · 30px
  • content-max · 1220px
  • header-height · 96px
  • header-height-phone · 92px
  • header-height-tablet · 92px
  • sidebar · 30%
  • column · 30px
  • block · 40px

Parts

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Drawn from the file’s component tokens.

Do's and don'ts

  • keep every section White and separate blocks with a Black 1px divider and 30 of space; let photos be the only colour blocks.
  • set page and card titles, the post text's headings and the menu in Noto Serif JP, and everything else (section titles, text, meta, buttons, fields) in Poppins.
  • use Accent for category labels and for the hover of links, buttons and icons; Ink for titles, Body for excerpts and post text, Grey in small capitals for the meta.
  • give every card photo the hover settle from 110% to 100% (105% for the small round photos) with the stiff spring, and underline titles on hover.
  • keep photos square-cornered; only author, topic and recent photos are round.
  • show the current page's menu link Grey and struck through.
  • add a background colour band, a gradient or a card shadow; the search dialog is the only thing that floats.
  • put text in the Accent colour other than category labels and hovers, or use Pink anywhere but the category page's breadcrumb hover.
  • round photos, cards or widgets, or round the newsletter field and button more than 8px.
  • animate anything on scroll or count numbers up: the motion is hover, the slider, the menu and the dialog.
  • set long text in the serif or titles in Poppins.

Get Denzel

This file describes Denzel’s style. The template is the whole site: every page, its content and its motion, free to remix in Framer, with code editions for selected plans.

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