Sona

Every pixel answers to the register.

Why

Sona is a design system for landing pages and printable documents: one token register, three self-contained HTML templates, and a checker that fails the page when a value drifts outside it.

Sona (सोना) means gold in Hindi. The system keeps surfaces calm and hierarchy legible: a deep-space canvas, starlight type, a starfield carries the sky, and pills and 20px cards carry structure.

Inspired by the restraint of Kami — a different palette, the same discipline.

Showcase

Every page below is rendered entirely with its own tokens. Serve the folder and open them, or read the source — the markup is the specimen.

Page	Mode	What it shows
site/index.html	Dark	The full spec rendered live: color ramps, a type wall, 24 components, a dark/light/print mode specimen
site/index-light.html	Light	The same showcase on eggshell and paper — both pages toggle dark/light in place
templates/landing-page.html	Dark	A screen-first product page: fixed nav, starfield hero, stat strip, cards, marquee, pricing, FAQ
templates/landing-page-light.html	Light	The same page remapped to paper, one sanctioned shadow
templates/one-pager.html	Print	An eggshell A4 one-pager, solids only, WeasyPrint-ready

python3 -m http.server 8000   # then open http://localhost:8000/site/

Use

Copy a template, fill in your content, and restyle through the register only — a value outside tokens.json fails the checker:

python3 scripts/check_tokens.py

Print render:

weasyprint templates/one-pager.html one-pager.pdf

Design

• Register. tokens.json is canonical. Every var() reference must resolve and every hex must be registered; the checker is the guard.
• Modes. Dark, light, and print are remaps of the same register, not second palettes. The showcase toggles dark/light in place; islands (code, starfield demos, the navy CTA band) keep their native canvas.
• Type. Space Grotesk carries everything; JetBrains Mono handles labels and numbers. The ladder runs 12px to a fluid 96px display step.
• Form. Radii are 10 / 20 / 30 / 999px and nothing else. Depth is hairlines; the only sanctioned shadow lives on --paper cards.
• Components. Two tiers: primitives (pill, link, tabs, field, alert, chip, card, code, table, blockquote, list, divider) and the patterns they compose into (section head, nav, hero, metrics, stat strip, pricing, CTA band, media frame, marquee, flow line, FAQ, footer).
• Motion. 300ms inversions, 700ms entrances, a 5s beam on live paths. prefers-reduced-motion kills all of it.
• Print. Eggshell mode flattens alpha to --print-ink-* solids with --nebula-navy as the one chromatic voice; the dark page prints light through a media-query remap.

Full spec: design.md. Cheatsheet: CHEATSHEET.md. Diagram theming: mermaid-theme.json.

Layout

tokens.json            Canonical color register (all hexes live here)
design.md              Full spec: color, type, spacing, components, motion, print
CHEATSHEET.md          One-page quick reference
mermaid-theme.json     Token -> diagram-theme mapping (dark + print notes)
templates/
  landing-page.html    Dark, screen-first page
  landing-page-light.html  Same page on eggshell
  one-pager.html       Eggshell A4 print template (WeasyPrint-ready)
site/
  index.html           The system's own showcase + spec site (dark)
  index-light.html     The same showcase in light mode
scripts/
  check_tokens.py      Drift guard: var() refs and hexes must be registered

Credits

• Fonts: Space Grotesk and JetBrains Mono, loaded from Google Fonts. The stacks keep "The Future" / "The Future Mono" first in line if you own the licensed families.
• Visual DNA: Kami by tw93.

License

MIT