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Machine Room Design system
In development
Design system · November 2026 · kerrythornhill.com
Nothing floats.
Everything is bolted.
- Version
- Tokens v1 ·
- License
- CC BY 4.0
- Status
- In development
Machine Room is the editorial design system behind contestability.ai, and the parent of two sister rooms. It draws on a 1970s mainframe installation, the constructivist poster, and one gas-flame light.
01 · Sources
Three sources and one subject
The look was not chosen from a catalog. Each part of it comes from somewhere, and each part has a job.
The machine room
Mass and structure
A 1970s mainframe installation: refrigerator-sized cabinets in a grid on a raised floor, a console matrix of lamps and switches, tape drives behind smoked glass, tractor-feed paper.
The poster
Geometry and feeling
Constructivist agitprop, kept for its sharp edges, its single diagonal, and its emotion: direction, a bright future, collective effort. Not its red.
The plasma
One living color
Monochrome terminal light, but gas-flame blue rather than phosphor green. It is present, however slightly, on every screen and in every image.
The subject
Four roles
Contestability has four roles: the information a person receives, their objection, the inquiry it triggers, and the institution's response. Those roles fix what each color may mean.
02 · Principles
Six rules, each of which does work
01
Bolted, not floating
No shadows, no rounded corners, no gradients. Depth is a step in surface and a heavier stroke.
02
Two surfaces, one room
Reading happens on Paper. Structure, status, and figures live on Room. Every page uses both.
03
One living color
Plasma marks what is live: the lit lamp, the cursor, the active item. It is small, and it appears at least once on every screen.
04
Red means objection
The only red in the system is reserved for the objection. The interface has no error red. Attention is a single orange lamp.
05
Statements in serif, facts in mono
Bodoni Moda says what the work claims. IBM Plex Serif is what people read. IBM Plex Mono is every number, date, and label.
06
Every line at 0°, 30°, or 90°
Horizontals and verticals build the grid. The single diagonal rises left to right: it cuts a wedge, enters the mass, and points at the future.
03 · Palette
Colors that mean one thing each
The blues are structural and the beiges are the machine's skin. Three colors carry meaning, and none of them is used for decoration. The specimens on this page keep these colors. The page around them wears this site's own paper, ink, and copper.
Room · structure, status, figures
blue-floor
#06132AThe well beneath.blue-room
#0C1F3FThe ground.blue-cabinet
#15325FA raised panel.blue-panel
#1E4A85The boldest flat blue.Paper · reading
beige-printout
#EDE7D5Paper.beige-cabinet
#DDD5BEA panel or a mat.beige-pebble
#C7BEA4A rule. Never text.ink
#101A2EText on Paper.Meaning
flame
#3FA9F5Plasma on Room: what is live.flame-deep
#145A96Plasma on Paper, and every link.lamp
#E8862ESignal: the one attention state.wedge
#DA4E36Objection, and nothing else.04 · Type
Four voices, each with one job
- StatementBodoni Moda 600
- A determination is not final until it can be contested.
- ReadingIBM Plex Serif 18 / 1.6
- Reading happens in one measured column of sixty-six characters, with a line of space between paragraphs and no indents. Italic is for emphasis and the titles of works. Bold is for a defined term at first use.
- FactsIBM Plex Mono 15
- 2026-11-14 · 14:02 · PDF · 412 KB
REV. 2026-11-14 · TOKENS V1 · 32 COLORS · 13 TEXT STYLES - BezelIBM Plex Sans Condensed 600
- Lettering on the machine
This page's own headings are set in Bodoni 72 Bold, the title face of the NIC preprint, on devices that carry it, and in Bodoni Moda elsewhere.
05 · Geometry
A grid, one diagonal, and a lamp
- Hairline1px
- Rule2px
- Structural3px
- Bezel6px
Corners are square everywhere. The lamp is the one circle the machine has. A wedge is cut by moving one corner along the 30° line, so the vector always rises left to right.
06 · Components
The parts, running
These are the live components, not pictures of them. Hover states snap. Nothing fades.
Specimen sheet · Machine Room, in its own colors
The Determination diagram is the system's one distinctive device. It draws the four roles in their fixed colors: the record in paper, the objection as a red wedge, the inquiry as a lit path, and the response returning to the person.
Rooms in service
contestability.ai live on Machine Room.
dghumana.com live on Common Horizon.
algobirddog.com launched on Radar Room.
This page opened. In development.
| Site | Room | Living color | Typefaces | Live since |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| contestability.ai | Machine Room | Plasma blue | Bodoni Moda · IBM Plex | 2026-09-19 |
| dghumana.com | Common Horizon | Plasma blue on green | Bodoni Moda · IBM Plex | 2026-09-19 |
| algobirddog.com | Radar Room | Target orange, sweep gold | Jost · Source Serif 4 · DM Mono | 2026-09-27 |
| kerrythornhill.com | Horizon | Copper orange | IBM Plex | 2026-09-19 |
07 · In use
One system, three rooms
The same bones carry three sites: two surfaces, one living color, statements in a display face, facts in mono, depth drawn with strokes. What changes is the decade, the palette, and the device.
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This site, kerrythornhill.com, runs on Horizon: a warm-paper relative that keeps the mono labels and the machine-room imagery. This page is set in it.
08 · Imagery
Every image comes from the same room
Flat matte color, a low camera, a diagonal rising left to right, and people seen from behind or in profile, in command of the machine. The images are conceptual illustrations made from written prompts, and their captions say so.
09 · License
Use it, with attribution
The Machine Room tokens, stylesheets, component markup, and written guidelines are offered under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. You may use and adapt them for any purpose, including commercial work, if you credit the source.
Machine Room design system by Kerry Thornhill · kerrythornhill.com/machine-room · CC BY 4.0
The license does not cover the text, research, illustrations, or names of the sites shown on this page. The typefaces carry their own SIL Open Font Licenses.
The kit is not yet posted for download. Write to request it, or to ask about other terms.
Kerry Thornhill · Dallas, Texas
CC BY 4.0
· Tokens v1
In development