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Design System Reference
View DESIGN.md ↗
The grid is the brand. Ink is the voice.
WIRED's identity is newspaper discipline electrified: 1px black hairlines doing all the structure, black-on-white typography doing all the talking, and three neon accents used like punctuation — never like paint. Nothing is rounded. Nothing is soft.
Color
Black and white carry 95% of every page. The neon trio — electric blue, acid green, magenta — appears only as small hits: a kicker, a highlight, a rank numeral. If an accent covers more than a chip, it must be duotoned with black geometry on top.
INK
PAPER
ELC
ACD
MGT
DUO
Typography
One loud sans, one literary serif, one cold mono. Inter Black at -0.035em tracking is the headline voice; IBM Plex Serif italic interrupts it mid-sentence for the emotional word. JetBrains Mono handles dates, bylines and figures — the wire-service residue.
| Token | Sample | Spec | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| --display | Learning to Want | 76px / 900 / -0.035em | Lead headline — sans + serif italic splice |
| --hed | Quantum Cold War | 20–27px / 900 | Story headlines |
| --dek | Two superpowers, one fragile qubit. | 15–18px / serif 400 | Deks & standfirsts |
| --kicker | ■ Artificial Intelligence | 11px / 800 / +0.18em caps | Category eyebrow |
| --byline | BY MAYA OKAFOR | 11px / mono caps | Bylines, dates, figures |
| --rank | 05 | 64px / 900 / outline stroke | Most Popular numerals |
Rules & Radius
There is no radius scale: every corner is 0. Structure comes from rules — the hairline grid is built with 1px gaps over an ink background, so every cell is fenced like a newspaper column. Weight escalates 1px → 3px → 6px for hierarchy. Depth, when needed, is a hard offset shadow, never a blur.
Hairline
1px — cell fencing, table rows
Section Rule
3px — masthead, zone heads
Slab Rule
6px — emphasis, DS top rule
Radius / Shadow
0px corners · 4px hard offset
Components
Buttons are typeset, not styled: black slab or hairline frame, all-caps, no rounding. Links underline by highlighter, inputs focus with a hard offset shadow. Every card is a miniature front page — kicker, art, headline.
Buttons & Links
Inputs & Tags
AI
Security
FIG. 04 — LABEL
Story Card
■ Science
The Grid That Eats the Sun
Voice & Tone
WIRED writes like it designs: declarative, slightly dangerous, never neutral.
Declarative
"Your Password Is Already Gone."
Headlines are verdicts, not questions. State the thesis in the hed; argue it in the dek.
Headlines are verdicts, not questions. State the thesis in the hed; argue it in the dek.
Splice the Registers
Hard sans for the fact, serif italic for the feeling — the typographic splice mirrors the editorial one: rigorous reporting, lurid stakes.
Numbers as Drama
"41 devices. Nine years. $40M."
Figures are characters in the story. Set them in mono or outline strokes; let them be loud.
Figures are characters in the story. Set them in mono or outline strokes; let them be loud.