# Anti-Defaults

## Contents

- Purpose and review method
- Template composition: centered gradient hero, glass cards, equal card grids, eyebrows, metric blocks, pills, soft semantic tint-on-tint treatments, dark-premium assumptions, huge type, fake terminals, floating screenshots, and bento layouts
- Decoration and truth: ambient motion, icon medallions, false authenticity, emoji, and mixed icon language
- Craft regressions: generic hover lift, abrupt states, accidental misalignment, reimplemented local styling, generic type, and generated em dashes
- Final anti-default review

## Purpose

An anti-default is not a ban. It is a prompt to prove that a visual choice belongs to this product, audience, content, and archetype. A choice passes when changing it would weaken the screen’s job or subject-specific identity.

For every flagged pattern, write one sentence: **“This belongs because…”** If the sentence only says “modern,” “premium,” “clean,” “engaging,” or “on brand,” replace the choice.

## Centered gradient hero

**AI tell:** Centered oversized headline, violet/blue glow, two CTAs, product screenshot floating below.

**Default action:** Build hierarchy from the actual claim, proof, and product behavior; choose composition after content.

**Legitimate when:** The brand owns the gradient or light behavior, the page has one conversion job, and the centered pause supports the narrative. `stripe` and `framer` are relevant evidence; neither makes the pattern universal.

## Generic glass cards

**AI tell:** Translucent rounded rectangles with blur and hairlines layered over decorative color fields.

**Default action:** Use a clear material model—flat canvas, tonal surface, border, or measured elevation—with one reason for each layer.

**Legitimate when:** Content conceptually sits over live media/map/video, temporary overlays need context, or translucency is an established local platform material.

## Equal three-card feature grid

**AI tell:** Three interchangeable icon-title-copy cards used because the viewport divides neatly.

**Default action:** Rank the content, then let importance and relationship determine module size and sequence.

**Legitimate when:** Exactly three peer choices exist, comparison is the user’s task, and equal weight is truthful.

## Decorative eyebrow label

**AI tell:** Uppercase mono text above every heading, often paired with a dot or rule, regardless of content.

**Default action:** Remove it unless it names useful hierarchy, sequence, category, status, or technical context.

**Legitimate when:** Editorial taxonomy, step labels, system state, or a real dual-register type system makes the eyebrow informative.

## Random metric blocks

**AI tell:** Large percentages and counts inserted to make a page look credible or data-rich.

**Default action:** Show only metrics with a source, unit, time frame, comparison, and decision consequence.

**Legitimate when:** The metric is auditable and answers a question central to the screen, such as current capacity, conversion, latency, or balance.

## Ubiquitous pills

**AI tell:** Navigation, buttons, filters, badges, cards, and inputs all become capsules.

**Default action:** Reserve full pills for roles that benefit from compact enclosure or toggle/tag semantics; use a smaller local radius vocabulary elsewhere.

**Legitimate when:** The project already uses an orbital/capsule motif, a control’s variable label length needs it, or tactile consumer friendliness is a deliberate material rule.

## Soft semantic tint-on-tint

**AI tell:** Badges, buttons, toasts, cards, selected states, status rows, and icon medallions repeatedly use low-opacity semantic-color backgrounds with saturated same-hue text or icons, sometimes with a matching border. Component libraries often name this formula `soft`, `subtle`, `surface`, or `tonal`.

**Default action:** Replace the formula, then derive the new treatment from the product's actual aesthetic and component role. A neutral surface with one semantic marker, a solid fill with neutral high-contrast text, monochrome styling, product accent, typography, or another coherent local material model can work; none is the universal replacement.

**Legitimate when:** The user explicitly requests tint-on-tint or exact reuse of an established design-system variant is required by scope. Unlike most patterns in this file, this is a binding craft default rather than a pattern justified by generic claims such as `clean`, `friendly`, or `modern`.

## Dark equals premium

**AI tell:** Near-black canvas, purple glow, thin gray borders, and muted text chosen without product evidence.

**Default action:** Choose theme from environment, content, task duration, contrast needs, imagery, and existing brand.

**Legitimate when:** Media needs darkness, the tool is used in low-light environments, the brand is dark-first, or the existing product already supports a tested dark theme.

## Huge type equals distinction

**AI tell:** 96–160px headline doing all the visual work while content hierarchy remains shallow.

**Default action:** Establish contrast through wording, measure, weight, width, placement, and surrounding scale before increasing size.

**Legitimate when:** The surface is campaign/editorial, the phrase is short, localization is tested, and the type itself is the subject or signature.

## Fake terminal or code theater

**AI tell:** Decorative prompts, logs, monospace labels, and syntax colors on any developer-facing page.

**Default action:** Use real commands, code, output, errors, and copy behavior—or use ordinary product evidence.

**Legitimate when:** The user’s task genuinely involves code/CLI output and the example is accurate, selectable, versioned, and useful.

## Floating product screenshot

**AI tell:** Perspective-tilted dashboard image with glow, no readable details, and no relationship to the claim.

**Default action:** Show a focused, legible product state tied to the adjacent proof, or demonstrate the interaction directly.

**Legitimate when:** Spatial overview matters, the screenshot is current and honest, and perspective does not hide evidence users need to judge.

## Bento by default

**AI tell:** Every feature becomes a differently sized rounded tile, producing visual variety without semantic structure.

**Default action:** Map module size to priority, content type, and reading order; simplify any tile that exists only to fill a gap.

**Legitimate when:** The screen is genuinely an overview of heterogeneous modules and tile persistence supports scanning or rearrangement.

## Ambient perpetual motion

**AI tell:** Marquees, floating particles, pulsing glows, or auto-rotating cards that continue without user intent.

**Default action:** Keep the resting screen still; animate state change, spatial continuity, feedback, or a finite narrative beat.

**Legitimate when:** Motion is the content (audio, time, live system activity), remains comprehensible when paused, and has a reduced-motion alternative.

## Generic icon medallions

**AI tell:** Every section starts with a line icon inside the same tinted rounded square.

**Default action:** Remove icons that repeat the heading; use diagrams, imagery, or symbols only where recognition becomes faster.

**Legitimate when:** Icons support repeated navigation, status scanning, compact controls, or a real category system.

## False authenticity

**AI tell:** Invented testimonials, logos, avatars, customer counts, ratings, or precise business data.

**Default action:** Use real project content; if unavailable, label honest illustrative content plainly and avoid claims.

**Legitimate when:** The user explicitly supplies approved fixtures or asks for a clearly marked prototype dataset.

## Emoji used as interface imagery

**AI tell:** Emoji stand in for icons, status marks, bullets, empty-state art, or section decoration, producing platform-dependent color and inconsistent geometry.

**Default action:** Reuse the project's icon system or one coherent icon package, with accessible labels and consistent optical sizing.

**Legitimate when:** The user explicitly requests emoji, emoji is the actual content being entered or discussed, or exact supplied source copy must retain it.

## Mixed or improvised icon language

**AI tell:** Package icons, hand-drawn SVGs, text glyphs, and platform symbols appear together with mismatched stroke, fill, weight, and bounding boxes.

**Default action:** Select one installed family and one wrapper component. Normalize size, stroke/fill, color, target, label, and state treatment.

**Legitimate when:** A required third-party brand mark or native platform symbol carries meaning that the product icon family cannot replace.

## Generic hover lift

**AI tell:** Cards and buttons jump upward, scale, bob, or float on every hover regardless of material or task.

**Default action:** Use a short background, border, underline, icon-fill, opacity, or restrained shadow transition. Keep geometry stable.

**Legitimate when:** Spatial movement communicates actual drag, depth, stacking, or physical direct manipulation, and reduced motion removes non-essential travel.

## Abrupt interactive states

**AI tell:** Hover, press, expand, selection, loading, success, and error snap with no continuity or acknowledgement.

**Default action:** Give every relevant state clear feedback and transition interpolable properties with shared duration/easing tokens. Keep focus visible immediately.

**Legitimate when:** Reduced-motion preference, urgent safety feedback, or an inherently discrete state requires an immediate change; meaning must still remain clear.

## Accidental misalignment

**AI tell:** Almost-shared edges, drifting section widths, mismatched card padding, uneven control heights, and dividers that miss neighboring boundaries.

**Default action:** Establish key lines, grid, spacing tokens, component anatomy, and responsive alignment before adding decoration.

**Legitimate when:** A deliberate editorial or media break communicates hierarchy and remains visibly intentional across viewports.

## Reimplemented local styling

**AI tell:** A new button, modal, card, status color, icon wrapper, or focus ring duplicates an existing project primitive with slightly different values.

**Default action:** Reuse the existing component or extend its documented variant API. Add a new primitive only for a genuinely different semantic role.

**Legitimate when:** The project has no suitable primitive or reuse would corrupt semantics; document the new role and make it reusable.

## Generic type by neglect

**AI tell:** Net-new aesthetic work ships with Arial, Helvetica, or bare `system-ui` because typography was never designed.

**Default action:** Reuse the product type system or choose an intentional, efficiently loaded family/pairing from `craft-rulings.md`. Assign clear display, body, utility, and technical roles.

**Legitimate when:** The existing system requires it, native platform fidelity is the goal, network/self-hosted fonts are prohibited, or performance evidence favors the established stack.

## Generated em dash voice

**AI tell:** UI headings, descriptions, empty states, and helper text repeatedly use em dashes as an LLM writing habit.

**Default action:** Rewrite with a period, comma, colon, parentheses, or two sentences.

**Legitimate when:** The user explicitly wants em dashes or exact supplied, quoted, brand, or legal copy must remain unchanged.

## Anti-default review

Before implementation, flag every pattern above that appears in the thesis. Keep a flagged choice only with its one-sentence product-specific justification.

After the first screenshot:

1. Cover the logo and product name. Identify what still makes the screen specific.
2. Remove one decorative idea and compare hierarchy.
3. Replace one block of generic copy with real content.
4. Check whether the signature survives mobile without becoming clutter.
5. If another unrelated product could use the same screenshot unchanged, revise the weakest area.