flowmanceHouston Design System
Houston is a bright, friendly studio site on a cool pale-grey canvas. It reads like a pinboard: one big centred headline, photos scattered around it at an angle, then calm white tiles, outlined tags above section titles and a grid of square, saturated 3D renders. Everything is set in Inter Tight at weight 600 with no tracking, so it feels bold but soft.
Four signatures make it recognisable:
- The tilted-photo hero. A centred three-line headline (We're a / creative / digital studio.) with a black asterisk above it and a hand-drawn underline under creative, surrounded by photos rotated about −10° and a circular portrait cropped by the left edge. A small mouse icon marks the scroll.
- Asterisk pill tags. Sections open with a 2px outlined pill in 14px bold uppercase: ✱ RECENT WORK is centred above the 88px Work title, while ✱ TEAM SKILLS sits left-aligned above the skill bars in the image split.
- White pill on grey. The main button is a white 60px-tall pill on the #F2F3F4 canvas with near-black text, not a dark button.
- Centred logo nav with a cart. Social icons on the left, the Hoūston wordmark (with a macron over the u) in the middle, Cart ( 0 ), Menu and a thin + on the right. The bar turns white once you scroll.
Houston is a light-only design.
Colors
Surfaces
#F2F3F4Page background, the CTA band, the overlay menu (--font-color)
#FFFFFFIcon tiles, the scrolled nav bar, inputs, the main button
#FFFFFFInputs, with #999999 placeholders
#CCCCCCWith field: Inputs, with #999999 placeholders
#333333Text on field
Ink
#040507Text on primary
#F2F3F4Text on secondary
#040507Headlines, nav, tags, labels (--background-color)
#191C20Paragraphs (p uses --menu-color); almost as dark as ink
#040507 · 60%Footer links at rest (opacity 0.6, full on hover)
#FFFFFFTitles over images
Action
#FFFFFFMain pill button
#FFFFFF#040507Form submit (Get in Touch)
Lines & effects
#0405072px tag outlines, skill bars, the 2px hamburger line
#191C202px outline of the section tag (.flex-tag-main)
#000000 · 40%Flat overlay on background images with white text
#000000 · 50%Darker overlays (2 uses)
#222222End colour of the bottom gradient (transparent → #222222 94%) on image bands
Typography
Inter Tight · display-menu
The quick brown fox jumpsOverlay-menu links (.text-full, .text-line). 100px · 600 · 1.0
Inter Tight · headline-marquee
The quick brown fox jumpsRotating title strip on work cards (.text-rotator-2, 18 uses). 57px · 600 · 1.2
Inter Tight · title-lg
The quick brown fox jumpsBlog card titles. 28px · 600 · 1.3
Inter Tight · body-lg
The quick brown fox jumpsParagraphs, input text. 18px · 500 · 1.3
Inter Tight · label-button
The quick brown fox jumpsPill button label. 18px · 600 · 1.7
Inter Tight · eyebrow
The quick brown fox jumpsFooter column titles. 15px · 700 · 1.33
Spacing & shape
| Purpose | Value |
|---|---|
| Container | max 1200px, centred (.container) |
| Section rhythm | 120px top and bottom (.section, .section-cta); .section drops to 80px at ≤991px and 50px at ≤767px |
| Breakpoints | 991px, 767px and 479px, plus min-width steps at 768, 1280 and 1440px |
Spacing scale
| Token | Value | Preview |
|---|---|---|
xs | 5px | |
sm | 10px | |
md | 16px | |
lg | 30px | |
xl | 70px | |
2xl | 100px |
Layout spacing
| Token | Value | Preview |
|---|---|---|
footer-top | 60px | |
section-cta | 70px | |
gutter | 72px | |
nav-height | 90px | |
section | 120px |
Border radius
Surfaces
How the surfaces stack, from the page background up. Hex codes and roles are in Colors above.
Motion
| Headline reveal | Lines move y 200% → 0% with skewY 7° → 0°; the move is 1100ms outQuint, the skew 500ms |
| Fade-in on scroll | opacity 0 → 1, 1000ms outQuart |
| Fade-up | y 40px → 0, 500ms |
| Scale-in | scale 0 → 1 at 400ms outExpo; small pops 0.8 → 1 at 300ms outQuad |
| Hero photos | Follow the mouse (mouse-move interactions) and drift on page scroll |
| Button hover | Label roll inside a 1.9rem mask; .button-background sized over 500ms |
| Menu open | Overlay fades in; links roll up in their 105px masks, 500ms |
| Nav on scroll | Background colour 300ms ease to white |
| Link hover | Opacity 0.6 → 1, 300ms (transition: all .3s); arrows nudge x 6px over 500ms |
| Slider arrows | Background colour 200ms cubic-bezier(0.645, 0.045, 0.355, 1) |
Do’s and don’ts
- Use #F2F3F4 as the page and #FFFFFF only for tiles, pills, inputs and the scrolled nav.
- Set all headings in Inter Tight 600 with 0px tracking and line height 1.0 at display sizes.
- Open sections with a tag-section pill (✱ LABEL, 2px #191C20 outline, 30px radius), centred above an 88px title or left-aligned in a split.
- Use the white 60px pill (#FFFFFF, #040507 text, 100px radius) for the main action.
- Keep work images square with no radius and a 30px gap.
- Use 2px near-black lines for tags, bars and outlines.
- Add the unused lime #BFEA88 or lilac #F3EAF7, or any accent colour, to the UI.
- Add drop shadows, blur or glass.
- Set paragraphs lighter than 500 or grey them with a hex grey; use #191C20 or opacity.
- Round the work images or use radii outside 8 / 10 / 20 / 30 / 100px and circles.
- Use letter spacing on headlines.
- Put white text on a photo without the #00000066 scrim.
Example prompt
Any page in the Houston style
More design systems like this
Agency design systems, the same colors first.
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Get All AccessUpgrade to All AccessHow to use the Houston design system
Pick a file to see what it’s for and where it goes.
What it is
The whole design system in one markdown file, written for AI: every color, type style, spacing value, component and motion rule, plus do's, don'ts and a ready prompt.
Best for
Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Cursor and v0, or any other AI tool that builds pages or code.
How to use it
- Put
DESIGN.mdin your project and mention it in your request, or save it as.cursor/rules/houston.mdc - For the rule file, start it with a front-matter block that sets
alwaysApply: true, so every chat uses it - Ask: “Build a pricing page using DESIGN.md.” Cursor follows the colors, fonts, spacing and rules
- Put
DESIGN.mdin the project root - Add one line to
CLAUDE.md: “Follow DESIGN.md for all UI.” - Ask for any page or component; Claude reads the file first
- Attach
DESIGN.mdto the chat (or paste it in) - Ask: “Build a landing page in this design system.”
- Keep the file in the chat or project knowledge, so follow-up pages stay on style
What it is
Every token as data, in the W3C Design Tokens format: colors with their roles, type styles, radius, spacing, and component tokens that point at them.
Best for
Figma (Tokens Studio), Style Dictionary and other design-token tools, and build scripts.
How to use it
- In Figma, open Tokens Studio, choose Import, and pick
tokens.json - Or point Style Dictionary’s
sourceat it to generate tokens for any platform - In code, import it like any JSON file
What it is
A Tailwind CSS v4 theme: every color, font, type style, radius and spacing value becomes a Tailwind utility, like bg-canvas, text-headline-lg or rounded-md.
Best for
Tailwind v4 projects, and AI builders that write Tailwind (v0, Lovable, Bolt).
How to use it
- Save
theme.cssnext to your main CSS file - Import it after Tailwind:
@import "tailwindcss"; @import "./theme.css"; - Use the classes:
bg-canvas text-ink rounded-md p-lg
What it is
The same tokens as plain CSS variables on :root. Component values point at the color variables, so changing one color updates everything that uses it.
Best for
Any website: plain CSS, Webflow custom code, Framer, WordPress.
How to use it
- Add it to your stylesheet, or in Webflow paste it into Site settings → Custom code inside a
<style>tag - Use the variables anywhere:
color: var(--color-ink) - Change a token once and every place that uses it follows