A vocabulary, not a texture.
V1's visual language is strong, which makes it easy to overuse. Three tiers, with budgets: structural devices need no justification, signature devices need a reason, editorial devices need a reason and a budget. The objective is blunt — prevent Milo from becoming a parody of its own language.
Structural · signature · editorial.
Tier A is the system itself. Tier B carries meaning where meaning exists. Tier C is punctuation, and punctuation used constantly stops being punctuation.
A · Structural — may appear broadly
- grid and columns
- the spacing scale
- typographic hierarchy
- hairline rules
- semantic colour
- alignment
- the state vocabulary
B · Signature — contextual, ≤ 3 kinds per surface
- dither and halftone treatments
- technical microtype
- coordinates
- index numbers
- image channel separation
- the ⌁ executor line
C · Editorial — ≤ 1 per surface, none at SYSTEM
- crosshairs
- registration marks
- large conceptual annotation
- extreme image treatments
- Abloh-style intervention
- oversized technical marks
The crosshair, three ways.
One crosshair means this point. Six crosshairs mean nothing at all.
Use · do not overuse · bad.
Each device earns its place by meaning something in the place it appears.
| Device | Use | Do not overuse | Bad |
|---|---|---|---|
| Registration mark | once, near a plate genuinely separated into inks | on every image, including untouched ones | on a settings page — nothing was registered, so the mark is a lie |
| Coordinates | a real coordinate for a real place | coordinates as texture | 40.7128° N under an artwork held in Chicago: false precision is the opposite of provenance |
| Index numbers | a real position in a real sequence | indexing unordered things | 03 / 27 on a list that reorders itself |
| Conceptual annotation | once per editorial page, quoting the thing it annotates | several on one screen | annotation in product UI — the interface quoting itself at a working person |
| Dither / extreme treatment | where the image is the subject, or the transition means something | every thumbnail dithered | a dithered portrait in a costs table |
| Microtype | machine facts: model, cost, duration, executor, path | tracked uppercase for ordinary copy | a paragraph of .micro — 0.12em tracking is for four words, not forty |
Costs, Fleet, Models, Diagnostics get structural devices only.
Adding decoration there is not more Milo; it is less. The identity survives through hierarchy, spacing, strict semantic colour, microtype, interaction quality and honest numbers.
The three-question test
- What does it mean here? If the answer is “it looks like us”, remove it.
- Would removing it lose information? If not, it is decoration.
- Is it the only one of its tier on this surface? If not, cut to the strongest.
A useful heuristic: on any screen a stranger should be able to point at the one thing that makes it Milo. If they can point at six, the system is shouting.
python3 tools/jev.py ask device --file site/pages/screens/costs.html