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Shelby Kay. Two-color ink system on aged paper, with display type that bleeds past the page edge and metadata that whispers from the margins.

  • Studio
  • Light theme
  • 6 colors
  • 2 typefaces

Shelby Kay is a botanical editorial portfolio: a warm linen canvas, one dark-olive ink color, and a single sage-green accent that does all the brand expression. Typography is extreme — Ranade display type stretches to 265px and bleeds edge-to-edge, while Switzer handles everything else at a compact 10–20px range, creating a magazine-spread tension between monumental headers and whispering metadata. Navigation is text-only with no buttons, no rounded controls, no shadows — the interface reads as a printed art book, not a software product. Sections shift through warm tonal layers (cream → tan → taupe) rather than alternating hard color blocks, and the overall system rewards restraint: hierarchy comes from scale, weight, and whitespace, never from color or chrome.

Screenshot of Shelby Kay
Captured from shelbykay.dev on October 11, 2026

Shelby Kay design system

Shelby Kay

Brand1

  • Primary text, borders, and structural strokes — all type from body to display headings, all card and image borders, all interactive outlines

Accent1

  • Display headings and brand voice — used for the monumental SHELBY wordmark, section anchors, and selective heading accents that carry the brand's botanical identity

Neutrals4

  • Cool-toned neutral for subtle contrast shifts — secondary surface, hover or muted state for UI elements needing visual separation from the warm base

  • Tertiary surface and muted helpers — profile-section backdrop, desaturated metadata, low-emphasis UI text and dividers

  • Orange wash for highlight backgrounds, decorative bands, and soft emphasis behind content.

  • Primary canvas and card surfaces — page background, card fills, the base warm tone the entire system sits on

Try a pairing

Pick any two colors from the palette to check whether text stays readable on top.

Aa

Linen on Olive Ink

9.17 : 1 contrast

Background
Text
  • Body textPasses AA 4.5
  • Large textPasses AA 3
  • StrictPasses AAA 7

More DESIGN.md files. Same web, different personalities.