MOOI NIET. visual system#

Provisional system holding the current reader and earlier presentation hypotheses

This document records visual hypotheses so they can be inspected and changed. It is not a finished identity manual. A rule belongs here only when it supports the visual brief and survives use with real work.

Current reader register#

The active public surface is a document reader generated from the corpus. Its visual role is deliberately narrow:

• feel like a working binder rather than a promotional homepage;
• expose document authority, status, source, sequence, and cross-reference;
• use typographic hierarchy, rules, numbering, and restrained diagrams for legibility;
• follow the reader's system colour scheme;
• keep canonical documents, provisional studies, and contributor notebooks visibly distinct;
• add no editorial claim that is absent from the source material.

The reader treats the index and document as two states of the same working binder. The full catalogue uses whole-row signal colour for hover and keyboard focus. Opening a source retains its group as a compact left-hand index, gives the document a wider central measure, and uses the remaining right-hand field for authority, status, provenance, and a live section map. Navigation makes a hard cut between those layouts. Continuity comes from the index staying visible and the selected row retaining its group signal colour, not from a cinematic page morph.

This register can become more capable without becoming an identity object. The durable-manual reference in the visual brief is a direction for refinement, not permission to dress the corpus in 1970s corporate nostalgia.

Three registers from presentation pass 01#

The earlier frontend-led pass explored Poster, Work, and Ledger. They remain useful registers for future edition studies, but they are not the organizing system of the current public reader.

Poster register#

Purpose: name the project, open a proposition, and carry short public refusals.

• Large, blunt type.
• Short statements with real argumentative content.
• Irreverence concentrated here rather than spread through every caption.
• Used sparingly enough that it does not become perpetual shouting.

Work register#

Purpose: let an artwork or collection establish its own visual terms.

• Artwork scale is not normalized for a catalogue grid.
• Layout can change around the work's dimensions, material, and permitted crop.
• Identity elements withdraw when they compete with the work.
• Each collection may introduce a specific mechanism or visual behavior without turning that behavior into a gallery-wide feature.

Ledger register#

Purpose: expose the material structure without promotional interpretation.

• Plain labels and ordinary language.
• Money, selection, permissions, stays, movement, care, and attribution.
• Dates and states when they are meaningful.
• No scores, badges, popularity indicators, or prestige markers.

The registers may meet on one page, but they should remain distinguishable. A factual record should not inherit the rhetoric of a poster; artist work should not become background for either.

Identity#

Current working form:

MOOI NIET.

• Uppercase and the final period are hypotheses, not permanent logo law.
• Do not add a symbol merely to make the name trademark-like.
• Do not use strikethrough, torn edges, spray paint, or deliberate damage as a shortcut to opposition.
• The name should work as ordinary text in a sentence and as a public mark.
• The identity must tolerate individual collections looking unlike one another.

Typography#

The first direction pairs:

• a blunt, common grotesk for public statements;
• an administrative monospace for records, labels, dates, and provenance.

The type should not derive cultural authority from rarity or cost. Readily available typefaces, including system faces, are legitimate candidates.

Behaviors to test:

• tight, large statement setting without fashion-editorial delicacy;
• compact factual labels with generous enough size for actual reading;
• abrupt scale changes between proposition and record;
• artist accounts in a quieter reading face only when long-form material needs it;
• no tiny captions used to perform sophistication.

Typeface selection remains open until Dutch and English text, artist names, dimensions, prices, and longer essays are tested together.

Colour#

The first pass uses:

• an uncoated paper-like ground;
• an ink-like near-black;
• a bureaucratic or electric blue;
• a signal orange-red;
• an acid yellow-green.

These are roles, not a final palette.

• Ground and ink carry most content.
• Blue may identify institutional structure or a secondary field.
• Orange-red may interrupt, warn, or identify the work as an active relation.
• Acid colour may mark a temporary test or material that has not been resolved.
• Colour should not be sampled from artworks to make the interface “match.”
• Every use must retain accessible contrast and a non-colour cue when it carries meaning.

The number of active signal colours on a page should remain low. Colourful is not automatically irreverent.

Composition#

• Use visible grids when they expose relation or accountability.
• Permit asymmetry and abrupt proportion changes.
• Let artworks break or redefine the grid rather than forcing equal cards.
• Prefer rules, fields, and whitespace to rounded containers and floating cards.
• Keep the page visibly constructed rather than frictionlessly cinematic.
• Use sequence to reveal context; do not rely on an infinite feed.
• Negative space protects hierarchy rather than performing luxury.

Image system#

Artwork#

• Show real work rather than generated stand-ins.
• Preserve the work's aspect ratio unless a crop is artist-approved and clearly useful.
• Supply dimensions and material without turning them into marketplace specs.
• Offer detail views because material asks for them, not as a zoom engagement feature.
• Never apply popularity order or “you may also like” adjacency.

Stays#

• A stay image documents a work in a real place.
• Include enough place to understand scale, light, sightline, and relation.
• Do not style the room to manufacture host fitness or desirability.
• Do not require a host to supply photographs or make a private home public.
• State when no image is part of the record.

Artists and process#

• Use portraits only with consent and purpose.
• Do not use personality imagery as a proxy for practice.
• Process fragments are selected, bounded, attributed, and artist-approved.
• An artist without a visual archive receives no less support.

Records and diagrams#

The interface may show:

• the roles of artist, work, host, and gallery;
• a work's collection and corpus relations;
• the fact and sequence of stays;
• custody, permissions, and care conditions;
• artist circulation pay, purchase reserve, shared support, and gallery labor;
• return, rotation, reassembly, acquisition, and closure.

Diagrams should state actual relations rather than decorate abstract concepts. A simple arrow is preferable to a branded ecosystem graphic when it is more accurate.

Navigation and naming#

The first presentation pass tests:

WORK / ARTISTS / STAYS / MONEY

This is provisional. It has useful directness:

• Work leads rather than inventory or shop.
• Artists keeps authorship visible.
• Stays names the temporal unit.
• Money refuses to hide economics under “support” language.

Possible additions such as Collections, Terms, or About should earn their place. Avoid Explore, Discover, For You, Journal, Stories, Community, and similarly soft containers unless the content genuinely requires them.

A future edition-era hierarchy could replace the document reader when real work and permissions make an edition-led surface possible:

MOOI NIET.
  CURRENT EDITION
  EDITIONS
  WORKS / STORE
  ARTISTS
  MONEY

WORKS and STORE are two names for one possible direct purchase surface, not two destinations. The choice remains open. STORE is transactionally honest; WORKS keeps the object and artist ahead of commerce but must not hide that buying is possible.

Entering an edition may introduce its own navigation, identity, sequence, and interaction. The persistent shell should provide a clear way back and keep money, terms, accessibility, and necessary controls reachable without forcing every edition into the same page hierarchy.

See the edition system for the stable and variable layers.

Interaction#

• No likes, reactions, ratings, follower counts, streaks, or public profiles.
• No default save, share, or follow pressure.
• No infinite scroll or popularity ordering.
• No behavioral taste profile.
• Context becomes available when wanted and may also be deliberately delayed.
• Navigation should support a composed path without trapping someone inside it.
• A person may leave without a conversion prompt.
• Any analytics must be minimal, declared, and unable to become an allocation signal for artists or works.

The proposed GUNFACTOR interaction is a deliberate exception in appearance only. It looks like a public metric but measures nothing, accepts no meaningful adjustment, and cannot influence selection, order, payment, circulation, or recommendation. Its administrative presentation is the critique; it must not introduce the engagement machinery refused above.

Edition-specific secrets may use focus, hover, touch, time, handoff, chance, physical placement, or an external state as a trigger. They do not announce a completion set, reward repeated checking, track discovery, or hide necessary information. A digital secret with an interaction must remain operable by keyboard and touch even when its existence is understated.

Motion#

• Begin with no motion by default.
• If motion belongs, prefer direct cuts, state changes, or work-specific behavior.
• Slow evolution should correspond to a real handoff, edition state, or human editorial act rather than visitor activity or a decorative loop.
• A person who never witnesses a change must retain access to the complete necessary record.
• Avoid parallax, ambient looping video, slow opacity reveals, and movement that manufactures reverence.
• Respect reduced-motion preferences.
• A collection-specific technological behavior does not automatically become part of the gallery system.

Accessibility#

• Text remains readable at ordinary sizes; no prestige microtype.
• Keyboard order follows the visual and editorial sequence.
• Focus is visible.
• Colour never carries meaning alone.
• Artwork descriptions distinguish factual observation from interpretation.
• Language and translation controls are direct and do not overwrite artist voice.
• Responsive layouts preserve hierarchy rather than shrinking desktop posters.

Anti-patterns#

• The rebellion starter pack: distressed type, fluorescent tape, torn posters, and arbitrary misregistration.
• The luxury gallery starter pack: tiny sans-serif labels, huge empty margins, slow fades, and a monochrome wordmark.
• The wellness starter pack: warm neutrals, tactile closeups, candles, poetic fragments, and self-discovery language.
• The marketplace starter pack: normalized cards, filters, hearts, price-first metadata, urgency, and “similar works.”
• The institution starter pack: diagrams and terminology that make power less rather than more legible.
• The interactive-critique starter pack: a button that becomes a game, a shareable result, a participation counter, or a substitute for structural practice.

Preserved presentation-pass decisions#

The first presentation pass tested:

• the name as a compact header mark;
• poster-scale proxy language;
• visibility, pedigree, polish, and solvency as a visible index;
• an artwork-sized field that refuses the décor mockup;
• a ledger with selection, followers, artist pay, stewardship, and circulation;
• the four roles expressed through active verbs;
• Money as a top-level navigation item.

None of these decisions is approved merely because the page is coherent.