aesthetic-literacy

Aesthetic Literacy

Summary

Gives an agent a structured framework for understanding named aesthetic movements as semiotic systems — not just visual preferences. Provides a 7-dimension decomposition model (palette, type, texture, shape, motion, spatial conventions, cultural markers) and a curated dictionary of 212 major aesthetics organized by family. Enables identification, characterization, disambiguation, and connotation-aware application of any named visual aesthetic.

Used as the foundation for aesthetic-application.

Compatibility / Tooling

This skill intentionally does not declare allowed-tools frontmatter. It is portable across Agent Skills-compatible runtimes and relies on reading this SKILL.md plus skill-local references/ and aesthetics/ markdown files. If an agent has file-reading tools, use them to load the referenced files; otherwise ask the user to provide the relevant excerpt.

When to Apply This Skill

Apply when:

• A user names an aesthetic ("Y2K", "brutalist", "cottagecore") and wants to understand it formally
• A user uses a vague descriptor ("retro", "cozy", "clean") that needs mapping to a concrete aesthetic
• A user asks about the difference between two related aesthetics
• A design aesthetic needs to be characterized before tokens or assets are produced
• Another workflow needs to reason about aesthetic identity before producing an application spec

Do NOT apply when the request is purely about component implementation, layout structure, or accessibility. Those are outside the scope of this skill.

The 7-Dimension Framework

Every aesthetic is a system expressible along 7 formal dimensions. Always characterize all 7. Never reduce an aesthetic to one dimension alone (typically palette).

#	Dimension	What it covers
1	Palette	Core hue family, saturation level, value range, contrast behavior, characteristic combinations
2	Type	Type category (serif/sans/mono/display), historical style, weight distribution, case convention, letter-spacing norms
3	Texture	Surface quality (smooth, noisy, glossy, matte, aged, digital artifact), technique (CSS gradient, SVG filter, backdrop-filter, image overlay)
4	Shape	Border-radius personality, geometry (rectilinear/curved/geometric/organic), silhouette energy, UI element proportions
5	Motion	Timing character (snappy/slow/elastic/linear), easing personality, animation types present (fade/slide/spring/morph), reduced-motion behavior
6	Spatial Conventions	Density (sparse/dense), whitespace use, layering / z-axis depth, grid structure (strict/free/radial), content hierarchy approach
7	Cultural Markers	Iconographic vocabulary, motifs, symbols, textual register — elements that signal membership in the aesthetic community