Create visual assets

Create Visual Assets

Produce a static art object — poster, hero image, cover, card — in two steps: first write the design philosophy, then express it visually. The philosophy is written inside Dinesh's taste envelope, never outside it.

When to use / when NOT to use

Use for: portfolio case-study hero images, OG/social preview cards, talk or deck cover pages, printable one-page art pieces, section dividers, conceptual posters, any standalone PNG/PDF visual.

Do NOT use for:

• UI screens, components, pages → build-frontend-interfaces
• Charts, graphs, data graphics → visualize-data (which loads the built-in dataviz)
• Motion, transitions, animated anything → craft-motion
• Brand-token application across a product surface → apply-personal-brand
• Multi-page documents whose job is reading, not looking → docx/pptx/pdf utilities

Never imitate a living artist's recognizable work — original compositions only.

The method (steps 0–6, in order)

Step 0 — Load design-taste first

Non-negotiable. Every philosophy this skill writes is a local expression of that file, not a new aesthetic. If the request pulls against it (dark, loud, dense, novelty), surface the conflict before designing — do not silently comply or silently refuse.

Step 1 — Brief intake (60 seconds, 4 answers)

Question	Why
What TYPE and SIZE?	poster / OG card 1200×630 / hero 2400×1200 / A4 PDF — pixel dimensions decide everything downstream
Where does it LIVE?	link preview, portfolio page, print, projector — sets contrast, margin, and type-size floor
What ONE idea must it carry?	one asset = one idea. If the brief has three ideas, cut two (per design-taste: cut, don't shrink)
Is this a Dinesh-brand asset?	if yes, pull palette/type from apply-personal-brand tokens instead of choosing fresh

If any answer is missing and guessable, state the assumption in one line. If not guessable, ask.

Step 2 — Deduce the subtle reference

Find the conceptual thread of the subject and plan to weave it into form — never announce it. Someone who knows the subject should feel it; everyone else sees a clean composition. Think jazz quote, not caption.

• Voice product → turn-taking rhythm in the spacing
• Research piece → repeated marks accumulating like observations
• Booking system → a grid with one slot filled

The reference lives in structure, color, or rhythm — not in an illustrated icon of the thing.

Step 3 — Write the philosophy (.md, before any canvas code)

Name the piece's micro-movement (1–2 words) and write 3–5 short paragraphs covering, once each:

1. Space and form — what dominates, what is absent
2. Color and material — palette logic (defer accent/surface rules to design-taste)
3. Scale and rhythm — what is monumental, what whispers, what repeats
4. Composition and hierarchy — where the eye lands first and why
5. Craft standard — state plainly that the result must read as meticulous, labored-over, expert work; precision is the register, not decoration

Philosophy rules:

• It is an aesthetic worldview, NOT a layout spec — leave interpretive room for the expression step
• 90% visual, 10% text: information lives in space, form, and color; words are rare and load-bearing
• Each design aspect appears once — no restating color logic three ways
• It must be expressible inside the design-taste envelope; if it can't be, it's the wrong philosophy

Save it as <asset-name>-philosophy.md next to the output.

Step 4 — Express on canvas

Pick the tool by output:

Need PNG at exact pixels, full typographic control → HTML/CSS at fixed dimensions → headless screenshot (default choice)
Geometric/systematic marks, repeated elements     → SVG (hand-write coordinates) → render to PNG
Print PDF                                        → same HTML → print-to-PDF, or reportlab if programmatic layout wins

Canvas hard rules (mechanical, check every one):

• Nothing overlaps. Nothing clips at edges. Every element has clear separation.
• Margins generous beyond comfortable — the design-taste breathing-room law applies to canvases too
• Limited, intentional palette — accent and surface rules per design-taste
• Text minimal and visual-first: a large essential word or two, small clinical labels; never explanatory blocks
• Perfect shapes, deliberate alignment — a 1px-off edge reads as AI slop
• Repetition builds meaning: dense accumulations of marks, layered patterns, systematic reference markers that reward a second look — restraint in element types, patience in element count

Fonts — use the bundle in place, do NOT copy it (~5.5MB): The OFL families ship with the sibling canvas-design skill in its canvas-fonts/ directory — reference them there (canvas-design/canvas-fonts/), never duplicate them into this skill or the project. (On any machine without that bundle, fetch the same OFL fonts from Google Fonts.)

Fits the register (default pool)	Taste-risky — needs an explicit reason
Work Sans, Instrument Sans, Outfit (clean sans)	Erica One, Boldonse, Big Shoulders (loud display)
Geist Mono, IBM Plex Mono, JetBrains Mono (clinical labels)	Pixelify Sans, Silkscreen (novelty pixel)
Crimson Pro, Lora, Instrument Serif (earned warmth)	Nothing You Could Do, Smooch Sans (handwriting)
Jura Light, Poiret One (thin display, large sizes only)	Gloock, Italiana at body sizes (display misused)

Load via @font-face pointing at the bundle path. Thin weights at large sizes suit the register; never trade legibility for thinness.

Step 5 — The refine pass (mandatory, additive-free)

Assume the first render is not good enough. Do a second pass with one rule: refine what exists; add nothing. If the instinct is to draw a new shape or add a texture — stop, and instead ask: "how does what's already here become more of one piece?" Tighten alignment, unify spacing rhythm, recheck edges, remove the weakest element. Removal is allowed; addition is not.

Step 6 — Gate before delivering

Run craft-critique on the final render — the pixel-polish ship gate and a recorded verdict, not "looks done." Any claim rendered inside the asset (a metric, a quote) is handled per craft-critique's evidence protocol. Deliver only on PASS or PASS WITH NOTES.

Worked example — OG card for the salon-chatbot case study

Brief: 1200×630 OG image for a case study on a live AI receptionist chatbot built for a salon's booking app (call the assistant "Ava"). Lives in link previews at ~500px wide. One idea: a receptionist that never stops answering. Dinesh-brand asset → palette/type from apply-personal-brand tokens.

Subtle reference: chat turn-taking. Expressed as two alternating columns of quiet horizontal bars — left-aligned bars and right-aligned bars in a breathing rhythm down the canvas, like a conversation seen from far away. No chat bubbles, no phone illustration, no robot icon.

Philosophy — "Measured Air" (condensed here; real one runs 3–5 paragraphs):

Space is the message: one word holds the field, everything else recedes to the margin. The composition is a conversation heard through a wall — presence, rhythm, no words. What is absent (faces, devices, decoration) is the design.

Color is a single working accent on an open surface, per the taste law. The accent appears exactly where the rhythm resolves — the final bar, the answer.

Every bar is placed to the pixel; the rhythm's spacing is a strict scale, not eyeballed. The piece must read as labored-over: obsessive alignment as the visible signature of expertise, ornament as its opposite.

Expression decisions: HTML at 1200×630 → headless screenshot. Type: "Ava" large in Work Sans, one small Geist Mono label ("AI receptionist — live") anchored low-left. Fourteen alternating bars, tint-weighted; only the last bar carries the accent at full strength. Margins luxurious even at preview scale.

Refine pass: killed a second label line (the salon's name and city) — two labels competed; the case-study page carries the client name. Snapped bar rhythm from three ad-hoc gaps to one repeating pair. Re-rendered.

Gate: craft-critique verdict PASS WITH NOTES (🟢 consider a 1600px variant for retina previews). Delivered: ava-og.png + ava-og-philosophy.md.

Anti-patterns

Don't	Do
Jump straight to canvas code	Write the philosophy first — it is the design decision
Spec the layout inside the philosophy	Philosophy = worldview; expression step makes layout choices
Illustrate the subject literally (robot icon for AI, chat bubble for chatbot)	Weave the reference into structure and rhythm
Add elements during refinement	Refine or remove only — the second pass is subtractive
Paragraphs of text on the canvas	A few load-bearing words; space does the explaining
Gradient soup, texture stacking, "premium" glow	Flat, precise, intentional — restraint is the register
Cartoony/clip-art energy for "fun" briefs	Sophistication regardless of subject; playful ≠ amateur
Copy the font bundle into this skill or the project	Reference it at its original path; fetch from Google Fonts elsewhere
Ship on "looks good to me"	craft-critique gate with recorded verdict
Mimic a recognizable living artist's style	Original composition grounded in the written philosophy

Output format

Every run delivers exactly:

1. <asset-name>.png or .pdf — the piece, at the brief's exact dimensions
2. <asset-name>-philosophy.md — the philosophy it expresses
3. The craft-critique verdict line (PASS / PASS WITH NOTES + notes)

Boundaries

• design-taste owns every taste value (element count, breathing room, type scale, accent/surface, motion — all of it). This skill applies them by reference, never restates them.
• craft-critique owns the ship verdict and the evidence protocol for any claim rendered in the asset.
• build-frontend-interfaces owns interactive/UI surfaces; this skill owns static art objects.
• visualize-data owns anything with axes, scales, or encoded data.
• craft-motion owns anything that moves; if an asset later animates, hand it off.
• apply-personal-brand owns Dinesh-brand tokens; brand assets consume them here rather than re-deriving palette/type.

Sources

• Forked from Anthropic's canvas-design skill, Apache License 2.0 (LICENSE.txt ships with the source; terms at http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0). Retained: the two-step philosophy-first method (write the philosophy .md, then express on canvas) and the "never copy a living artist" rule. Re-grounded: the aesthetic is now a local expression of design-taste, not a free-standing style; the ship gate routes through craft-critique.
• design-taste — canonical taste values (element count, breathing room, type scale, accent/surface); this skill points, never restates.
• craft-critique — the ship verdict and the evidence protocol for any claim rendered inside an asset.
• Font bundle: OFL-licensed families shipped with canvas-design's canvas-fonts/. Reference in place; off that machine, fetch the same families from Google Fonts. Never copied into this skill or the project.