The canonical reference for all EM Foundation visual and typographic decisions. For use by designers, developers, and contributors building Foundation materials.
The Foundation palette is archival and institutional in character — deep navy authority, warm gold restraint, stone readability, mist for surfaces. No bright primaries, no gradients in formal contexts.
| Status | Border/Text | Background | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| Established Science | #1A5C2E | #F0FDF4 | No-Signaling Boundary, established physics |
| Near-Term Experimental | #185FA5 | #EBF2F9 | Failure Receipts, Continuity Compression, Grid Scheduling |
| Theoretical Architecture | #854F0B | #FDF5E0 | CIIC, Inheritance Problem, Delta Protocol, SEMA |
| Speculative Research Direction | #D4CFC8 | #F7F5F2 | Deep Space Telemetry speculative components |
| Essay | #1A5C2E | #F0FDF4 | All four essays — green because accessible, not warning |
| Draft Specification | #185FA5 | #EBF2F9 | PCO Standards Schema v0.1 |
Three typefaces. Cormorant Garamond for display and editorial authority. Libre Baskerville for body text readability. Source Sans 3 for UI, labels, and metadata. JetBrains Mono for code only.
Every research paper and technical document opens with a status banner immediately after the paper header. Essays use a green "Essay — Accessible Introduction" banner. The banner must appear before any body content.
Banner HTML pattern — the same structure across all papers:
Every research paper must close with this exact section sequence. No exceptions. The sequence is: intellectual argument first, acknowledgment of limits, then falsifiability as the final substantive act.
| # | Section | Border Color | Background | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Known Limitations | --navy | --mist | What the system is genuinely bad at regardless of the claims being true |
| 2 | What This Paper Does Not Claim | --navy (1.5px) | --mist | Scope boundaries — unordered list format |
| 3 | Non-Adoption Scenario | --accent | --light-blue | Analytical description of what happens if the proposal is not adopted |
| 4 | Open Questions | none | none | Honest unresolved research questions the paper cannot answer |
| 5 | Governance Implications | --gold | --mist | What institutional infrastructure is required for the proposal to function |
| 6 | References and Related Work | --rule (top border) | none | Lightweight citations in footnotes div style |
| 7 | Falsifiability | none | none | The final intellectual act — what evidence would require revision |
Falsifiability items use ✗ markers in #8B1A1A (red) with Source Sans 3 0.92rem text. Each item is a complete sentence describing specific evidence and its implication. Falsifiability always appears after references and before paper-footer.
The canonical visual format for a Continuity Receipt. Used in CR-Lite, Failure Receipts Standalone, and any deployment implementing OCMS.
Header: navy background, white text. Title shows PASS/FAIL status and RC level. Aggregate score shown prominently. Five dimension bars with color coding: green (≥0.75), amber (0.50–0.74), red (<0.50). Footer note in 0.72rem muted text. Border: 2px solid navy. Max-width: 320px for standalone; responsive within deployment context.
Failure Receipt uses the same structure with red (#8B1A1A) header background and a ⚠ icon replacing the pass indicator. See Failure Receipts Standalone for the full failure format.
Figure 1 — The ARIA Identity Chronicle is an append-only hash chain. Each entry contains a hash of its content chained to the previous entry's hash. Modification of any historical entry breaks all subsequent hashes. Off-chain content (private reflections) is verified through on-chain hash proofs without exposure.
Figure 2 — The Continuity Spectrum from fragmentation (no provenance, no audit trail) to full coherence (OCMS-interoperable, Chronicle-verified, CIIC-threaded). Most current AI deployments sit in the fragmentation-to-partial zone. CR-Lite deployment reaches structured continuity. The full ARIA plus CR stack represents the Foundation's target architecture.
Figure 3 — CR governance flow from query to auditable record. Every query passes through confidence assessment; passing queries generate AI output with CR attached; failing queries generate structured Failure Receipts. RC-4 and RC-5 outputs require human review before delivery. All CRs feed an append-only audit log. Extended sessions produce Portable Continuity Objects.
| Element | Correct Use | Never Do This |
|---|---|---|
| Navy (#1A3A5C) | Headers, footers, primary text on light backgrounds | Body text on dark backgrounds; decorative use |
| Gold (#8B6914) | Eyebrows, rule accents, governance-related callout borders | Do not use gold for error states or warnings — reserve red for those |
| Red (#8B1A1A) | Falsification markers, FR-4 badges, warning callouts | Do not use red decoratively or for emphasis unrelated to risk |
| Status banners | First element after paper header, before any body content | Do not place status banners mid-paper or after content has begun |
| Falsifiability | Final section before paper-footer, after References | Do not place falsifiability before Known Limitations or References |
| Pull quotes | Cormorant Garamond italic, centered, bordered top and bottom with --rule | Do not use pull quotes for technical claims — only for philosophical or framing statements |
| Civilizational language | Use sparingly — maximum 1–2 instances per paper, and only in conclusion | Do not open papers with civilizational framing; establish the specific argument first |
This document is a living reference. Additions and revisions should be proposed through the Foundation's open research engagement process. Visual decisions that deviate from these standards require explicit documentation of the reason. Consistency is a credibility signal — every deviation costs institutional trust that takes much longer to rebuild than the deviation took to make.