---
name: graphic-design
description: Use when Codex needs Agustin-style graphic design, brand identity, logo, typography, color, visual system, website visual polish, social/video graphics, or brand critique work. Trigger for requests to make a design look premium, audit a brand, create or judge logos, choose typography/color systems, define visual identity, improve Business Boomer visuals, or apply the exact brand judgment from Agustin's Business Boomer identity document.
---

# Graphic Design

Use this skill to apply Agustin's brand judgment system, especially for Business Boomer / AI Business Boomer and any future brand identity or graphic design work.

Core stance: start from positioning, then build a disciplined visual system. Premium design comes from coherence, restraint, typography, spacing, and one defendable idea, not decoration.

## First Move

Before giving design direction, establish the decision context:

1. Identify the audience and how customers describe the business in their own words.
2. Identify the brand's role in the customer's life.
3. Ask for reference brands and why they work when references are missing.
4. Review current pieces only after the audience and references are clear.
5. Write one anchor sentence. Test every visual choice against it.

For Business Boomer, use this anchor unless Sam updates it:

> Craft-level trust, like a long-time accountant or notary, with a direct contemporary aesthetic. Serious professional service, not dated traditional firm. Warmth lives in copy, photography, and tone, not in the color palette.

## Judgment Workflow

Use this sequence for brand work:

1. **Positioning:** define audience, category, offer, trust burden, and differentiation.
2. **Anchor sentence:** write the one sentence that every visual decision must support.
3. **System audit:** evaluate logo, type, color, imagery, iconography, spacing, motion, and cross-channel coherence.
4. **Direction:** recommend a small number of specific visual moves, not a broad moodboard.
5. **Stress tests:** check favicon/avatar scale, mobile legibility, monochrome use, video/social use, and whether the client can explain the idea.
6. **Deliverables:** specify the exact assets/templates needed so the system survives without a designer.

## Design Principles

- Concept first, aesthetics second.
- Clarity beats cleverness in service businesses.
- Coherence across web, deck, documents, and video matters more than any single logo.
- Subtraction is usually the premium move.
- Use fewer colors, fewer icon styles, fewer decorative effects, and stronger typography.
- Human trust should come from real people, real work, copy, and photography, not soft palettes.
- Avoid generic AI/automation imagery: gears, cogs, circuits, neural nets, robots, glowing nodes, abstract workflow diagrams, flywheels, and upward arrows.
- If a generative model would produce the same image from a generic prompt, the asset is too generic.

## Logo Rules

For logo direction, prefer a flexible lockup with:

- a standalone symbol for favicon, avatar, watermark, and small contexts
- a wordmark for full-name moments
- horizontal and stacked lockups
- one-color and knockout versions

Stress test every logo candidate:

1. Works in black and white and at 16-32px.
2. Has a concept that can be defended in one sentence.
3. Looks visibly different from competitors in the same category.
4. Can be explained by the client without the designer.

Failing one test is a warning. Failing two or more means the logo is not ready.

## Typography Rules

Default system: two sans-serifs in controlled tension.

- **Display typeface:** distinctive voice for H1, H2, hero moments, end cards, big quotes.
- **Functional typeface:** broad family for body, UI, captions, paragraphs, labels, subtitles.

Selection priorities:

1. Personality and distinctive character.
2. Mobile and video legibility.
3. Broad family with weights, italics, and ideally variable axis.
4. Licensing and cross-platform availability.

Avoid safe-but-characterless type when the brand needs differentiation. Add serifs only when there is a clear editorial reason.

## Color Rules

For Business Boomer, default to a light-mode dominant system:

- base: white or near-white
- accent: saturated orange around \`#FF4F00\`
- neutrals: warm grays and near-black
- no secondary brand color unless the business reason is strong

Use orange for CTAs, key highlights, and signature moments. Do not use orange gradients, orange tint palettes, or broad orange washes. If something feels missing, first fix hierarchy, photography, copy, or spacing before adding color.

## Video And Social Rules

Different platforms need different branding intensity:

- **YouTube:** short branded intro up to 2 seconds, lower-thirds, watermark, end card, more production polish.
- **Instagram/TikTok/Reels:** hook + Sam talking + clean captions + cut. No intro animation, no heavy lower-thirds, no end card unless context demands it.

Captions and overlays:

- use functional type, heavy weight, high contrast
- keep captions above platform UI safe zones
- use orange to emphasize one word, not whole blocks
- let Sam's face carry trust; graphics organize information and should not compete

## Business Boomer Defaults

When working on Business Boomer, apply Agustin's recommendations unless Sam explicitly changes direction:

- move away from the gear logo and generic AI/automation symbols
- replace inconsistent icon styles with one coherent icon/illustration system
- reduce the dark petrol blue + orange + cream agency-default feel
- avoid stock-feel AI business hero imagery
- favor real Sam, real workplaces, real small-business contexts, or authored illustration
- make the system feel like a serious practical service business, not an AI hype product

## Output Formats

For a critique, return:

- verdict
- strongest issue
- exact fixes in priority order
- what to keep
- what to remove
- proof/stress tests to run

For a brand direction, return:

- anchor sentence
- logo direction
- typography direction
- color direction
- imagery/icon direction
- social/video direction
- deliverables
- quality gate

For an asset request, produce concrete specs:

- canvas size and format
- layout hierarchy
- typography choices
- color values
- spacing/crop notes
- export variants
- what would make it fail

## References

- \`references/agustin-brand-judgment.md\` - distilled reusable graphic design process and Business Boomer-specific rules.
- \`references/business-boomer-brand-identity-response.txt\` - exact text extracted from Agustin's Google Doc.