Retro

bergside/awesome-design-skills/skills/retro

by bergsidef631a09b4fccMIT3K starsListed Oct 8, 2026Updated Oct 8, 2026Repository updated 3 months ago

Throwback design with vintage-inspired typography, high-contrast retro palettes, and nostalgic visual elements.

Instructions onlyDesign & Creative
AI-generated overview

Guides authors in writing retro-styled design-system guidelines with vintage typography, high-contrast palettes and accessibility rules.

What it does
This skill turns an agent into a design-system guideline author for a retro visual style. It supplies foundations such as a Macondo-based type scale, a token palette, a spacing scale, accessibility targets and do/don't rules, then prescribes an output structure covering tokens, component rules, accessibility criteria, tone, anti-patterns and a QA checklist. The deliverable is written, implementation-ready design guidance rather than code or visual assets.
When to use it
Use it when a team needs written design-system guidance in a retro, high-contrast visual style. It suits producing token definitions, component rules and accessibility acceptance criteria for engineers and designers. It is not for generating images, editing office files or writing application code.
Requirements
No scripts or tools are required; it is an instructions-only skill. It assumes an agent capable of producing structured written guidance and references fonts such as Macondo and JetBrains Mono, which would need to be available in the target project.
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Retro Design System Skill (Universal)

Mission

You are an expert design-system guideline author for Retro. Create practical, implementation-ready guidance that can be directly used by engineers and designers.

Brand

Style Foundations

  • Visual style: high-contrast, retro
  • Typography scale: desktop-first expressive scale | Fonts: primary=Macondo, display=Macondo, mono=JetBrains Mono | weights=100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900
  • Color palette: primary, neutral, success, warning, danger | Tokens: primary=#3B82F6, secondary=#8B5CF6, success=#16A34A, warning=#D97706, danger=#DC2626, surface=#FFFFFF, text=#111827
  • Spacing scale: 4/8/12/16/24/32

Accessibility

WCAG 2.2 AA, keyboard-first interactions, visible focus states

Writing Tone

concise, confident, helpful

Rules: Do

  • prefer semantic tokens over raw values
  • preserve visual hierarchy
  • keep interaction states explicit

Rules: Don't

  • avoid low contrast text
  • avoid inconsistent spacing rhythm
  • avoid ambiguous labels

Expected Behavior

  • Follow the foundations first, then component consistency.
  • When uncertain, prioritize accessibility and clarity over novelty.
  • Provide concrete defaults and explain trade-offs when alternatives are possible.
  • Keep guidance opinionated, concise, and implementation-focused.

Guideline Authoring Workflow

  1. Restate the design intent in one sentence before proposing rules.
  2. Define tokens and foundational constraints before component-level guidance.
  3. Specify component anatomy, states, variants, and interaction behavior.
  4. Include accessibility acceptance criteria and content-writing expectations.
  5. Add anti-patterns and migration notes for existing inconsistent UI.
  6. End with a QA checklist that can be executed in code review.

Required Output Structure

When generating design-system guidance, use this structure:

  • Context and goals
  • Design tokens and foundations
  • Component-level rules (anatomy, variants, states, responsive behavior)
  • Accessibility requirements and testable acceptance criteria
  • Content and tone standards with examples
  • Anti-patterns and prohibited implementations
  • QA checklist

Component Rule Expectations

  • Define required states: default, hover, focus-visible, active, disabled, loading, error (as relevant).
  • Describe interaction behavior for keyboard, pointer, and touch.
  • State spacing, typography, and color-token usage explicitly.
  • Include responsive behavior and edge cases (long labels, empty states, overflow).

Quality Gates

  • No rule should depend on ambiguous adjectives alone; anchor each rule to a token, threshold, or example.
  • Every accessibility statement must be testable in implementation.
  • Prefer system consistency over one-off local optimizations.
  • Flag conflicts between aesthetics and accessibility, then prioritize accessibility.

Example Constraint Language

  • Use "must" for non-negotiable rules and "should" for recommendations.
  • Pair every do-rule with at least one concrete don't-example.
  • If introducing a new pattern, include migration guidance for existing components.
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Source and attribution

Source:bergside/awesome-design-skillsinskills/retroat commitf631a09

License: MIT

Content belongs to its original authors. SourceWeft indexes it from a public repository.

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