Superfig/references/style.md

House style

The package ships these defaults; this file explains what to preserve and what must still be decided.

Canvas

White background, natural standalone crop. No forced 16:9. No title by default. The top holds at most two compact claim/formula lines.

Each stage is one horizontal row with a shared baseline. Use the fewest stages that preserve the primary claim. No unrelated branches, no dashboard panels.

Type hierarchy

element	size	macro / style
top formula/claim	\large	\sftopformula
stage label	\small\bfseries, muted	\sfstage
node label	\small	\sfnode
caption symbol	\small	\sfcaption
caption detail	\scriptsize, muted	\sfcaption
edge label	\scriptsize, muted	\sfconn / \sfarrowlabel
meaning box	\small	\sfmeaningbox
optional signature	\scriptsize, low contrast	\sfsignature

Never shrink below this hierarchy to make something fit. Move it to another row instead.

Color

Palette: sfTeal #4F8FA5, sfOrange #EE995B, sfCoral #C95B5B, sfViolet #8A74B5, sfGray #85898F. Muted, mid-chroma, paper-like. Do not add saturated primaries.

• One semantic color per role, held everywhere: \sfsetrole{input}{sfTeal}.
• Drawing macros take a role, never a color.
• At most four active hue families per figure, plus gray.
• Contrast comes from lightness separation, not saturation. Use level=1/2/3 for role!30 / role!55 / role!80; do not use uniform pastel fills.
• If sign matters, use hue for sign and intensity for magnitude.

Edges and nodes

• Nodes are rounded rectangles with thin neutral borders; no saturated colored outlines.
• Group outlines use role!65 because the outline itself names an object.
• Edges are thin neutral arrows on the background layer; text stays on the foreground layer.
• Keep all text in LaTeX or CJK text, never rasterized labels.

Never

Metric insets not present in the primary claim. Decorative pills, banners, shadows, repeated separators, extra explanatory cards beyond one \sfcallout. Raw TikZ \draw / \fill / \path unless the lint directive allows it.