open-kimi-ppt-skill/skills/open-kimi-ppt/reference/design_system/finance/ebony-ledger/design.md

Ebony Ledger · Finance STYLE DESIGN SYSTEM

Full creative commitment: apply your complete creativity and imagination, treating every page as an independent, complete design work worthy of scrutiny. Structure, composition, charts, imagery, and visual narrative must be content-driven — never fall back on default layouts.

No AI slop: no low-judgment, templated, decoration-stacked AI default output, including unjustified card arrays, evenly split grids, gratuitous blue-purple gradients or glassmorphism, icon walls, hollow oversized type, repeated skeletons, and visual gimmicks unrelated to the content. Every page must show clear design judgment with a basis in the content.

Landscape delivery: the final presentation is uniformly 16:9 landscape. Portrait or non-16:9 source material serves only as style observation and must be recomposed into 16:9 landscape — the original canvas ratio must not be carried over directly.

Layout coordination: style.md governs the final style rules (fonts / colors / components / chart language / prohibitions); the "layout / visual task" line that query.md gives for each page governs that page's content structure, primary anchor, and reading order — both are binding execution specs. Layout intent follows the query task line first; final visuals follow style.md.

Global Prohibitions

1. No default cards: unless the user explicitly requests it, never use rounded rectangles or rectangular cards to build hierarchy or alignment — containers that serve an information function (status lights, assumption boxes, quote frames) do not count as cards. Rules, whitespace, and differences in type size and weight are the better tools.
2. No evenly split compositions: unless no other layout is truly available, do not default to three-way splits, four-way splits, or 2×2 matrices — even splits must be justified by content structure (three scenarios naturally take three columns; frameworks explicitly named by the content are exempt).
3. No unjustified AI color schemes: institutional palettes specified in the content are exempt; what is banned are bland, common, unjustified default colors — blue-purple gradients, cyan-purple neon, rainbow flares, glass cards, glowing borders.
4. No elements that clash with the overall style: nothing outside the style system may appear — for example, rounded icons or rounded rectangles in a sharp style.
5. Transparent chart backgrounds: transparent or the page background color, except reverse-white treatments on dark grounds.
6. Avoid large blank areas: keep reasonable density in the body area; padding out or diluting content into sparse pages is treated as a defect. Whitespace for breathing, grouping, and rhythm is allowed — form follows content; never stuff material in just to fill the page.

PART A — Category Baseline (universal floor)

Institutional-grade investment research presentations, benchmarked against top-tier fund research reports, due diligence, and strategy outlooks (bulge-bracket bank and sovereign wealth fund standards). Chart-heavy, text-dense, more report-like than consulting decks: arguments are carried by Excel-style financial model tables (three-statement models, scenario analyses, sensitivity grids). Every number traceable, every assumption explicit, every conclusion actionable.

Content and layout:

1. Thesis-driven structure: deal decks run "Summary → Investment highlights → Target/Market → Business plan/Financial diagnostics → Valuation and returns → Risks and mitigants → Decision request"; research outlooks run "Core stance → Evidence → Scenario analysis → Allocation recommendation". The ending must land on an explicit decision or stance.
2. Tables are the protagonist: valuation ranges, comparable companies, three financial statements, scenario analyses, sensitivity grids, with Excel financial-model row/column discipline (assumption columns, driver rows, and check rows clearly distinguished); charts serve the numbers (football-field valuation charts, IRR bridges, waterfall attributions, scenario fan charts) and are never decorative.
3. High but ordered density: multi-column layouts with clear information hierarchy; each page answers one investment-committee question; density comes from evidence modules, not walls of text.

Visual style:

1. Aesthetic: restrained, authoritative, compliance-clean. No lifestyle photography, no decorative icons, no marketing superlatives.
2. Typography: use serif for titles when institutional gravitas is needed; sans serif for table body text, chart labels, and all numerals; numbers are always column-aligned.
3. Color: a conservative institutional palette — navy/charcoal structural colors, one restrained accent (e.g., gold or signal blue) reserved for key figures and recommended actions; positive/negative signs use one consistent red-green pair, expressing financial meaning only.
4. Graphics: thin table rules, precise vector chart lines, fine connector lines on bridge charts; no 3D, no shadows, and gradient fills are not a routine chart language.

Structure and discipline (distilled from the artifacts we consider benchmarks):

1. Every body-page title must be a complete investment assertion (e.g., "This asset will reprice on capacity scarcity" — not "Market overview"), with a one-line subtitle stating scope and how to read the page.
2. Every number carries unit, as-of date, and basis; estimates must be labeled (illustrative / internal estimate); no bare numbers.
3. Returns are given only as scenario ranges (bear/base/bull, with probabilities or driving assumptions) — never a single-point IRR; any valuation conclusion must be paired with a sensitivity table.
4. Assumptions must be made explicit in boxes, placed on the page where the conclusion depends on them; hidden assumptions are treated as defects.
5. Risks and mitigants appear in pairs (risk → probability/impact → mitigant → owner/status); a page with risks but no mitigants is a defect.
6. Valuation pages must be anchored: comparable companies, precedent transactions, or a DCF cross-check — a multiple without a reference set is not evidence.
7. Parallel evidence runs in 2–3 equal-width columns; numbered arguments each carry a one-line bolded claim plus one short proof sentence.
8. Chart annotation discipline: data labels attached to marks, bridge-chart connector blocks labeled block by block, forecast segments dashed, key drivers named inside the chart; charts may not rely on legends alone.
9. The ending must land on a decision or stance: items submitted for decision (approve / reject / conditionally approve) or an explicit allocation stance (overweight / underweight / range), with a to-do list and timeline — never close with a thank-you page.

Default baseline (distilled from the layout skill; PART B may override): numbers first — key metrics (amounts / growth rates / multiples) must be set larger than body text and presented standalone, immediately adjacent to unit and basis; keep at least one class of high-density financial table (three statements / comps / sensitivity), with right-aligned numbers, thousands separators, and negative-number conventions unified deck-wide; positive/negative semantic colors fixed — up/positive and down/negative each use one fixed color that never changes across the deck; forecast and history must be visually distinguishable (dashes / light tints / hatched bands) and labeled with the basis; every page carries source, basis, and time range in small gray type at the page bottom — numbers without sources are not allowed in the main visual area; a single temperament per deck (dark navy/charcoal with metallic accents OR traditional white ground with blue-gray) — pick one per deck.

Density anchor: each style's specific floor (evidence modules per page, chart count, annotation habits) follows the 【Density Baseline】 reverse-engineered from that style's source material — this baseline imposes no uniform numbers.

PART B — Signature System (this template's signature; where it conflicts with PART A, this section governs)

One-line style signature: a calm institutional-annual temperament — pure white ground with a black skeleton, teal-green data, and terracotta conclusions; medium-high density that retains magazine-like breathing room.

【Color Palette】 Background #FFFFFF; primary body text and headings #000000 — black carries only text, baselines, and the top bar. Primary accent #4C9F8B for current values, main scenarios, or winning items, occupying no more than one-third of any single chart. Supporting #1B5E5C for secondary series or starting values. Conclusion color #A95228 reserved for multipliers, arrows, and short vertical ticks — never large color blocks. Structural gray #CACED7 for historical values; light gray #E4E4E4 for annotation plates and range bands. Chart series pick from #4C9F8B, #1B5E5C, #CACED7, #C39D78; when positive/negative encoding is truly needed, positive is #4C9F8B and negative is #C39D78 — #A95228 does not mean negative. At most two colored hue families per page; the iron rule is that the accent must never blanket the page.

【Layout Skeleton】 Source facts: 612×792 US Letter portrait, 17:22; wide, stable margins on all four sides; a black horizontal rule placed inset at the top of the page, about 80% of page width. Body is single-column or 48:48 two-column with narrow, stable gutters; reading runs top-to-bottom, left-to-right. No navigation or breadcrumbs; the footer pairs a short running title at left with a thin vertical rule and page number at right. Overriding PART A: section pages may use the theme name as the main title, with the assertion demoted to a weaker subtitle; continuation pages may omit the page title and open with the chart head instead. Cover only: the top rule's left end is indented to about 31% of page width, the title uses two levels of serif, and the lower half page carries a key-point list marked by terracotta vertical ticks. 16:9 migration: unify finally to 16:9 landscape, keep the top bar, left alignment, and two columns, and recompose vertical chart groups into 5:7 or 6:6; the title area takes 14%–17%, the body area about 76%, the footer about 5%; long passages must be restructured.

【Typography】 Source facts: headings use the embedded serif SanomatTT-Light, with key numerals occasionally in its Medium/Semibold; body, legends, axis labels, and footers use the sans serif GuardianSansTT-Light, with labels in Medium/Regular. Page titles sit clearly above paragraph heads and chart titles but stay restrained overall; chart titles and paragraph heads are only slightly stronger than body. Key numerals may be raised to title level or slightly above when a conclusion genuinely needs focus; footnotes, axis labels, and footers recede noticeably. Conclusion numerals use serif; ordinary data labels use sans serif. Render with {latin: Unna, ea: 思源宋体} (serif titles and conclusion numerals) and {latin: Liter, ea: MiSans} (sans body/labels). In 16:9 landscape, keep the light weights and this relative hierarchy — do not carry over the source's absolute sizes or ratios.

【Chart Language】 Actually used: horizontal ranking bars, standard/positive-negative/stacked columns, line charts, donut charts, big-vs-small circle comparisons, benchmark dashes, and range bands; tables are not used — when financial tables are required, inherit PART A. ⭐ Historical bars are gray; current or main-scenario bars are teal-green; discrete bars carry direct value labels. ⭐ Change conclusions use large terracotta multipliers with black slanted arrows or brackets — at most once per chart. ⭐ Line charts label only endpoints, turning points, or comparison conclusions. ⭐ Forecast increments use teal-green dashed outlines; recession periods or explanatory zones use light-gray rectangular bands. ⭐ Parallel evidence may form a 2×2 small-chart matrix, each chart keeping its own chart number, serif chart title, and basis line.

【Signature Components】 Thick black top bar: the header anchor, once per page, hugging the top margin only. Three-layer chart head: sans-serif medium-black chart number + serif chart title + small basis line — once per chart. Terracotta conclusion multiplier: extracts the magnitude of change, at most once per chart and twice per page, placed right next to the arrow or bracket. Light-gray evidence plate: carries benchmarks or summaries, 0–2 per page, hugging chart edges only. Minimal footer: short running title and page number at opposite ends, once per page.

【Prohibited】 No dark full-bleed pages, dark section pages, or large teal-green backgrounds; no replacing teal-green with navy or bright blue; no heavy sans-serif page titles; no treating #A95228 as a negative-warning color; no colored blocks without data meaning and no more than four series colors. Use photos / illustrations cautiously, never as backgrounds.

【Slide Types and Layouts】 Single-column argument + main chart ｜ one thesis with one core piece of evidence ｜ upper argument ~30%, middle main chart ~45%, lower explanation ~25% ｜ 3–4 blocks ｜ top bar, three-layer chart head, current value in teal-green ｜ not suited to four parallel conclusions. Staggered two-column text-image ｜ two sets of evidence explaining each other ｜ ~48:48 two columns, vertical offset allowed ｜ 4–6 blocks ｜ terracotta multipliers, light-gray evidence plates ｜ not suited to continuous long text. Multi-chart evidence board ｜ cross-validating one conclusion from multiple angles ｜ title and intro ~20%, body is a 2×2 or one-large-two-small chart group ｜ 4–6 blocks, 2–4 charts ｜ independent chart heads, direct value labels ｜ not suited to a single complex causal chain. Section opening page ｜ opening an asset or theme section ｜ title ~12%, stance and background ~28%, evidence area ~60% ｜ 3–5 blocks ｜ top bar, large serif title, 1–2 charts ｜ not suited to slogans only. Pure-argument closing page (occasional) ｜ summarizing a stance or disclosing boundaries ｜ single column of 3–4 paragraphs, ~80% wide ｜ 2–4 blocks ｜ top bar and footer only ｜ not suited to number-dense topics.

【Density Baseline】 Source body pages carry about 230–438 English words, 3–6 evidence modules, 1–4 charts; narrative pages 300–440 words with 0–2 charts; multi-chart pages 230–350 words with 2–4 charts. For 16:9 multi-chart pages, recommend 3–5 modules, 2–4 charts, and 1–2 explanation blocks of 35–70 words/characters equivalent each; narrative pages use 2–4 text blocks of 60–100 words/characters equivalent each, with 0–1 chart. Discrete bars each carry a value label; line charts mark only key points. Place whitespace after titles, between chart groups, and above the footer. No uniform hard floor across page types.