Document metadata
type: public-visual-direction
status: author-approved
updated: 2026-09-16
parent_project: Seeds of the Throne
series: Surface Archive
Seeds of the Throne: Surface Archive
Core idea
Surface Archive turns authentic wildlife and environmental photography into accessible cultural records inspired by life on the Seeds of the Throne colonization planet.
The photographs show the constructive result of colonization. An engineered environment becomes a genuine home. Wildlife, weather, shorelines, plants, and ordinary routines gain meaning because they are alive, not because they are secretly controlled or placed as symbols.
Governing tone
The default tone is:
- positive;
- affectionate;
- observant;
- lightly funny;
- curious;
- life affirming;
- simple enough to enjoy without knowing the story.
The archive should create wonder before suspicion. Criminal justice, containment, prosecution, exposure, surveillance, and adversarial evidence are not default wildlife framing.
Identity hierarchy
Use this order:
- Seeds of the Throne as the parent story.
- Surface Archive as the photography series.
- A record number and descriptive category.
- A short image-specific observation or joke.
- An optional Luminai note that adds a second, constructive interpretation.
Example:
SEEDS OF THE THRONE
SURFACE ARCHIVE
RECORD 0043 · SHORELINE OBSERVATION
THE REPORT DESCRIBED THE BEACH AS UNOCCUPIED.
THE RESIDENT DECLINED TO COMMENT.
LUMINAI NOTE: ABSENCE OF AUTHORITY IS NOT ABSENCE OF LIFE.
Visual system
The photograph controls the composition. Preserve the real animal, count, pose, anatomy, behavior, habitat, focus, depth of field, and natural light.
Use the current Seeds X banner as the complementary visual family:
| Element | Surface Archive use |
|---|
| Deep navy | Sparse edge gradients and text support |
| Parchment or cream | Primary readable typography |
| Antique gold | Series titles, borders, and archive rules |
| System blue | Fine cartographic, orbital, ecological, or connection lines |
| Coral or ember red | Two or three small registration or authentication points |
| Black and charcoal | High-contrast framing when the source supports it |
Do not impose the banner's book, desk, cities, or collage on each photograph. Translate its palette and information language instead.
Composition rules
- Keep at least 75 to 80 percent of the photograph visually dominant.
- Use existing negative space for titles and archive information.
- Keep graphic geometry at the edges or in naturally empty areas.
- Do not cover the animal with text or interface marks.
- Preserve the source aspect ratio unless a deliberate crop improves the photograph without removing meaningful habitat.
- Keep all essential copy readable in an X feed preview on a phone.
- Treat the title, record line, observation, and optional Luminai note as the only normal text tiers. Decorative microtext is not exempt from the phone-feed legibility requirement.
- As a starting proportion, the smallest informational capitals should be at least one third of the height of the
SURFACE ARCHIVE capitals in the same composition. Adjust upward when the background is busy or the typeface has thin strokes. - Test the complete image at a longest edge of 768 pixels. If text requires opening or zooming, enlarge it, shorten it, move it onto stronger contrast, or remove it.
- Remove tiny coordinates, catalogue labels, compass letters, and similar interface decoration when they cannot pass the feed-preview test.
- Avoid dense dossiers, fake coordinates, generic science-fiction interfaces, and decorative clutter.
- Never add glowing animals, fantasy anatomy, spaceships, visible hidden infrastructure, or unsupported environmental details.
Consistency without repetition
The fixed identity is the title hierarchy, crown or throne mark, archival gold linework, recurring palette family, restrained system geometry, sparse registration nodes, photograph dominance, and phone-size readability. These elements should make a new record recognizable before the viewer reads it.
The layout is not fixed. Every new image must derive its crop, title position, reading order, border behavior, geometric metaphor, palette balance, and Luminai-note treatment from the photograph itself. Vary at least three meaningful design variables from the most recent record. A color swap alone does not count.
Use the approved WebP references in skills/create-seeds-images/assets/reference-images/surface-archive/ through the Surface Archive consistency and variation system. Attach the source photograph plus no more than two series references by default. Give each reference a specific role and explicitly forbid its subject, wording, unique motif, and exact layout from leaking into the new record.
Preserve real capture provenance privately. Remove readable real-world place names, coordinates, logos, and institutions from images presented as in-world records. A fictional replacement remains visual interpretation unless separately accepted as story canon.
Story relationship
Surface Archive is story-inspired public material. It may represent the kinds of wildlife records, cultural images, or observations that could exist within the surface civilization, but an individual image does not establish a species, location, event, technology, or historical fact as canon unless the author separately accepts it into story memory.
The archive's recurring ideas should emphasize:
- engineered land becoming a living place;
- cooperation that preserves independence;
- attention to small lives;
- growth and adaptation;
- ordinary existence having value beyond powerful people's plans;
- shared reality without uniform interpretation;
- the surface civilization being worth protecting for its own sake.
Record categories
- Coastal Observation
- Shoreline Observation
- Wildlife Record
- Habitat Record
- Seasonal Record
- Field Record
- Ordinary Life
- Before Disclosure
- Luminai Observation
- Recovered Photograph
These are flexible labels, not separate canon systems.
X writing direction
Public posts should normally contain one to three short paragraphs. Begin with the photograph's place inside the larger story idea, then connect the visible life to a constructive theme. Avoid explaining the entire colonization system.
Recommended pattern:
In Seeds of the Throne, [ordinary natural moment] is part of [larger constructive idea].
[One or two clear sentences connecting the real photograph to life, home, growth, cooperation, independence, adaptation, or shared reality.]
No em dashes. Hashtags, coordinates, capture dates, and technical archive language are optional rather than mandatory.
Approval boundary
The identity, tone, and visual direction in this note are author-approved. Individual photographs, generated layouts, captions, locations, and record classifications still require episode-level review.
Source decision: 01 Sessions/Daily/2026-09-11 - Surface Archive Public Photography Direction.
Feed-typography correction: 01 Sessions/Daily/2026-09-12 - Surface Archive Feed Typography.
