Frontend & UI

design-skills · Brutalism

Raw concrete-inspired layouts, Darker Grotesque display, red and ochre.

What it is

A guideline skill for brutalist UI drawn from 1950s raw concrete architecture: unadorned, functional, deliberately jarring. Darker Grotesque display type, #DD614C red and #DAA144 ochre on white.

Raw, anti-design aesthetic inspired by concrete architecture with unadorned elements, jarring layouts, and functional minimalism.
From the upstream SKILL.md

Why it matters for design

  • Bold unadorned elements drop decoration, so structure and copy carry the weight.
  • Two strong accents, red and ochre, replace gradients and shadows entirely.
  • The accessibility floor still applies, so jarring layouts keep contrast and visible focus.

What it covers

  • Brand
  • Style foundations
  • Accessibility
  • Rules: do
  • Quality gates
  • Example constraint language

How to install

design-skills · Brutalism

  1. Clone the repo.

    git clone https://github.com/bergside/awesome-design-skills
  2. Point Codex at the skill file.

    skills/brutalism/SKILL.md
  3. Then describe the UI you want. Codex follows the skill.

How to run it with Codex

  1. Tell Codex the tone is bold and unadorned before it picks components.

  2. Anchor every rule to a token or threshold, as the quality gates demand.

  3. Pair each do-rule with a concrete don’t-example when reviewing the output.

Every plugin here is free, open source, and links to its real upstream source.

More on the codex-design list ↗

Next step

Design with Open Design, without the setup

Install this plugin yourself, or run a whole curated design layer around Codex with Open Design. Bring your own key, own your output.