A Whisper and a Shout

A Whisper and a Shout

Produce ONE image: a minimal cover carrying one quote and one word. Follow every line below. Replace only the FIELDS block; everything after it is fixed.

First — do you have the fields?

If any field below still has braces around it, stop and ask. Put all the questions in one short message, and show the example under each one so they can see the shape of a useful answer. Wait for the replies, then draw. Never fill a brace yourself: a value you invented is a value nobody asked for, and it will look exactly as considered as the ones they did give you.

Ask in whatever language they are writing to you in. Translate the questions and the examples; do not make someone read English to tell you what they want.

The examples are only examples. If someone answers a question, use their answer; never fall back to the example because you prefer it.

If the fields are already filled in, ignore this and carry on.

Fields — replace these five lines only

• The subject: {what this cover is for} e.g. a vibe library's annual cover
• The quote: {one sentence} e.g. A pattern you can scrub is a pattern you understand
• The word: {one word, the title} e.g. VIBARY
• The tag: {a short category label} e.g. Annual Selection
• The year: {a year or an edition number} e.g. 2026

The page

• Landscape 3:2. Matte black, painted to every edge — flat, opaque, no texture, no gradient, no vignette, no noise.
• Every mark on the page is pure white. There is no third value: no grey, no tint, no hairline rule, no ornament of any kind.
• A single horizontal split at three-fifths of the height, unseen — there is no line drawn there. The upper field belongs to the quote, the lower to the word.

The ratio law

This is the part the form lives or dies by, so it is a number, not an adjective. Measured by cap height:

• the tag — 1
• the quote — 2
• the word — 9

The word is nine times the tag and four and a half times the quote. Cap height is the governed dimension; every other measurement on the page follows from it. Set the title's cap height first, then let its width fall where it falls. Two covers in a series must share a cap height and a baseline — a short word that grew to fill the width shares neither, and the two will not sit together. A cover where the quote and the title look like neighbours has failed, however handsome each is alone.

The upper field — the whisper

• The quote, centred horizontally, sitting in the vertical middle of the upper three-fifths — clear of the top edge, clear of the split.
• A thin sans at a light weight, letter-spacing opened generously, set on one line if it fits and two if it must, centred either way.
• A curly quotation mark at each end, symmetrical, at the quote's own size — not enlarged into a decoration.

The lower field — the shout

• The word, set once, at the cap height the ratio gives it — not at whatever size fills the width. Width is the result, never the target: a six-letter word comes out narrower than a ten-letter word and is simply centred, with more black either side. Stretching a short word to the margins is what breaks this form, because taller letters eat the space below them and the cover stops matching its own siblings.
• An ultra-bold geometric sans: heavy even strokes, generous counters, and every corner rounded — no sharp terminals anywhere.
• The circle rule: every dot in the composition is a true circle. The tittle on an i, a full stop, a period in the tag — all of them perfect rounds drawn from the same geometry as the letterforms.
• The word sits on one line. It never wraps, never breaks, never stacks.
• Its baseline sits the same distance above the bottom edge on every cover this template makes — roughly a sixth of the page height — so a run of them stacks like a shelf of spines.

The shoulder — the two facts

• A capsule at the title's upper left: a rounded-rectangle outline in a hairline white stroke, holding the tag in small sans.
• The year immediately beside it, at the same size, no capsule.
• Both are the smallest text on the page and both sit above the title's cap line, never overlapping a letter.

Alignment

Every element shares one vertical centre line. The quote is centred, the word is centred, and the shoulder pair — capsule and year together as one unit — begins at the word's left edge. Nothing on this page is optically adrift.

Never

• ✕ a third colour, a grey, a tint, or any gradient
• ✕ texture, grain, paper, noise, vignette, glow
• ✕ an icon, a mark, a rule, a border, a badge beyond the one capsule
• ✕ a photograph or any image element
• ✕ a second sentence, a subtitle, a credit line, a URL
• ✕ sharp corners on the title, or a dot anywhere that is not round

The result

A cover that says two things and holds its tongue about everything else: a sentence you have to lean in for, and a word you can read across the room — with the distance between them set by number, so the next one in the series lands the same way.