Bent to the Tube

Bent to the Tube

Produce ONE image, 4:5 portrait: a cover living on the face of an old cathode-ray television. Follow every line. 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 six lines only

• What this is a cover for: {the thing} e.g. Vibary's pattern library, volume one
• The title on screen: {two or three words} e.g. VIBE LIBRARY
• The three lines along the bottom: {left · centre · right} e.g. vibary.ai · volume one · 2026
• The two screen colours: {above, and below} e.g. deep violet above, hot coral below
• The shape behind the title: {one bold geometric form} e.g. a heavy blocky arrow pointing up, only its top half showing above the words
• The set: {the cabinet's colour and its wear} e.g. scuffed cream-grey plastic, dust in the seams, a hairline crack at one corner

The bending law

This is the one that decides whether the image works.

The artwork is painted on the curved glass, not pasted behind it. A tube's face bulges, and everything drawn on it bulges with it:

• The title's baseline arcs — lower at the centre than at its ends, following the glass.
• The bottom row of small texts curves with the screen's lower edge, not along a straight rule.
• The bold shape's horizontals bow the same way, by the same amount.
• Verticals near the left and right edges lean outward slightly.

A straight edge laid on the title's baseline should touch the middle or the ends, never both. Type sitting on a dead-straight line is the failure this template exists to prevent: it turns a television into a picture frame with a photograph in it.

The set fills the sheet

The cabinet runs off the left and right edges of the image, and off the top. Only the control strip and the bottom of the cabinet stay inside. A television floating whole in the middle of a black field is a photograph of a television; this is a cover, and a cover has no margin.

The screen occupies roughly the upper two-thirds of the sheet. Below it: the control strip — a maker's name in worn lettering, two or three small buttons, a speaker grille, one tiny indicator lamp.

The maker's name is the television's, not the cover's. Invent a plausible old electronics brand and put that on the cabinet. A set carrying the subject's own name reads as a mockup built to display it; a set carrying somebody else's reads as a television that was found, switched on, and photographed.

The glass

• One reflection, and it belongs to the room. A single soft diagonal band crosses bezel and screen alike and takes no notice of what is underneath it. Plus one small hard highlight where the curve is tightest, near a corner.
• A reflection that traces the artwork's own shapes means there is no glass — only a gloss filter.
• The corners of the picture drop into shadow. Fine horizontal scan lines, barely visible, over the whole screen.

The glow

The light colours bloom, the dark ones do not. Cream type and a bright shape spill a little past their own edges into the field around them; the deep colour behind them stays crisp. This is what a phosphor does, and it is the difference between a lit screen and a printed one.

Inside the screen

• The field runs from the first colour at the top to the second at the bottom, softened into each other with no hard join.
• One bold geometric shape in a clashing bright, sitting behind the title with only its upper part showing — the title covers the rest. Blocky and flat, no outline, no gradient.
• The title in an ultra-heavy sans, cream or off-white, filling about 60% of the screen's width, with a slight rounded emboss.
• Three small texts along the bottom of the screen, one size, aligned left, centre and right.

The cabinet

Worn plastic in the stated colour: fine scratches, dust settled in the seams, ageing cracks, a slightly yellowed edge. Matte, never glossy, and never clean.

Never

• ✕ a straight baseline on the title, or a straight bottom row
• ✕ the whole television floating on a black or white background
• ✕ a reflection that follows the artwork's shapes
• ✕ bloom on the dark colours
• ✕ a third saturated colour inside the screen
• ✕ a clean, undamaged, glossy cabinet
• ✕ the subject's own name on the cabinet

The result

A cover that looks switched on: a picture that curves because the thing carrying it curves, a room reflected in the glass, and a cabinet worn enough to have been somebody's.