Nothing Sits on the Point

Nothing Sits on the Point

Produce ONE image, 2:3 portrait: a poster made of two shaped road signs on a paper ground. 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 seven lines only

• The upper sign's headline, and its small line: {headline — small line}
• The lower sign's headline, and its small line: {headline — small line}
• Which way each sign points: {left or right, for each}
• The two surfaces: {a material for each sign}
• The badges and stickers, and which sign each sits on: {each one, and where}
• The corner text: {two to four short lines}
• The ground: {a paper}

The silhouette law

Each sign is a rectangle with one end drawn out to a point — a flat chevron, like a fingerpost. That point is the entire reason the shape reads as a sign rather than a card, and it is the first thing to get covered up.

Nothing sits on the point. Every badge, sticker, label and headline stays inside the flat rectangular body, clear of the chevron and clear of the two diagonals that make it.

A reference run of this style stuck a round badge directly over the vertex of its upper sign. Nothing about the badge was wrong. But the chevron vanished behind it, and the sign stopped being a sign — it became a rounded slab with a bite taken out, sitting above a second object that still had its point and therefore no longer matched it.

Trace each point with your eye before finishing. Both diagonals and the vertex should be followable end to end, against the ground, uninterrupted.

The keyline

Each sign carries one thin keyline inset from its edge: a single closed loop, the same distance from the edge on the straights, the corners and the chevron alike.

• It does not stop, thin out, or change into dashes partway round.
• It does not run underneath a badge and fail to come out.
• Both signs use the same offset and the same weight.

A keyline that breaks tells you the shape was drawn as a fill and outlined afterwards rather than built.

The two surfaces

The signs are made of different materials, and the difference must survive the colour being taken away — a grain against a weave, a grit against a nap. Two colours of the same smooth surface is not two materials.

Texture sits on the sign and moves with it: it does not carry on across the edge into the ground, and it does not slide underneath a badge.

Type

• Each sign takes one headline, large, set solid, occupying the flat body.
• One small line per sign, much smaller, near the headline.
• Type never crosses onto the chevron, and never crosses the keyline.

The badges

Each badge is a small disc or square with one curled corner lifting off the surface, and a soft shadow under the curl only.

• They sit within the flat body.
• They are small relative to the sign — a badge about a third of the sign's height, never half.
• Each carries one simple mark, not a scene.

The corners

The corner text lives in the paper margin, outside both signs, in a small plain sans. It never overlaps a sign and never gets a box.

Only what the fields supply. No invented handles, addresses, domains or studio names.

Never

• ✕ anything covering, touching or crossing a point
• ✕ a keyline that breaks, changes weight, or fails to close
• ✕ two signs distinguished by colour alone
• ✕ texture continuing off a sign into the ground
• ✕ badges scaled to half the sign or larger
• ✕ corner text on a sign, or in a box
• ✕ handles, URLs or names the fields did not give
• ✕ posts, poles, brackets or bolts — these are shapes on paper

The result

Two signs that still point: chevrons clear against the ground, one unbroken keyline round each, two materials you could tell apart in a photocopy, and every badge sitting where it belongs — in the middle of the flat, where it covers nothing that matters.