---
title: Wagabaza Design Systems — A Century of Design
author: Matia Wagabaza (Wagabaza Design Systems)
source: https://design.wagabaza.com
license: proprietary-owned
updated: 2026-07-11
version: "1.0"
domain: Timeless knowledge / Crafts & know-how
declared_half_life_days: 1825
systems: 43
includes_skill: true
tokens_approx: 155401
citation: "Wagabaza Design Systems — design.wagabaza.com"
---

# Index — Wagabaza Design Systems

43 movement-based design languages, one markdown spec each, plus the installable
`/wagabaza` skill in `skill/`. Each spec follows an identical section contract (color,
type, spacing, layout, motifs, components, depth, motion, imagery, icons, a11y, voice,
rejection criteria) so an agent can consume any of them the same way. Pick by feeling,
load the file, follow it verbatim.

## Skill

- `skill/SKILL.md` — the `/wagabaza` design-brain skill: how to choose and apply a system.
- `skill/references/systems.md` — a compact one-line-per-system selector reference.

## Systems

| System | Rooted in | File | Size |
|---|---|---|---|
| Taliesin | Taliesin translates physical landscapes into design languages. Born fr | `specs/taliesin.md` | ~2,449 |
| Espresso Dopio | Espresso Dopio is drawn from postwar Italian Modernism — the Milanese
 | `specs/espresso-dopio.md` | ~2,899 |
| La Concha | La Concha imagines the digital design language Paul Revere Williams ne | `specs/la-concha.md` | ~2,985 |
| Back Nine | Back Nine is drawn from the Brothers Who Golf website — a movement bui | `specs/back-nine.md` | ~2,742 |
| Santa Monica | Santa Monica imagines Frank Gehry’s deconstructivism as a digital lang | `specs/santa-monica.md` | ~2,827 |
| End of Print | End of Print is drawn from early-90s grunge typography — the typograph | `specs/end-of-print.md` | ~3,542 |
| Amistad | Amistad is drawn from the Mexico 68 Olympic identity — Lance Wyman and | `specs/amistad.md` | ~2,986 |
| Monte Carlo | Monte Carlo is drawn from the Art Deco motorsport lithographs of the 1 | `specs/monte-carlo.md` | ~2,915 |
| Curious Network | The Curious Network treats sports design as material culture: tokens t | `specs/curious-network.md` | ~2,449 |
| Dessau | Dessau is drawn from the Bauhaus — Walter Gropius' school, Weimar 1919 | `specs/dessau.md` | ~3,356 |
| Ver Sacrum | Ver Sacrum is drawn from the Vienna Secession and the Wiener Werkstätt | `specs/ver-sacrum.md` | ~3,507 |
| Sachplakat | Sachplakat is drawn from the object poster — Plakatstil — that Lucian
 | `specs/sachplakat.md` | ~3,377 |
| Zang Tumb | Zang Tumb is drawn from Italian Futurism — Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s | `specs/zang-tumb.md` | ~3,812 |
| Unovis | Unovis is drawn from Suprematism — Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square, fi | `specs/unovis.md` | ~3,463 |
| Merz | Merz is drawn from Kurt Schwitters' one-man movement, begun in Hannove | `specs/merz.md` | ~3,865 |
| Schröder | Schröder is drawn from De Stijl — “The Style” — the Dutch movement The | `specs/schroder.md` | ~3,543 |
| Vkhutemas | Vkhutemas is drawn from Russian Constructivism of the 1920s — the deca | `specs/vkhutemas.md` | ~3,706 |
| Zephyr | Zephyr is drawn from Streamline Moderne — the American 1930s obsession | `specs/zephyr.md` | ~3,875 |
| See America | See America is drawn from the WPA Federal Art Project poster workshops | `specs/see-america.md` | ~3,608 |
| Isotype | Isotype is drawn from the Vienna Method of Pictorial Statistics, built | `specs/isotype.md` | ~4,130 |
| Direction | Direction is drawn from Paul Rand’s early New York years, 1938 to 1945 | `specs/direction.md` | ~3,596 |
| Case Study | Case Study is drawn from the Case Study House program — the experiment | `specs/case-study.md` | ~3,694 |
| Ulm | Ulm is drawn from the Hochschule für Gestaltung Ulm — the HfG, founded | `specs/ulm.md` | ~3,814 |
| Neue Grafik | Neue Grafik is drawn from the Swiss International Typographic Style —
 | `specs/neue-grafik.md` | ~3,534 |
| Title Sequence | Title Sequence is drawn from the title design of Saul Bass, who betwee | `specs/title-sequence.md` | ~3,681 |
| Fillmore | Fillmore is drawn from the San Francisco psychedelic poster, 1966 to 1 | `specs/fillmore.md` | ~3,795 |
| Silver Factory | Silver Factory is drawn from Andy Warhol’s Factory — the fifth-floor l | `specs/silver-factory.md` | ~3,985 |
| Push Pin | Push Pin is drawn from Push Pin Studios — the New York shop Milton
Gla | `specs/push-pin.md` | ~3,605 |
| The Worm | The Worm is drawn from the NASA Graphics Standards Manual of 1975 —
th | `specs/the-worm.md` | ~3,843 |
| Sea Ranch | Sea Ranch is drawn from Supergraphics — the wall-scale painted geometr | `specs/sea-ranch.md` | ~3,476 |
| Hipgnosis | Hipgnosis was the London studio Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey “Po” Powel | `specs/hipgnosis.md` | ~3,581 |
| Sniffin' Glue | Sniffin' Glue is drawn from punk’s DIY xerox culture — Mark Perry’s fa | `specs/sniffin-glue.md` | ~3,618 |
| Carlton | Carlton is drawn from the Memphis Group — the Milan collective Ettore
 | `specs/carlton.md` | ~3,814 |
| Pacific Wave | Pacific Wave is drawn from April Greiman and the California New Wave — | `specs/pacific-wave.md` | ~4,030 |
| The Face | The Face launched in 1980 and, once Neville Brody took over its art
di | `specs/the-face.md` | ~3,635 |
| Cathode | Cathode is drawn from 8-bit home-computer graphics, roughly 1977 to 19 | `specs/cathode.md` | ~3,786 |
| 303 | 303 is drawn from the acid-house and rave flyers of Britain, roughly 1 | `specs/three-oh-three.md` | ~3,822 |
| Pho-Ku | Pho-Ku is drawn from The Designers Republic — Ian Anderson’s studio in | `specs/pho-ku.md` | ~3,852 |
| Under Construction | Under Construction is drawn from the vernacular web of roughly 1994 to | `specs/under-construction.md` | ~3,992 |
| Aqua | Aqua is drawn from Mac OS X and the Web 2.0 gloss it set loose, roughl | `specs/aqua.md` | ~4,209 |
| Hard Candy | Hard Candy is drawn from neo-brutalist web design — the house style th | `specs/hard-candy.md` | ~3,253 |
| Raven | Raven is drawn from Raven Software’s dark-fantasy shooters built on id | `specs/raven.md` | ~3,454 |
| Adjacency | Adjacency is drawn from Andrew Sather’s San Francisco studio, founded  | `specs/adjacency.md` | ~3,330 |

## Consuming this bundle

Load `specs/<id>.md` as the active design brain. One system per surface; never blend
two. The Rejection Criteria at the foot of each spec are load-bearing — they are what
keep the output distinctive instead of drifting back to generic defaults.

## Provenance

Authored and maintained at https://design.wagabaza.com by Matia Wagabaza. Each system
is also browsable live (playground + extended kit) at design.wagabaza.com/<id>.


---

# Wagabaza Design Systems — A Century of Design

*A curated library of 43 distinctive, movement-based design systems — plus the drop-in `/wagabaza` skill — packaged as an agent's design brain.*

**Author:** Matia Wagabaza · Wagabaza Design Systems
**Source:** https://design.wagabaza.com
**Updated:** 2026-07-11 · **License:** proprietary-owned (use the sold copy; no redistribution)

---

## What this is

Most AI-generated interfaces converge on the same look: purple-on-black gradients,
the same three fonts, the same rounded cards. This bundle is the cure. Each of the
43 systems is a complete, self-contained design language derived from a real
movement or body of work — Frank Lloyd Wright's landscapes, Milanese poster
modernism, De Stijl, the Bauhaus at Dessau, Ray Gun–era grunge typography, Paul R.
Williams' Hollywood Regency, Swiss objectivity, Mexico 68, and more.

## Who it's for

An agent building any visual surface — a landing page, dashboard, prototype,
component library, or deck. Drop one spec in as the design brain and the agent
produces work that is unmistakably *some place*, not generic.

## What's inside

- **`skill/`** — the installable **`/wagabaza` skill**: a design-brain skill (SKILL.md +
  a systems reference) that teaches any agent how to choose and apply the right system.
  Drop it into Claude, or read it as plain instructions.
- **`specs/`** — 43 design-system specs (~155,401 tokens total). Every spec is a
  single markdown file covering, in a fixed contract an agent can follow verbatim:
  color palette, typography, spacing & grid, layout & motifs (with copy-ready CSS),
  components, depth, motion, imagery, iconography, accessibility, content voice, and —
  crucially — **Rejection Criteria**: what the system must never do.

A few of the systems:

- **Taliesin** — Taliesin translates physical landscapes into design languages. Born from
visits to Taliesin and Taliesin West, where Wright built with the land
itself — volcanic rock as walls, canvas as light. Materials name the
tokens; time, season, and weather modulate the system. The land is the
language; every token derived, nothing arbitrary.
- **La Concha** — La Concha imagines the digital design language Paul Revere Williams never
got to draw. Williams was famously fluent in every style his clients could
name — Tudor, Regency, Georgian, Googie — yet everything he built shares
three signatures this system encodes. First, the curve as hospitality: his
luxuriantly curved staircases, rotunda ceilings, and the hyperbolic
paraboloid shell of the La Concha Motel become generous border radii and
pill-shaped controls. Second, grandeur made cozy: formal palettes and
classical type, but warm grounds, soft depth, and cove-light glows instead
of hard shadows — the light source hidden, only the welcome visible. Third,
mastery across commissions: one system, four vocabularies (Residence,
Hotel, Googie, Civic), the way Williams could sketch a Regency estate
upside-down across the desk in the morning and detail a concrete shell for
the Las Vegas Strip that afternoon. He wrote, “I wanted to vindicate every
ability I had.” The axes are Commission and Hour — because in Los Angeles,
every building is finally judged at golden hour.
- **End of Print** — End of Print is drawn from early-90s grunge typography — the typographic
deconstruction David Carson ran through thirty issues of Ray Gun (Santa
Monica, 1992), later collected as The End of Print. Letterforms were
hand-cut and ransom-note-assembled from whatever faces were lying around,
photocopied until the toner broke and the halftone blew out, and pasted
back with no grid; plates misregistered; an interview that bored him was
famously set entirely in Zapf Dingbats. “Don’t mistake legibility for
communication.”

The look is deliberate degradation. A headline is not one typeface but
five — a word in a slab, the next in blackletter, the next in a typewriter
face, cut and glued at clashing sizes on drifting baselines. Photographs
are pushed to broken halftone. Plates slip. Edges tear rather than crop.
And under all of it, the body copy quietly drops the act and stays plain
and readable — because chaos is a headline privilege, not a body-text
right.

Signature: type as texture — ransom-note faces, broken toner, slipped
plates, and torn edges, emotion before legibility.

Design-system traits: misregistered overprint replaces drop shadows;
display type mixes faces, rotates, drifts, and overlaps while body text
stays quietly readable; photographs degrade to halftone; edges tear
instead of cropping clean; the palette is newsprint, over-inked black, and
a slipped plate of red (with cyan and acid when it goes further). Two axes:
Issue (which pull off the press — Proof, Overprint, Blackout) and Distress
(how many generations of photocopy — Kissed, Shredded, Obliterated).
- **Amistad** — Amistad is drawn from the Mexico 68 Olympic identity — Lance Wyman and
Eduardo Terrazas, under Pedro Ramírez Vázquez, growing the number 68 out of
the five Olympic rings and then letting it radiate: parallel lines expanding
outward across posters, stadiums, and an entire city, a geometry developed
in collaboration with Huichol artists so it read as both traditionally
Mexican and internationally contemporary. The name honors the Ruta de la
Amistad, the sculpture corridor built for the Games.

Signature: everything radiates from the center; the line never stops.

Design-system traits: concentric echo — headline numerals and key shapes
repeat outward in parallel strokes; color-coded programs, the great
wayfinding insight — sports, culture, and regulation each own a hue family,
so a product’s sections can too; pictograms before words; and all of it on
a whitewashed ground, because op-art vibration only works against calm. Two
axes: Programa (Deportiva, Cultural, Boletín) picks the color code;
Vibración (Quieta, Radiante) sets how hard the lines hum — Radiante hands
the display face to concentric line-work itself.
- **Monte Carlo** — Monte Carlo is drawn from the Art Deco motorsport lithographs of the 1930s
— Géo Ham (Georges Hamel) and Robert Falcucci’s Monaco Grand Prix posters.
Falcucci’s 1930 duel burns red and violet; Ham’s 1933 poster puts you in the
cockpit exploding out of the tunnel into sunlight; by 1937 the formula is
perfected — azure bay, cream stone, one red car at full song. Flat
lithograph color, low dramatic viewpoints, speed rendered as drawn streaks,
and deco letterforms stacked like a race card.

Signature: speed you can stand still and look at.

Design-system traits: flat, confident color fields with no gradients a
stone printer couldn’t pull; one hero subject per composition, entering
low and fast; motion drawn into the artwork (streaks, leans) rather than
animated into gimmicks; geometric deco caps, wide-tracked, arranged in
poster lockups with the date treated as typography. Two axes: Affiche picks
the poster (Riviera Day, The Tunnel, Sunset Duel); Speed sets the pace —
Parade Lap composure or Flat Out lean.
- **Dessau** — Dessau is drawn from the Bauhaus — Walter Gropius' school, Weimar 1919 to
Dessau 1926 to its closure under political pressure in 1933. The manifesto
was “Kunst und Technik — eine neue Einheit”: art and industry made one.
Herbert Bayer cut the universal alphabet and dropped capital letters
entirely; László Moholy-Nagy tilted photograms and headlines onto the
diagonal; Marcel Breuer bent tubular steel into the Wassily chair; Gunta
Stölzl ran the weaving workshop that quietly out-earned every other
department. The school building at Dessau — glass curtain wall, name set
vertically in lowercase — is itself the movement’s clearest poster.

Signature: Kunst und Technik — eine neue Einheit; every form is a
workshop product.

Design-system traits: the Grundformen — circle, triangle, square in
Kandinsky’s red, blue, yellow — carry the identity while ornament is
banished; depth is a slipped color plane behind the element, never blur;
heavy letterpress rules and circle indices structure the page like a
lock-up on the composing stone. Two axes: Werkstatt (Druckerei, Metall,
Weberei) picks which workshop’s materials set the palette; Periode
(Weimar, Dessau) sets the temperament — Weimar keeps woodtype weight and
a six-degree diagonal, Dessau goes monoline, orthogonal, and lowercase:
wir schreiben alles klein.

...and 37 more. The full machine-readable index is in `index.md`.

## How an agent uses it

1. (Optional) Install `skill/` as the `/wagabaza` skill, or read `skill/SKILL.md` directly.
2. Read `index.md` to pick the system whose feeling matches the brief.
3. Load `specs/<id>.md` as the design brain (system prompt or context).
4. Follow it exactly; when in doubt, obey the Rejection Criteria at the end of each spec.

## Provenance & freshness

Every spec and the skill are authored and maintained at design.wagabaza.com and
attributable to Wagabaza Design Systems. `updated:` reflects the last real content
revision. Design-movement knowledge ages slowly; this is a craft/know-how domain.

## License

Proprietary — the buyer licenses the delivered copy for use in their own work.
No redistribution or resale of the specs or skill themselves. Attribution appreciated:
*Wagabaza Design Systems, design.wagabaza.com.*