Design System — Controlled Document

Datum
Aerospace

The visual and verbal standard for everything we put in front of a customer: the site, the spec sheets, the qualification reports, and the internal tools our engineers live in.

Document No.
DS-0001
Revision
B
Sheet
1 of 1
Status
Released
Drawn
Brand
Checked
Engineering
Approved
Pending
Display mode
01

Position

Read first

Our customers qualify hardware for flight. They are not persuaded by adjectives — they are persuaded by traceability. Every decision in this system serves one idea: claims carry evidence. A number appears with its test condition. A status appears with its revision. Nothing is asserted that cannot be sourced.

Precision over polish
A tight tolerance is more convincing than a gradient. Where we're tempted to add visual interest, we add a real specification instead.
Revision is visible
Any page, drawing, or data sheet shows what revision it is and when it was approved. Undated collateral reads as unmaintained.
Gold is a signal, not a style
The accent means attention required. If it appears everywhere, it means nothing. Budget it.
Legible at 8pt, in a hangar
Print, low light, gloved hands, a monitor angled badly. Contrast and size are set for the worst case, not the portfolio shot.
02

Two modes

Bench & Range

Two themes, named for where they get used. Bench is the default: daylight, print, customer-facing documents, anything that may be printed to paper. Range is for darkened environments — test cells, integration bays, night operations, and long sessions in front of telemetry.

Range is not Bench inverted. Four values need genuine substitution, not a flip: the secondary text, the hairline, the accent, and every status color. Flipping them directly drops each one below contrast minimums or makes the borders glare.

TokenBenchRangeWhy it changes
surface#E7E8E1#151816Never pure black — it makes hairlines vibrate and raises halation for astigmatic readers.
surface-2#DADCD3#1E221FRecessed on Bench, raised on Range. The direction of elevation flips.
ink#1A1D1B#E4E6DFSlightly off-white, matched to vellum, so the two modes read as one brand.
ink-2#5E6862#99A29BBench slate on a dark surface lands near 3:1. It has to lighten, not invert.
line#1A1D1B#4A514BFull-strength hairlines glare on dark. Structural borders drop to a mid grey.
accent#BE8A21#E0B554Kapton gold lightens on Range so it still reads as caution rather than dull brass.
accept#3D6B48#6FA97CAll three status colors desaturate and lighten together, holding their relationship.
reject#A5322A#DB7C70Deep red disappears into a dark surface — a failure state that can't be seen is a defect.
info#35607F#7FAAC6Also the focus ring, so it must clear 3:1 against both surfaces.
Rule — mode selection

Bench is the default and the only mode approved for print and PDF deliverables. Range follows the operating system preference on first load and can be overridden per user. Never author a screen in one mode alone — check both before release.

03

Color

Finish schedule

Drawn from the materials: drafting vellum, graphite, anodized aluminum, and the amber polyimide film on every flight article. The three status colors are the shop-floor tags — accept, hold, reject — so the interface uses the same code as the floor. Each chip shows both modes: Bench left, Range right.

B
R

Surface

#E7E8E1#151816

Primary surface. Cool and slightly green — drafting film, not paper.

B
R

Surface 2

#DADCD3#1E221F

Panels and demo containers. Recessed on Bench, raised on Range.

B
R

Ink

#1A1D1B#E4E6DF

All body text and emphasis borders. Primary button fill.

B
R

Ink 2

#5E6862#99A29B

Secondary text, field labels, captions. Never body copy.

B
R

Kapton

#BE8A21#E0B554

Accent and the hold state. Under 5% of any layout.

B
R

Accept

#3D6B48#6FA97C

Passed, released, conforming. Status only.

B
R

Reject

#A5322A#DB7C70

Nonconformance, failure, destructive action.

B
R

Cleanroom

#35607F#7FAAC6

Informational states, links, focus rings.

Rule — accent budget

Kapton gold and the three status colors never appear as decoration, background washes, or gradients. If you cannot say in one sentence what state a colored element represents, it should be ink or ink-2.

04

Typography

Three roles

Archivo at wide widths for display — it reads like the engraved nameplate on an avionics chassis. IBM Plex Sans for reading. IBM Plex Mono for anything with a value: part numbers, revisions, tolerances, test conditions, token names. If a number is measurable, it is set in mono.

Display / LargeArchivo 600 · wdth 118
clamp(30–46px) · 1.02 · uppercase
Qualified for flight
Display / MediumArchivo 600 · wdth 112
28px · 1.1 · uppercase
Structures & avionics
Display / SmallArchivo 600
19px · 1.2
Thermal vacuum campaign
BodyPlex Sans 400
16px · 1.55 · max 60ch
Housings are machined from 7075-T7351 plate and hard-anodized per MIL-A-8625 Type III. Each unit ships with its own dimensional inspection report, traceable to the raw material heat lot.
SmallPlex Sans 400 · ink-2
14px · 1.5
Captions, table footnotes, helper text beneath inputs, and figure descriptions.
DataPlex Mono 400/500
13px · tabular
DA-41207-003   REV C   ⌀12.700 ±0.013   14.2 grms
LabelPlex Mono 400 · ink-2
10–11px · .12em · uppercase
Material  ·  Finish  ·  Approved by  ·  Sheet
Rule — weight on Range

Light text on a dark surface optically gains weight. Body copy stays at 400 in both modes, but display headings drop from 600 to 500 if a heading looks heavier on Range than it does on Bench. Check it, don't assume it.

05

Space & grid

Base 4 px

Eight dimensions off a 4 px base, dimensioned the way we'd dimension anything else. If a value isn't on this list, it doesn't get used.

space-1 4px
4
space-2 8px
8
space-3 12px
12
space-4 16px
16
space-5 24px
24
space-6 32px
32
space-7 48px
48
space-8 64px
64

12-column · 8px gutter · 1120px max

06

Components

Both modes

Corners are 2 px — machined, not molded. Borders are hairlines. Nothing has a drop shadow; depth comes from rules and surface steps, the way it does on a drawing. Every component below is drawn entirely from tokens, so it resolves in whichever mode is selected above.

Actions

One primary action per view. Labels name the outcome — "Request a quote," never "Submit."

Status tags
Qualified In review Nonconforming TRL 6

Color plus a square marker plus a word. Never color alone — it has to survive a monochrome print and a red-lit test cell.

Part card

Isolator bracket

Six-axis vibration isolator mount for payload electronics. Qualified to GEVS 14.1 grms, three axes.

Part no.
DA-41207-003
Rev
C
Mass
184 g
Status
Flight

Every card ends in a title-block strip. If a part has no revision, it isn't ready to show.

Specification table
ParameterValueCondition
Operating temp−40 to +85 °CMIL-STD-810H
Random vibration14.1 grmsGEVS, 3 axes
Supply voltage28 V ±4 VMIL-STD-704F
Insertion loss0.35 dB maxDC–6 GHz

Three columns, always. A value without its test condition doesn't get published.

Input
Format: DA-#####-###. Dash number identifies the configuration.
Minimum order 5 units for flight hardware.
Note & empty state
Unless otherwise specified

Radius 2 px · hairline 1 px · grid 4 px · motion 160 ms. Departures from these defaults are called out explicitly, the same way a drawing calls out a local tolerance.

No test reports on this unit yet.

Reports appear here once the qualification campaign closes.

07

Voice

Applies to all copy

Write the way a good engineer briefs a customer: state the number, state the condition, stop. Superlatives read as unqualified claims to people whose job is qualifying claims.

Write

Qualified to 14.1 grms random vibration, three axes, per GEVS.

The condition makes the number auditable.

Not

Built to survive the most punishing launch environments.

Unfalsifiable, so it reads as filler.

Write

Lead time 14 weeks from PO. Expedite available at 8 weeks.

Two facts a buyer can plan against.

Not

Rapid turnaround powered by a world-class supply chain.

No commitment is actually being made.

Write

Upload failed — the file exceeds 50 MB. Split the report and upload each part.

What happened, and the next action.

Not

Oops! Something went wrong. Please try again.

Apologizes, explains nothing, offers no fix.

Units, always
Every quantity carries its unit and, where it matters, its tolerance: 184 g, 28 V ±4 V, 0.35 dB max.
Standards by designation
Cite the full designation and revision — MIL-STD-810H, not "mil-spec." AS9100D, not "aerospace certified."
Sentence case
Everywhere except display headings and mono labels, which are uppercase by role.
No exclamation marks
Not in confirmations, not in empty states, not in email.
08

Implementation

Rev B scope

What Rev B covers, and what has to land in Rev C before this is a working system rather than a look.

Rev B — released
Paired token set for both modes, type roles and scale, spacing and grid, eight core components, voice rules.
Rev C — required
Tokens exported to a single source of truth feeding CSS custom properties and Figma variables, with Bench and Range as modes on the same variable collection rather than two separate libraries.
Rev C — required
Icon set at 16/24 px on a 1.5 px stroke. Chart and telemetry styling for both modes — plot lines need a separate categorical ramp, since the status colors are reserved and can't double as series colors.
Rev C — required
Print stylesheet that forces Bench regardless of the user's mode, and strips surface fills. Data sheets and qual reports are half our output and must be proven on paper.
Accessibility
WCAG 2.2 AA in both modes. Kapton gold clears the 3:1 UI threshold on both surfaces but not 4.5:1 for small text on Bench — gold is never body copy in either mode.
Governance
Treat this document the way you treat a drawing: changes go through a revision, the letter increments, and the title block records who approved it. A design system without change control decays into a mood board within two quarters.