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© 2026 General Translation, Inc.

Karahisari's Calligraphy

A sixteenth-century practice sheet where the letterforms are the whole design.

Calligraphy: Ahmed Karahisari, 16th century, public domain

Index113 pages

Pages on this site; a row opens it here. A preview shows where one exists.

Pages

Gallery/The gallery of 27 directions.

Brand/brandThe identity canon in ten sections.

Docs/docsThe repository documents, read in the browser.

Deck/deckThe General Translation brand deck: the identity in slides, its own viewer.

Presenter/presentThe separate presentation of the redesign.

Compare/compareTwo directions side by side in synced frames.

Knowledge

Skills/skillsThe working skills behind the design lab and the product, by name and description.

Marks/marksThe speed set of General Translation marks, seven in one register, and the two survivors of the earlier round, each one color.BBlog/blogThe docs-redesign series as General Translation published it: the content rewrite, the Fuma Nama interview, and designing docs for humans.GGraphics/graphicsEvery illustration of the series by area, with what it shows and the glyphfield export it sits on.MMotion/motionEvery film on the motion roster with its status, and the research packages of the translation series.AArchive/archive/archive-pressThe 11 retired versions, kept as full-page captures at their own addresses.

Shipped

Home/d/productionWhat the directions produced: the site now live at generaltranslation.com, rebuilt here page for page. Live at generaltranslation.com.

Pricing/d/production/pricingPlans and the comparison table.

Enterprise/d/production/enterpriseThe enterprise page of the shipped site.

Careers/d/production/careersOpen roles and the mission.

Contact/d/production/contactThe contact form.

Report card/d/production/tryThe interactive localization report card.

Supported locales/d/production/supported-localesThe catalog of supported locales.

Sign in/d/production/signinSign in and the auth pages, with the state console.

Onboarding/d/production/onboardingThe four onboarding steps on the plate frame.

Consent/d/production/consentThe OAuth consent page.

Device code/d/production/deviceThe device code pages.

CLI/d/production/cliThe CLI wizard, terminal and callback pages.

Blog/d/production/blogEssays, devlogs and the changelog.

Homegeneraltranslation.comThe live home page.

Pricinggeneraltranslation.com/pricingThe live pricing page.

Usage ratesgeneraltranslation.com/pricing/usageThe per-word rates behind the plans.

Enterprisegeneraltranslation.com/enterpriseThe live enterprise page.

Careersgeneraltranslation.com/careersThe live careers page.

Contactgeneraltranslation.com/contactThe live contact form.

Docsgeneraltranslation.com/docsThe live documentation.

Bloggeneraltranslation.com/blogThe live blog and changelog.

Report cardgeneraltranslation.com/report-cardThe live localization report card.

404 pagegeneraltranslation.com/this-page-does-not-existThe not-found page, at an address that does not exist.

Dashboard sign-indash.generaltranslation.comThe sign-in page of the dashboard.

Documents

Readme/docsThe repository readme.

The brand/docs/brandThe identity canon: the name, the idea, the character and voice, the mark, color, type, language as material, and the Dossier as the completed reference.

The design system/docs/designThe canon: the four-color system, the line law, rails and seams, the doubled line, iso, the 1-bit language, moving type, motion discipline.

Architecture/docs/architectureThe code map: the direction registry, the toolchain SSOT and fork rescoping, the componentized instruments, the mirror.

The ship loop/docs/ship-loopThe verify-and-ship procedure every round runs: the line audit, the practices ratchet, types, filming, the backup branch, the mirror build.

The libraries/docs/librariesThe index of the componentized instruments. The living version, with plates running, is the build log under the readme.

The graphics pipeline/docs/graphicsHow the blog illustrations are made with the toolchain in graphics/: captures at 3 to 5x, labelled crops on glyphfield exports, the sizing rules, clips, export and hand-off to a post.

Sites

Dossier/directions/singularity-dossierThe completed direction: a full site whose home folds the every-stack argument into the hero terminal (one less section), over an /enterprise page that reads as an evidence file, with exhibits, a certificate wall, and an audit ledger under the gate.

Dossier enterprise/d/singularity-dossier/enterpriseThe enterprise page of Dossier.

Orbit/directions/singularity-orbitA showcase of the previous generation: orbit keeps its one-line hero and carries the system pieces the dossier retired, the windowed translation demo, the toolchain bento, the gravity well and instrument dials, the dark band, and the pricing file.

Orbit enterprise/d/singularity-orbit/enterpriseThe enterprise page of Orbit.

Signal/directions/singularity-signalA showcase of the previous generation: signal keeps its split-pane hero and carries the sections the dossier retired, the pinned story cinema, the review workspace, the assurance strip, and the self-typing transmission log.

Signal enterprise/d/singularity-signal/enterpriseThe enterprise page of Signal.

Explorations

Toolchain/directions/toolchainThe minimalist evolution of the current site: one ruled column, bento rows whose shells never repeat, and a family of isometric line-art diagrams.

Chroma Flow/directions/chroma-flowA curl-noise flow field pulls streaming color through the nameplate, and the product story reads as one continuous pipeline beneath it.

Dither Field/directions/dither-fieldHellos in eight scripts resolve out of Bayer noise and dissolve back, pixel by pixel, above data-led product rows.

Aurora Paper/directions/aurora-paperA grainy aurora drifts behind an otherwise disciplined paper page, and the product story is told as one working workspace.

Glyph Rain/directions/glyph-rainA particle rain of world-script glyphs gathers into each word of the headline, holds, and re-scatters, above script-led product sections.

Prism Light/directions/prism-lightOne white beam splits through a glass prism and the translations ride the dispersion fan out, above delivery-led sections.

Lens Gate/directions/lens-gateThe ruled paper itself passes through one breathing glass. Components enter in English, refract, and exit translated on the far side.

Paper Foundry/directions/paper-foundryThe bento machined into paper: hairline cells set into a brushed-graphite sheet, finished in strict reading order.

Terminus Board/directions/terminus-boardA departure hall for locales: a split-flap headline over a flip-wave cell grid that lists languages the way a terminus lists trains.

Wide Rule/directions/wide-ruleOne analytic interference band crosses enormous quiet space, and the whole product story is set in the calm around it.

Event Horizon/directions/event-horizonComponent walls dive with curved perspective into a black-hole gate. English falls in, translations emerge, and flags orbit the horizon.

Hourglass/directions/hourglassDark corridor walls of UI cards sweep concavely into a vanishing point, pinching at an hourglass waist that holds the mark, the flags, and the CTAs.

Singularity/directions/singularityThe enterprise gate: the lensing horizon alone on open paper, customers riding the locale belt, and a contact bay beneath it where glyphs rain through the dark.

Textile Block/directions/textile-blockThe General Translation landing page as a Frank Lloyd Wright textile-block relief wall in horizontal courses. One square cast module is the grid; content sits on smooth cast faces, ornament is a library of six geometric reliefs (the Ennis cruciform, the Millard chevron, the Storer bar-and-slots, the Freeman stepped pyramid, the Aztec Hotel greca band, the running bond), and every course of the page is keyed to one relief. Light behind the perforated Ennis and Storer blocks is a live Bayer dither field; the shade the upper wall casts across the dark jade course is a static ramp of nested Bayer tiers. Every line on the page is a joint drawn once; every label on the wall is a header brick flush in a block's corner. A materials legend near the base names the six reliefs and the five materials from the same records that draw them.

Stepped Fret/directions/stepped-fretMitla fret strata: the page is a stack of horizontal registers bounded by five distinct Zapotec frets (stepped fret with coil, hooked step, stepped chevron, stepped diamond, opposed pair) drawn at three scales and assigned by register; each register's content block steps one fret step right and back down the page with the gutter it leaves filled with graded Bayer stone, so the grid itself is a stair. The hero is one monumental fret in ordered dither with the claim set in the step it leaves open, and the dark band is the same figure inverted: the Mitla facade in cream on black, and the hero's stair returning as six solid cream plates carrying the platform tiers.

Glazed Bond/directions/glazed-bondGeneral Translation as an Ishtar Gate elevation in the Babylonian revival of Art Deco. Two battered towers with stepped, turquoise-capped parapets flank a corbelled arch that holds the claim; every section below is one more course of the elevation, its content set as glazed panels into running-bond brick, with gold rosette bands on lapis crossing the towers between courses. The T proof is laid as Flemish bond with glazed headers: a lapis header brick (the flag chip) beside every cream stretcher (the translation), the source string as the one gold brick. Languages are three courses of rosette medallions with the endonym at each center. The four product surfaces sit as tablets in a lapis inner court under its own two-step crenellation. The story is a three-tier ziggurat. Pricing is a gate in miniature: two towers carrying the plans as gold plaques, the rate ledger as the lapis opening. Every glazed surface catches light as ordered Bayer dither from one shared set of tiles; no gradient anywhere. Geometry only.

Brick Lattice/directions/brick-latticeThe whole page is one glazed-brick wall in running bond, and every brick is an ordered-dither cell. Density on the Bayer screen draws the ornament from a six-pattern book, one pattern per section: a rosette field behind the claim, chevron courses behind the wall of translations, the inverted lattice of the kiln with ziggurat setbacks and merlons, meander registers around the medallions of the languages band, palmette fans under the glazed pricing panels, and the stepped foundation under the footer where the book itself is printed. Copy sits on smooth glazed panels with stepped parapet corners cut out of the lattice; every named panel carries a glazed header course the way the wall's bricks do. The T proof is one source brick lighting its neighbours, in the DOM bricks and in the lattice behind them at once. Everything is complete at rest; hover and motion only add.

Screenfold Codex/directions/screenfold-codexThe landing page as a Maya screenfold: one strip of bark-paper cream folded into ten leaves, each a red-oxide-framed page cut into horizontal registers by red rules. Every leaf is a parallelogram whose side edges run a fixed 40px across from top to bottom, adjacent leaves running opposite ways, so every crease lines up exactly and the strip's silhouette zigzags down the page like an accordion pleat seen off its axis. The folds between leaves are stepped Bayer troughs (inked at a valley with a solid crease hairline, red oxide at a mountain with a bare-paper ridge). Dither is the writing: twelve geometric signs carved through dithered squares form a documented vocabulary, each standing for one product concept (strings, build, runtime, CLI, dashboard, review, locale, languages, routing, edge, context, tokens) and printed wherever that concept appears, with the key on the back board. Bar and dot is the counting: every figure prints in the Maya numeral beside its Arabic form, with the key on leaf one. The living material is the real product: the shipped Next.js sample, both TranslateWindow belt strings in five locales, the component outputs, the review rows, the 120-row locale roster, the published rate ledger, the shipped feature grid.

Raking Relief/directions/raking-reliefA bas-relief alabaster wall under a raking light from the left, made monumental. Every form on the page is carved by one consistent light: raised tablets catch a lit edge on their left and top and cast a stepped Bayer-tier shadow to their right and below (dense beside the tablet, thinning outward, one exact ramp mask per strip); sunk registers hold the rim's shadow inside their left and top edges and a lit inner wall on their right and bottom; carved headings cast a dithered shadow and incised strings show the lit lip of their cut. Geometric relief bands from the Ishtar Gate, the Guardian Building and Mitla (rosette, palmette, chevron, guilloche, stepped fret) run between the courses and frame every raised tablet. The content is inscription: the claim in Cinzel capitals under a sun-disk crown, the same claim incised in its sixteen shipped locales, the Next.js source raised beside its eight translations cut into the wall with lapis locale inlays, the locales as a rosette band with the word for language in nine scripts, the agent on a stele inside a shadowed recess with a stepped niche head, the published rates on three tablets under ziggurat caps with the shipped compare ledger sunk beneath. Alabaster and warm shadow, one lapis inlay.

Calendar Rings/directions/calendar-ringsA General Translation landing page as one concentric disk that works as an instrument. Ground and dither rings alternate outward from the source at the center and every ring reads something real: the claim in the hub inside the jade source circle, the name inscribed on ring one, the four product surfaces labelled along ring two, the seven usage rates as bar-and-dot numerals knocked out of ring three, the twenty locales of the outer ring as flag chips on ring four, and a rim notched once per locale. A stepped plinth carries the sub, the CTAs and a six-cell key that says how to read the disk. Every later section unrolls one ring into a wide arc band with radial cells, notch ticks and numerals seated on the arc: the customers, the T component as a half disk around its source window, the stack and the nine-beat pipeline in the negative ring floored by the disk itself inverted, the languages in two bands of ten in the disk's own order with a variants register, and the pricing file as seven rate segments plus two plan segments. Lineage is the Aztec and Maya revival of 1920s deco, geometry only (Sun Stone, Dresden Codex numerals, Aztec Hotel registers); palette is obsidian, fired clay, jade and gold.

Talud-Tablero/directions/talud-tableroThe General Translation landing page as a stepped platform in the Teotihuacan talud-tablero profile. Every section is one terrace module: a framed tablero (the rectangular content panel with a red oxide projecting frame and a hairline molding each side) over a sloped talud (a clip-path trapezoid of Bayer-tiled volcanic stone that carries the ornament, the stair, or a load of chips and cells). Each terrace is one step wider than the one above it (data-tier 6 down to 0), so the page silhouette is a pyramid in elevation: the claim on the top platform, a stair axis with treads and two red alfardas descending through every talud, a full-bleed volcanic-stone plaza at the foot (the dark moment), and a lower platform beyond it carrying the pricing file as three tableros of increasing frame depth and the footer as the base course. Language as the oldest technology, carried on a platform built in registers.

Apadana Grid/directions/apadana-gridThe General Translation landing page as the floor plan of a hypostyle hall seen from above. Every section is a hall in plan: a strict square grid of column bases (three concentric rings, the middle one dashed so each dash is one flute) on every axis intersection, with the bays between the columns holding the content. The halls follow one another down the page with different column counts and the pitch is derived from each: the portico (6 by 2, pitch 200) holds the claim between its two rows with two sun-disk dither plates in the outer bays and double-volute capitals over the front row and mirrored under the back row; a 4 by 4 bay hall proves the T component with the source code window at the center and eight locale builds of "Scale to every language" in the surrounding bays, each flag chip seated beside its column base as a nameplate; the great hall (6 by 6, twenty-five bays) sets one locale per bay around the halftone globe, zh-Hans and zh-Hant flanking the center, with the four-row variants register beneath; the throne hall at night is the dark moment, a full-bleed black-basalt band with a gold-hairline 3 by 3 field whose four rooms are the product surfaces (six-stack code window, the gt translate terminal, the review workspace, the Locadex trace) over a dithered lamplight floor; the treasury sets the seven-row rate ledger and then frames Starter, the footnotes with the compare link, and Enterprise in three bays; the rear portico is the footer's four link columns. The page's rails are drawn as walls with thickness (two faces ten pixels apart with a hairline hatch between, the draughtsman's poché). Language is the oldest technology; the hall that received every embassy is the frame.

Clay Tablet/directions/clay-tabletThe page is a museum case of clay tablets. Every section is one tablet: a fired-clay slab with 12px pillow corners, ruled into registers and columns, sitting on a dark wet-clay case ground between hairline shelf lines, each with a museum label (catalogue numeral, name, one line of fact) under it. The signature device is the wedge dither: the cuneiform wedge (a triangular head with a tail, geometry only, never a sign) is the cell of an ordered Bayer dither. Every grid cell reads a scalar field and compares it against the 8x8 Bayer threshold from src/lib/dither.ts; a lit cell takes a vertical wedge, and above half tone a second pass against the transposed matrix lays a horizontal wedge across it, so tone is impression density and never a gradient. The hero is the largest tablet: the claim "Scale to every language" in Forum as one shaped text node with lang and dir, re-impressed through the sixteen shipped locales by a clip-path stylus wipe; a rosette frieze (five lobed disks, the Assyrian border repeat) in wedge dither below it, rendered server-side as SVG so it is complete before any script runs; a lapis seal at the corner (a disk ringed by eighteen radial wedges carrying the GT monogram in slip); and the colophon with the six customer marks masked into the page ink. The T component proof follows the Behistun inscription: the shipped gt-next sample in the first column, then one column per locale (es, ja, de, fr, zh) under its flag-chip seal, the three outputs of the sample (h1, DateTime, Num) impressed in each, the columns divided by doubled threads, the translate run as the bottom register. The one dark moment is a black-stone stele among the clay that stays black in both themes, with the stack in seven registers, the gt cli terminal with five LocaleTag chips, the closing acts, and the wedge dither in motion on a canvas at its foot. Pricing is three small tablets on one shelf: the seven-row rate ledger with both footnotes, Starter $0, Enterprise Custom. Palette: fired clay #cfa87b (tablet face), wet clay dark #2a1a10 (ink and case), cream slip #efe4d0 (code and workspace panels), one lapis #2447a3 (seals, the active column edge, the zh-Hans/zh-Hant tell ring). Dark mode turns the tablets to wet clay, the ink to slip, the case to #070707.

Archive

Wide Field/archive/archive-pressRetired version, captured September 8, 2026 at 1440 pixels wide.

Bento Foundry/archive/bento-foundryRetired version, captured September 8, 2026 at 1440 pixels wide.

Blueprint Atlas/archive/blueprint-atlasRetired version, captured September 8, 2026 at 1440 pixels wide.

Concrete Mono/archive/concrete-monoRetired version, captured September 8, 2026 at 1440 pixels wide.

Concrete Origin/archive/concrete-originRetired version, captured September 8, 2026 at 1440 pixels wide.

Concrete Source/archive/concrete-sourceRetired version, captured September 8, 2026 at 1440 pixels wide.

Field Magnet/archive/field-magnetRetired version, captured September 8, 2026 at 1440 pixels wide.

Flipboard Terminus/archive/flipboard-terminusRetired version, captured September 8, 2026 at 1440 pixels wide.

Kinetic Verba/archive/kinetic-verbaRetired version, captured September 8, 2026 at 1440 pixels wide.

Typographic Broadcast/archive/typographic-broadcastRetired version, captured September 8, 2026 at 1440 pixels wide.

White Gallery/archive/white-galleryRetired version, captured September 8, 2026 at 1440 pixels wide.

Libraries

Hhorizon-field/docs#horizon-fieldThe singularity visual.Gglyph-field/docs#glyph-fieldThe glyph rain visual.Iink-field/docs#ink-fieldThe band margins’ rising rain.Pprismatic-field/docs#prismatic-fieldThe chroma wash.Ddither/docs#ditherThe 1-bit Bayer renderer.Sstudio-field/docs#studio-fieldThe authentic Bayer family.Iiso/docs#isoThe isometric drawing kit.Ddoubled-line/docs#doubled-lineThe two-thread diagram stroke.Eedge-globe/docs#edge-globeThe delivery drawing.Llocale-tag/docs#locale-tagThe locale pill.Rreveal-seam/docs#reveal-seamThe slide-to-reveal instrument.Gglyph-reassembler/docs#glyph-reassemblerThe sentence-rewriting morph.Llocale-belt/docs#locale-beltThe marquee that drives the page.Nnameplate-take/docs#nameplate-takeThe landing hero’s morph.Sstack-story/docs#stack-storyThe scroll-scrubbed stage.Ssite-compare/docs#site-compareThe two-face compare rig.Ggallery-shoot/docs#gallery-shootThe wall’s tile shooter.Mmobile-type-ladder/docs#mobile-type-ladderThe compact type slots.Ppre-boot/docs#pre-bootThe before-first-paint contract.Ffour-color/docs#four-colorThe palette everything resolves from.

Brand sections

The name/brand#the-nameThe company name, its short form, and Locadex.

The idea/brand#the-ideaEvery product in every language: the mission and the positioning.

The character/brand#the-characterThe personality, the voice, and the attribute scales.

The mark/brand#the-markThe monogram: doubled-line construction, one ink, and the rules for its use.

Color/brand#colorFour absolute colors, alpha steps for structure, one spectral accent per page.

Type/brand#typeInter as the one typeface, the weight cap, and the multilingual requirements for headlines and UI.

Language as material/brand#language-as-materialGlyphs as the signature device: the reassembler, the locale chips, and the flag prints.

The completed reference/brand#the-completed-referenceThe Dossier as the finished application of the system.

Made with the system/brand#made-with-the-systemFinished artwork made with the system: the Open Source reel, the X banner, two blog films and three partnership globes.

Context for partners/brand#context-for-partnersThe industry, the audience, and the visual references for partners.

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