A dimension line, and one that stops short
The upper rule is a measured span, closed with a tick at both ends. The lower rule starts from the same datum and stops short, with no closing tick — a span that was not measured, drawn at its real length rather than quietly extended to match.
It is deliberately not dashed or greyed out. A dash reads as “pending”; the point is that it is not pending. It is a real boundary, honestly ended. Two strokes and three ticks survive 16px, which is where most marks die.
Three faces, each with a reason
A transitional serif with real optical sizing, drawn for screen reading rather than for headlines alone. Chosen over the sibling's Instrument Serif deliberately: this site has to hold long argumentative passages at display size, and a high-contrast display face gets thin and brittle when a heading runs three lines.
The Braille Institute's legibility typeface. Characters that normally collapse into one another — I l 1, O 0, b d — are drawn apart on purpose. The flagship business documented on this site sells WCAG conformance records; setting its portfolio in the face designed for low-vision readers is the cheapest available way to not be a hypocrite.
Every figure on this site is meant to be re-derived by the reader, which means every figure is meant to be compared. Tabular numerals and a tall x-height make a column of counts checkable at a glance. Ligatures are switched off — an arrow that is really two characters should look like two characters.
19 colour tokens, read from the stylesheet
15 ink-and-ground pairs, every ratio computed
Pairs are listed because they are used. A board showing every possible combination tests nothing and hides the ones that matter. A pair whose ratio cannot be computed counts as a failure, not a skip — that rule is the only reason the broken parser on Wryko Records' own brand board was ever noticed.
| Use | Ink | Ground | Ratio | Needs | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| body copy | --ink #14171A | --paper #F0EFE9 | 15.62 | 4.5 | AA |
| body copy on tinted bands | --ink #14171A | --paper-2 #E7E6DE | 14.37 | 4.5 | AA |
| copy inside plates | --ink #14171A | --card #FAF9F5 | 17.08 | 4.5 | AA |
| secondary prose | --ink-2 #40464B | --paper #F0EFE9 | 8.30 | 4.5 | AA |
| secondary prose in plates | --ink-2 #40464B | --card #FAF9F5 | 9.08 | 4.5 | AA |
| ledger indices, captions, metadata | --ink-3 #5F666C | --paper #F0EFE9 | 5.06 | 4.5 | AA |
| captions on tinted bands | --ink-3 #5F666C | --paper-2 #E7E6DE | 4.65 | 4.5 | AA |
| eyebrows, links, the accent | --signal #16514A | --paper #F0EFE9 | 7.89 | 4.5 | AA |
| the accent inside plates | --signal #16514A | --card #FAF9F5 | 8.63 | 4.5 | AA |
| defect-log markers | --defect #A8341F | --paper #F0EFE9 | 5.74 | 4.5 | AA |
| gate passing | --pass #1F5E3C | --pass-bg #E4EDE6 | 6.44 | 4.5 | AA |
| gate failing | --fail #A8341F | --fail-bg #F6E7E3 | 5.50 | 4.5 | AA |
| never measured — neither pass nor fail | --unmeasured #7A5B12 | --unmeasured-bg #F3EBD8 | 5.31 | 4.5 | AA |
| pull quotes | --quote-ink #22262A | --quote-bg #E7E6DE | 12.16 | 4.5 | AA |
| secondary ink on the ink ground (footer, dark bands) | --ink-dim #9AA0A6 | --ink #14171A | 6.81 | 4.5 | AA |
Three states, not two
The third one carries the argument. Most status systems have pass and fail, and quietly file “never checked” under green.