SlipItIn/.github/skills/slop-eval/references/premium-markers.md

Premium markers — the positive rubric

Axes 7 and 8 measure what the design did, not what it avoided. A page can dodge every tell and still be slop because nothing was invented; these two axes are where that failure is priced in.

Axis 7 — Signature & Uniqueness

The uniqueness formula from the law:

uniqueness = one signature artifact + atmosphere + layered depth
           + character display face + one bespoke silhouette
           + a treated nav + real specificity

Score each element 0 / 50 / 100 with a one-line justification; the axis is the mean of the seven.

#	Element	0 (absent)	50 (attempted)	100 (strong)
S1	Signature artifact	No custom focal object; hero is text on a fill or a stock/prop visual	A custom visual exists but is generic enough to paste onto another site	ONE high-effort focal object (crafted SVG scene, populated product artifact, illustration, render) that could only belong to this brand
S2	Atmosphere	Flat color fill behind everything	Some texture/tone in the hero only (dies at the fold — see L11)	The background is a composed environment (scene, texture, grain, light) carried down the whole scroll
S3	Layered depth	One flat plane	Two reads, nothing crossing a boundary	Foreground copy / midground focal object / background scene, with at least one element overlapping or bleeding across a layer edge
S4	Character display face	Identity rests on a neutral grotesque or a Google-shelf default (T1)	A distinctive face chosen by reputation, not brief (T9)	A licensed/self-hosted display face with real personality, set large, chosen for this brief (body may stay neutral; system-ui is a legitimately neutral body)
S5	Bespoke silhouette	Every shape is a default rectangle/pill	One mild customization (a radius decision, a simple notch)	One unmistakable custom-cut geometry signing the page (a receipt-torn edge, an invented marker, a specific arrow drawn for the system)
S6	Treated nav	Default flush row of links bolted on top	Centered or contained but generic	The nav is a decision: floated pill, real presence, brand marks threaded in — it belongs to the system
S7	Real specificity	Placeholder logos, fake names, lorem-adjacent copy	Mixed: some real data among placeholders	Real recognizable logos honestly claimable, real names/data inside the product shot, copy written for this product

Signature gate: axis mean < 40 caps the overall at 59. Even the most minimal premium site has at least the signature artifact and a character face.

Axis 8 — Cohesion

"Cohesion is the whole game": the loudest observed failure is not tells, it is individually-fine parts that don't belong to each other. Score each check 0 / 50 / 100; the axis is the mean of the four.

#	Check	What 100 looks like
H1	One palette, held with discipline	A monochrome or tightly-related set; adjacent sections share or hand off tone. 0 = "blue AND green AND a warm accent", each fine alone, ugly together.
H2	One type voice	A single family across weights/optical sizes, or one display + one quiet neutral — never two display faces arguing.
H3	One system	Nav, buttons, arrows, radii, borders, background speak one language (sharp everywhere, one arrow reused, one gradient threaded through). A page of mismatched fine components reads cheap.
H4	Composed from the brief	Sections designed from what this product actually is — not known skeletons restacked and recolored, not a reference site's content reproduced. Reference = direction, never a stencil.

Slop→premium pairs (check before recording a tell)

The same element is slop as the obvious preset and premium when clearly made on purpose for this one screen:

Pattern	Slop version	Premium version
Glass	Frosted box + blue glow ignoring its background; banding, leak, halo, pop (K25)	Material over a backdrop worth refracting: refraction, edge dispersion, top-lip highlight, light frost, tuned inner+drop shadows. The gloss is the good part — keep it, fix everything around it
Borders	Hard contrasting 1px line on every box (K13)	Self-colored border: surface value shifted a hair, 1px stroke at the surface's own color low-opacity, soft top inner highlight — an edge you feel
Accent bar	Straight preset bar on a card edge (K15)	Invented silhouette: diagonal cut-in, chamfer, notch, custom bracket — geometry drawn on purpose
Icons	Pack icons in tiles (K1/K4/K24); zero icons as over-correction	Bare bespoke marks in one house style, consistent stroke/corner/grid
Shadow	Symmetric black bloom on everything (X6)	Tight, low-offset, small blur, tinted to surface or element color, cast from one direction — or no shadow, depth from tone
Glow/light	Blue-purple bloom, centered halo (C1/C5)	Specific, unexpected color with chosen direction and falloff: a warm volumetric rake, a single beam
Grid	Full-page faint graph paper (C15)	Tight textured micro-grid behind one panel; sparse blueprint marks (ruler ticks, corner crops, dashed guides)
Gradient	Smooth banded wash (C14)	Grain/noise dithered into every large transition — a surface that feels physical
App window	Empty generic mock with traffic lights (K7)	Detailed, fully-populated, real-feeling product UI, floated with depth, clipped at an edge — and only when a product UI actually exists
Footer wordmark	Text pasted big: off-center, clipped, no treatment (L20)	Anchored flush to the bottom, above the texture, deliberate case + spacing, intentional bleed
Motion	Entrance reveals gating content (M1); boops and underline fills (M2/M3)	Scroll-authored motion on already-visible elements, authored micro-interactions tuned for one element, gated behind prefers-reduced-motion
Inset island	The default closing CTA panel every time (L8)	A section floated with margin on all sides, on its own surface + grain, used once where detachment means something
Noise	Grain sheet over text and controls (K26 — grain over content)	Grain on the substrate at very low opacity: felt, not seen. One masked display word can carry grain as a chosen move

Field notes that outrank everything

• Decide the signature FIRST, then build sections around it. Miss the artifact and no amount of clean spacing rescues the page.
• Clean is the floor, never the achievement. Correct spacing + quiet type + zero authored moments = unfinished work wearing restraint as an alibi. Calm is a style; empty is a miss.
• "Creative" is not "realistic". Photoreal stock reads as the opposite of creative; an authored treatment in ONE medium (cyanotype, riso, pixel art, one illustration style) auto-coheres and signs the page.
• Type without the Google shelf: Fontshare (Pally, Gambarino, Sentient, Tanker), Velvetyne, or licensed faces (Pangram Pangram, Displaay, Klim), self-hosted. Clash Display / General Sans already read generic. View candidates rendered before picking; never name faces from memory.
• Component libraries are legitimate foundations (Motion, shadcn/ui, tailark, motion-primitives, kokonut) — take the accessible behavior, throw away the generic styling, art-direct on top. De-slop every prebuilt block as if it were your own work.
• The antidote to the slop floor is a specific visual reference. When prescribing fixes, point to starting from a concrete reference (Mobbin, Godly, Awwwards-tier sites) — it forces the work off the statistical center. Language from the reference, never its content (H4).