Wonder v45 — three concepts built to Obvi's measured density
Internal design review. Not cleared for placement. No Meta object created, edited, published or budgeted.
The finding these were built to
The Obvi library on disk is 70 ads, not the 12 contact strips I measured first. Measured across all 70, the thing that separates them from our work is not hue, not ground luminance and not the contrast rule — it is frame density. Share of frame that is not bare ground: Obvi median 50% (quartiles 36%/58%, range 22–92%) against v42a 26%, v43 27%, v44 26%. Every one of our previous ads sat between 17% and 34%. Half as dense.
Two earlier explanations of mine were wrong and are recorded as such: 42 of the 70 sit at ground luminance ≥ 0.60, the same band as the pastel plates I blamed; and our frames already carried more saturated colour than Obvi's (50–80% against ~15%) and far less white.
These three plates were generated for this build and briefed to fill the lower band edge to edge while leaving ~490px of clean ground for type. Finished occupancy: F1 55.0%, F2 52.2%, F3 50.5% — median 52.2%, inside Obvi's interquartile range for the first time.
Three type structures
- F1 — centred grotesque caps + numeral row. Archivo 900, second word reversed out of its own tight magenta block, then four figures with captions beneath. The only centred ad here.
- F2 — two-scale serif, left column. One word at 152px between framing lines at 64px. Those framing lines are near-black rather than white because white measured 2.92:1 on this pink against a 3.0 floor at that size — so the two-scale headline became a two-tone one.
- F3 — lowercase soft serif. Fraunces at 400/900/700, one lemon word at 146px. On cobalt lemon is 8.4:1, so the bright colour carries a headline word instead of a badge. The offer sits as a stacked block in the right-hand pocket the plate actually left clear.
The gate now judges every ink at its own size against its own background. The first pass failed F1's reversed-out word at 1.17:1 by measuring white against the plate it never touches, and failed a 64px numeral against a caption floor. Both were gate faults, not design faults.
What is wrong with them
- The flat-lays run off the bottom edge on F1 and F3. Hero labels are intact and readable; secondary bottles are clipped at the base. That is the direct trade for density — the dense band is taller than the 4:5 window — and Obvi's own flat-lays crop the same way, but it is a choice you should get to reject.
- Free shipping is on all three on your instruction; it contradicts
brief/BUILD-CONTRACT.mdand no amount was read back from Shopify. - The $14 is the first subscription bottle. Only F2 has room for the qualifier.
- Gate: PASS, 12 elements on 3 frames.
The plate. Near-white warm studio ground (#e0e0e0, luminance 0.745) with THREE bottles in an overlapping cluster and the whole lower band heaped with split batana nuts, whole nuts, chestnut hair coils and oil beads out to both edges. Plate occupancy 40.8% before any type — Obvi's median is 50%, ours used to be 26%, and the density now comes from the photograph rather than from added furniture. 486px of clean bone at the top.
The type system. Centred grotesque caps with a numeric spec row. Archivo at 900 for a two-line headline whose second word is reversed out white inside its own tight magenta block, then Obvi's signature device: four numerals with labels beneath, magenta figures over near-black captions. Centre-aligned throughout, which nothing else in this set is. Near-black measures 13:1 on this ground and cobalt 5.5:1, so the small type can be coloured and still legible; magenta only appears large or reversed.
| head | THINNING, SHEDDING, / BREAKING? Archivo · Three named failures then the question, so the pain is stated before anything else. The second line is reversed out inside its own tight magenta block — a word-sized colour block, not a band — which puts the loudest colour on the loudest word without relying on magenta's 2.4:1 against bone. |
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| specrow | · Obvi's density driver, measured: their frames run 50% occupied against our 26%, and a numeral row is a large part of how, with no panel involved. Four columns across the same 940 measure as the headline. |
| offer | 50% OFF · FIRST BOTTLE $14 · FREE SHIPPING Poppins · Tracked to the same measure a third time, in cobalt at 5.5:1 — a third hue that stays fully legible at caption size. |
| roundel | 4.8 / OUT OF 5 / 1,121 REVIEWS Archivo, Poppins · Dropped into the clear bone pocket left of the bottle cluster, measured from the plate's per-row occupancy: the left gutter runs 324–543px wide between y=450 and y=700. Nudged to x=68 after the first pass measured it 7px inside the 65px side margin. |
Risk. Type ends at 460 against a 486 clear field, so the budget is 26px. Free shipping is on the operator's instruction and contradicts BUILD-CONTRACT.md.
The plate. Saturated rose-pink ground (#d06090, luminance 0.235) with the model seated low on the right, her hair running off the right and bottom edges, and a heaped cluster of two more bottles, nuts and oil beads filling the lower left. Plate occupancy 44.1%. 488px of clean pink above her, and the left gutter stays 598–761px wide down to y=630, so the type can run as a tall left column rather than a band.
The type system. A two-scale serif headline — small italic, enormous roman, small italic again — so the middle word is four times the size of the words around it. DM Serif Display for that word against Instrument Serif Italic for the framing lines; Poppins only inside the white spec pills. Nothing centred, nothing justified: everything hangs off a single left margin at x=70, which is the opposite discipline to F1. The framing lines are near-black against the white roman word: white measures 2.92:1 on this pink at 64px, under its floor, so the two-scale headline became a two-tone one.
| head | hair that finally / GROWS / past your shoulders DMSerif, InstrumentSerif-Italic · The desire stated as the thing that has not happened yet, which is the pain underneath it. One word carries the line at 152px against 64px framing lines. The framing lines are near-black, not white: measured worst-case, white on this pink is 2.92:1 and the floor at 64px is 3.0, while near-black is 4.9:1. So the two-scale headline is also a two-tone one — dark italic around a white roman — which is a better headline than the all-white version I started with and it is legible where that one was not. |
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| specrow | · Three white pills rather than bare numerals, because on this ground a caption needs its own light field — white type at 15px would be 3.68:1 and magenta on white inside the pill is 4.0:1. The pills are word-sized, well inside the 620x150 allowance. |
| offer | FIRST BOTTLE $14 Poppins · The number at display size so white holds at 3.68:1, still inside the left gutter which is 644px wide at this height. |
| proof | 50% OFF · FREE SHIPPING Poppins · Broken by hand, not wrapped: 40px keeps white above the 3.0 floor that applies at that size. Moved to y=544 so the line beneath it, which had to rise to clear her hair, is not overlapped. |
| proof | CANCEL ANYTIME Poppins · The subscription qualifier on its own line — the $14 is the first subscription bottle. Shortened from 'SKIP OR CANCEL ANYTIME' after the renderer had to shrink that 16% to fit the 470px the gutter allows at this height; shorter copy beats type that is not the size it claims to be. Lifted again to y=598: at 612 the last 1.2% of it still caught her hair, because the gutter narrows continuously through this band rather than in steps. |
Risk. The left column is the tight part of this ad: the gutter narrows continuously from 761px at y=450 to 598px at y=630, so the price and both qualifier lines were each moved twice on measurement rather than on judgement. Free shipping is on the operator's instruction and contradicts BUILD-CONTRACT.md.
The plate. Electric cobalt (#0030a0, luminance 0.047), the darkest ground in the set, with a standing bottle, a second lying on its side, a frozen oil splash crown, a dozen nuts, hair coils and twenty-odd suspended oil beads filling the lower band. Plate occupancy 46.4%, the densest of the three. 488px of clean cobalt on top, and a wide clear pocket on the right between y=450 and y=620 where the right gutter runs 680–728px.
The type system. Lowercase soft serif, which neither of the others uses. Fraunces at three weights — 400 for the setup, 900 for the one word that matters at 146px, 700 for the resolution — all lowercase, so the voice is spoken rather than shouted. On a ground this dark white measures 10.9:1 and lemon 8.4:1, so the accent colour can carry a whole word of the headline instead of being demoted to furniture. The offer sits as a small stacked block in the right-hand pocket rather than as a line, because that is where this plate left room.
| head | your hair is / starving / for oil. Fraunces · Names the cause in the customer's own terms without claiming a cure. Lemon at 8.4:1 on this cobalt is the whole reason this plate is dark: the bright colour is the legible choice here, not the banned one. |
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| specrow | · The same four facts as F1 but in the ad's own face and colour, which is the point of setting the device per concept instead of shipping one component everywhere. |
| head | FIRST BOTTLE / $14 / 50% OFF · FREE SHIPPING Fraunces, Poppins · The offer as a stacked block in the right-hand pocket the plate actually left clear, rather than a line forced across a measure that no longer exists. Measured: the right gutter is 680–728px wide from y=450 to y=620, and this block occupies 716–1012 by 474–620. |
Risk. Only three elements, but the plate carries 46.4% occupancy on its own. The offer block's bottom edge is 620 against a pocket that closes at about 630.