Mono Color Skill: One- and Two-Ink Editorial Posters in Hermes
Generate one- or two-ink editorial print poster images.
Written by Neura Market from the official Hermes Agent documentation for Mono Color. Commands, paths, and version numbers are reproduced from the source unchanged.
Read the official documentationMono Color turns a theme, a sentence, or a reference photo into an original editorial print poster built on one or two printing inks. It is for people who want a risograph, duotone, or halftone look with a fixed visual language rather than a one-off lucky prompt. Reach for it when the brief calls for a cover, a zine page, a specimen plate, or a monochrome poster and you need the result to be repeatable.
What it does
The skill designs and generates the image. It does not imitate a single reference, copy a source composition, wording, logo, or artwork, and it never uses more than two printing inks. That constraint is the whole point: a neutral substrate plus one or two inks, a mechanically reproduced image, typographic tension, and a short human voice.
In practice you feed it a subject and an intent, and it resolves a recipe manifest: substrate, palette, layout, type hierarchy, image treatment, and a controlled set of print imperfections. Then it compiles a prompt and calls the image generator. The output is a flat, front-facing page, not a mockup with a desk and a shadow.
Before you start
Two things need to be in place.
- The Hermes
image_generatetool. If it is not loaded, search or describe it through the deferred-tool catalog. If image generation is unavailable, the skill delivers prompt-only and says so. - The
design-system/catalogs bundled with the skill. These are the source of truth for every exact value.
The skill is optional and installed on demand. It sits at optional-skills/creative/mono-color, version 1.0.0, authored by Yan Liu and adapted by Nous Research under the MIT license. It runs on linux, macos, and windows.
Print modes
Four modes cover the range. Pick one deliberately; the mode drives the plate roles and the palette.
| Mode | When |
|---|---|
| Pure one-ink | User explicitly requests one ink, monochrome, or one named ink without a second color |
| Chromatic ink + black | Quiet, observational, natural, architectural, long-form subjects; chromatic plate carries the image, carbon/charcoal carries text |
| Complementary duotone | General default; dominant plate 70, 85%, accent 15, 30% with a specific role; fallback pair Cobalt + Terracotta #2148B8 + #C65F38 |
| Overprint duotone | Two plates deliberately overlap; the darker mixed zone is not a third ink |
Complementary duotone is the default you get when the user has no opinion. Overprint duotone is the one people misread: the dark zone where two plates cross is a mix, not a third ink, so it does not break the two-ink rule.
The catalogs
Six JSON files under design-system/ hold the exact values. When a value in the catalog differs from any prose description, the catalog wins. Read only the file relevant to the decision in front of you.
| File | Provides |
|---|---|
design-system/colors.json | Substrate IDs + exact hex, one-ink palette, approved two-ink pairs |
design-system/compositions.json | Layout-family IDs and geometry |
design-system/typography.json | Type-hierarchy role IDs |
design-system/rhythm.json | Visual tension profiles, focal events, unresolved edges |
design-system/imperfections.json | Controlled print-imperfection effect IDs and ranges |
design-system/carriers.json | Carrier signals (poster, journal page, cover, etc.) |
Three reference documents go deeper: references/visual-language.md for color, space, image treatment, typography, and tone rules; references/composition.md for the layout decision flow, layout families, composition grammar, and rhythm; and references/quality-gate.md for the originality firewall, hard avoids, and the inspection checklist.
Procedure
1. Read the input
Extract five things from the request.
- Subject: the one person, object, scene, or idea that must remain recognizable.
- Intent: poetic observation, announcement, field note, personal statement, cultural poster, or specimen page.
- Words: keep supplied text verbatim in its original language. Never translate or rewrite it. If no text is supplied, invent one English display phrase of 2, 8 words and keep it stable across retries. Omit text only on explicit request.
- Image role: hero photograph, isolated specimen, cropped fragment, texture source, or none.
- Representation: faithful reproduction by default, or abstract symbol extraction when the user asks for abstract, artistic, loose, experimental, less realistic, or less photographic treatment.
For a complex topic, pick one concrete visual metaphor instead of illustrating every point. If the user supplies an image, preserve its identity and factual content: crop, isolate, or halftone it, but never replace the subject or invent branded details.
2. Resolve the recipe manifest
Fill every field. Do not skip any, and do not show the manifest unless the user asks for process details. Look up IDs and exact values in design-system/.
subject: <one recognizable subject>
intent: <one intent from Input Reading>
exact_text: <user text, generated 2-8 word phrase, or none>
text_language: <language of supplied text, otherwise English>
representation: <faithful reproduction or abstract symbol extraction>
ratio: <explicit ratio or 3:4>
carrier: <one carrier ID from design-system/carriers.json or none>
substrate: <one substrate ID and exact hex from design-system/colors.json>
mode: <pure one-ink, chromatic + black, complementary duotone, or overprint duotone>
palette: <one palette ID from design-system/colors.json>
inks: <the palette's named ink or approved pair with exact hex values>
plate_roles: <one explicit role per ink plate>
layout: <one composition ID from design-system/compositions.json>
empty_paper: <explicit percentage>
visual_tension: <relaxed, balanced, or assertive from design-system/rhythm.json>
focal_event: <one strong visual event from design-system/rhythm.json>
release_zone: <one deliberately quiet region that gives the focal event room>
unresolved_edge: <one optional edge behavior from design-system/rhythm.json or none>
image_treatment: <one mechanical reproduction process>
type_hierarchy: <one role ID from design-system/typography.json>
disruption: <one deliberate disruption>
imperfection_seed: <stable hash derived from the resolved recipe>
imperfections: <0-2 restrained effect IDs for contemporary work, or 2-3 for tactile/vintage work>
Defaults apply when the user has not chosen. Ratio is 3:4. Substrate is Neutral White #FAFAF7, with Cool Gray #E9E9E5 for architecture, tech, or restrained work, and Pale Beige #F5F1E8 only for tactile, archival, or nostalgic subjects. Do not assume beige just because the work uses halftone or risograph language. Mode is complementary duotone with Cobalt + Terracotta. Empty paper is 35%. Tension is relaxed for reflective, leisure, or unspecified cultural subjects, balanced for editorial information, and assertive only for forceful declarations. The disruption is one off-center image crop, or one oversized word when there is no image.
Explicit user choices override defaults unless they break the two-ink limit or the originality firewall. Identical inputs must resolve to the identical manifest. Never vary palette, layout, percentages, or process for novelty.
Generic color words resolve consistently: blue to Cobalt, green to Botanical Green, orange to Terracotta Orange, red to Signal Red, purple to Aubergine, black to Charcoal; green plus black to Mint Green + Charcoal; blue plus orange to Cobalt + Terracotta. Exact named inks always take precedence.
3. Choose the layout
Walk the decision flow in references/composition.md from top to bottom and take the first match. Events go to a ruled information poster, botanical to an archival plate, a repeated object to an object field, crossing layers to an overprint collage, a supplied photo to an image field or editorial cover, isolated objects to specimen annotation, a phrase-as-subject to a type-led declaration, essay-like text to an editorial journal, and anything else to an editorial cover.
4. Compile the prompt
Write five compact paragraphs, in this order.
- Canvas and ink: ratio, exact substrate hex and reason, exact one- or two-ink palette hexes, print mode, plate roles, flat front-facing page with no mockup, frame, desk, or shadow.
- Original composition: layout family, tension profile, one focal event, one release zone, margins (5, 9%), empty-paper percentage (25, 55%), grid, dominant object scale (45, 80% of page) and edge crop, optional unresolved edge, one manual gesture.
- Subject: what appears. For faithful reproduction, preservation, crop, halftone, and paper exposure. For abstract extraction, the 2, 4 identity anchors, dominant mass, structural contour, repeated rhythm, and where exposed paper cuts through.
- Typography and words: hierarchy, type voices, exact short display text, and the explicit overlap, crossing, split, or tight alignment between headline and dominant object.
- Material and avoids: dots, fibers, bleed, misregistration, plus the hard negative constraints from
references/quality-gate.md.
Describe only visible outcomes. Never mention reference artists, studios, sample posters, or "in the style of."
5. Generate and inspect
Call image_generate with the compiled prompt. Inspect the result at full size and at thumbnail size against the checklist in references/quality-gate.md. Regenerate once on failure. Failures include an extra ink, missing plate roles, empty paper outside 25, 55%, an unrecognizable subject, no type scale jump of at least 5x, garbled text, a composition that copies a reference, or no identifiable focal event.
If exact text still renders wrong after one retry, generate a text-light base image and state that typography should be overlaid in a layout tool. Never pretend distorted text is correct.
6. Deliver
Save outputs under ./mono-color-output/ in the user's working directory, creating it if needed, or to another location the user names. Present three things: the generated image as a path or rendered; the final prompt in a fenced text block; and a short recipe note covering Mode, Ink with exact hexes, Layout, Type (editorial plus utility voice), Process, and one Originality sentence naming the structural departures from any supplied reference.
Stop at prompt-only only when the user explicitly asks or image generation is unavailable.
When not to use it
Do not trigger the skill merely because a request mentions a color. It is for monochrome editorial posters, duotone print, risograph or zine posters, halftone photo treatments, one- or two-ink covers, or requests that name the mono-color style. The Chinese trigger vocabulary is 单色海报、双色印刷、单色调视觉、蓝色/绿色孔版印刷、网点照片、复古或当代编辑排版.
If image generation is unavailable, the skill still runs, but only as a prompt deliverable. It will not produce the image.
Limits and gotchas
- Never more than two printing inks. The substrate is not an ink, and overprint mixing and density variation are not extra inks. Gradients, rainbow accents, and full-color photography are always out.
- Catalog wins over prose. When a hex, ID, range, or geometry in
design-system/differs from any prose description, use the catalog value. - Preserve supplied text verbatim. Original language, exact wording, no translation unless asked. Never distort microcopy or factual text with imperfection effects.
- Never copy a source composition, wording, logo, or artwork. Change at least four structural features from any supplied reference. No fake signatures, mastheads, sponsors, URLs, or invented branding.
- Contemporary by default. Do not add yellowed paper, sepia, distressed borders, or retro props just because the work uses halftone or limited inks. Add them only when the user asks for a vintage or archival mood.
- One focal event, one release zone. Never center everything, never distribute elements evenly like a template, never fill the quiet zone with decoration.
A verification pass closes the loop. The manifest must be fully resolved with all IDs present in the catalogs. The result must use one intentional white, gray, or pale-beige substrate and at most two inks with clear plate roles. It needs 25, 55% visibly empty paper, one dominant object at 45, 80%, and a headline that visibly crosses or locks to it. The type hierarchy should show a 5, 12x scale jump with at most three type voices. Supplied subject and text must be preserved exactly, and at least four structural features must differ from every supplied reference. An image should be generated unless prompt-only was requested, saved under the output directory, and the recipe note delivered.
What pairs with it
Related skills in the same creative tier are baoyu-infographic, meme-generation, and pixel-art. They cover different output shapes: infographic explanation, meme formats, and pixel imagery. Mono Color stays the right pick when the deliverable is a printed editorial artifact with a fixed ink budget.
Notice
Upstream example artwork is not included. The examples/ directory in the source repo is all-rights-reserved (see upstream ASSET-LICENSE.md), and only MIT-licensed text and design-system catalogs are vendored here. Code and text are MIT (see LICENSE.txt).