↓
Intro
When thinking in terms of systems, the interface is one of the manifestations of styles that are bidirectionally linked to trends in graphic design in the broadest sense: it adapts them to the limitations of the digital screen medium, while interface elements and their aesthetics—as infrastructure of the information age—are often creatively utilized in visual culture at large.
Thanks to platforms such as Behance, Dribbble, Mobbin, and Landbook (to name the largest) and countless smaller initiatives, designers are more likely to complain about an excess of inspiration than a lack of it. Rarely, however, does any source focus strictly on visual style as one manifestation of creativity.
At the same time, in the field of interface design, it’s hard to find initiatives that expand the vocabulary used to describe visual trends beyond categories that, in my view, have long since lost their explanatory power—such as minimalism, flat design, or skeuomorphism.
It is difficult to describe a style using sufficiently narrow categories that do not overlap with all others, which should serve as a rationale for the need to enrich the linguistic toolkit for describing interfaces. It is the language that we use in our daily design work, and the success of a project may depend on how well we understand our colleagues’ intentions through communication and agreeing on the meaning of certain terms.
↓
Manifesto
01
Minimalism explains nothing
The word has been through an inflation. Two people can say "minimalist" in the same meeting and mean opposite things — emptiness for one, precision for the other; warmth here, a laboratory there. They agree on the word and disagree on every parameter underneath it, and the disagreement waits until something is actually on the screen.
02
Vibes are not a brief
"Vibes" became a working word because the screen is changing faster than the vocabulary for it. It's what people say when they recognise something they can't yet describe — a useful signal and a poor specification. A brief built on it hands the entire act of description to the designer, then judges the result against something that was never said out loud.
03
We know more than we can tell
This Polanyi's line describes most of visual taste. A client rejects five drafts and accepts the sixth without being able to say why. A designer sees the difference between two grays and has no word for it. They're working with knowledge that hasn't been put into language yet. frames.gallery exists to do that translation: to give the thing you recognise a name you can brief with.
04
Open the black box
In Latour's sense, a black box is anything that works well enough that nobody looks inside it anymore, only at what goes in and what comes out. Styles are black boxes. Plenty of decisions: a radius, a contrast ratio, a typeface, the presence or absence of a line, arrive as one finished surface, and the surface is all anyone discusses. A person saying "minimalism" is handing over a closed box; a screenshot gallery is a shelf of closed boxes. frames.gallery is an attempt to open them.
05
You don't need more inspiration
There is no shortage of it. Behance, Dribbble, Mobbin, Landbook, and a hundred smaller feeds supply more screens in an afternoon than anyone can use in a year, and what they produce is a folder called "inspo" that keeps growing without getting more useful. That kind of inspiration comes unsorted, or sorted by product type, flow, and popularity; rarely by the visual language the screens share.
↓
Methodology
Visual styles, understood as manifestations of human creativity, are not separate entities with distinct and rigid boundaries.
Their categorisation aims to capture an essence that, on a perceptual level, produces a specific response — one triggered by a specific set of parameters
↓ highlighted parameters and their example values
01
——
14
Typography
The type and style of fonts used in the design, including headings, paragraphs, and buttons.
serif
sans-serif
monospaced
display
grotesk
02
——
14
Rounding the Corners of Frames
The degree to which the edges of UI elements are rounded: from sharp to very rounded.
none (0px)
subtle (2-8px)
medium (8-20px)
strong (20-40px)
maximum (pill)
03
——
14
Borders
The presence and visibility of element borders. Affects the separation and overall starkness of the interface.
none
subtle (1px, low contrast)
distinct (2px, high contrast)
prominent (+3px, full color)
04
——
14
Contrast
The brightness ratio between foreground elements and the background.
dynamic
fixed
05
——
14
Gradients
Whether and how often the style uses color gradients: ranging from none at all to dominant.
none
accent
frequent
dominant
06
——
14
Layer Order
Whether light elements are placed on a dark background or vice versa.
lighter on top
darker on top
07
——
14
Frame Shape
Whether containers and UI elements have a regular, geometric shape or an organic, irregular one.
regular
irregular
08
——
14
Content separation
Are the dividing lines between sections visible, or is content separated by other visual techniques, such as whitespace and hierarchy?
whitespace
subtle line
distinct line
09
——
14
Transparency
Whether and how often elements are semi-transparent.
none
accent
frequent
dominant
10
——
14
Shadows
The presence and nature of shadows used in the interface.
none (flat)
highlighted (elevation)
pronounced
11
——
14
Iconography
Style of icons used
none
outline
filled
emoji
duotone
12
——
14
Color palette
The overall chromatic character of the interface: its temperature, saturation, and range. Determines whether color functions as decoration, information, or structural element.
monochromatic
cool
warm
pastel
neon
13
——
14
Illustrations
The presence, role, and character of illustrations in the interface.
none
geometric
technical
hand-drawn
collages
14
——
14
Blur
Use of blur on the background or interface elements.
none
subtle
moderate
intense
In this regard, this entire undertaking is an attempt to scientificize the phenomenon of visual style. In order to fit styles into measurable categories, I therefore decided to deconstruct the GUI to isolate a set of parameters that together form the visual system known as an interface.
The list above does not claim to be exhaustive; rather, it reflects my personal perception, filtered through certain software-level measurable characteristics. The list of parameters is intended to be expanded on an ongoing basis, based on the styles archived.
↓
Details
frames.gallery was created as part of a master’s thesis project in the Art & Design program at the Institute of Art and Design at UKEN in Kraków. The project was developed in the Web Design laboratory under the supervision of Jacek Doroszenko, PhD.
research & design & dev
supervisor
support with translation
timeline
Research & design: Mar – Jun 2026
Development: Sep 2026
Stack
Figma + Framer + Claude
styles in archive as of sep 2026
5
albums listened to during work
The idea for this project stemmed from a fascination with the medium of the interface—specifically, its graphic form. At the same time, it is a response to the challenges I observed over several years of working as a digital product designer and to the varying approaches taken by the various organizations with which I had the good fortune to collaborate when it comes to establishing a leading design style.
what now?
The offline collection
SOON
Unframed
SOON
All visual works featured on frames.gallery are displayed for editorial purposes. Copyright remains with the original authors and rights holders.
↓
Intro
When thinking in terms of systems, the interface is one of the manifestations of styles that are bidirectionally linked to trends in graphic design in the broadest sense: it adapts them to the limitations of the digital screen medium, while interface elements and their aesthetics—as infrastructure of the information age—are often creatively utilized in visual culture at large.
Thanks to platforms such as Behance, Dribbble, Mobbin, and Landbook (to name the largest) and countless smaller initiatives, designers are more likely to complain about an excess of inspiration than a lack of it. Rarely, however, does any source focus strictly on visual style as one manifestation of creativity.
At the same time, in the field of interface design, it’s hard to find initiatives that expand the vocabulary used to describe visual trends beyond categories that, in my view, have long since lost their explanatory power—such as minimalism, flat design, or skeuomorphism.
It is difficult to describe a style using sufficiently narrow categories that do not overlap with all others, which should serve as a rationale for the need to enrich the linguistic toolkit for describing interfaces. It is the language that we use in our daily design work, and the success of a project may depend on how well we understand our colleagues’ intentions through communication and agreeing on the meaning of certain terms.
↓
Manifesto
01
Minimalism explains nothing
The word has been through an inflation. Two people can say "minimalist" in the same meeting and mean opposite things — emptiness for one, precision for the other; warmth here, a laboratory there. They agree on the word and disagree on every parameter underneath it, and the disagreement waits until something is actually on the screen.
02
Vibes are not a brief
"Vibes" became a working word because the screen is changing faster than the vocabulary for it. It's what people say when they recognise something they can't yet describe — a useful signal and a poor specification. A brief built on it hands the entire act of description to the designer, then judges the result against something that was never said out loud.
03
We know more than we can tell
This Polanyi's line describes most of visual taste. A client rejects five drafts and accepts the sixth without being able to say why. A designer sees the difference between two grays and has no word for it. They're working with knowledge that hasn't been put into language yet. frames.gallery exists to do that translation: to give the thing you recognise a name you can brief with.
04
Open the black box
In Latour's sense, a black box is anything that works well enough that nobody looks inside it anymore, only at what goes in and what comes out. Styles are black boxes. Plenty of decisions: a radius, a contrast ratio, a typeface, the presence or absence of a line, arrive as one finished surface, and the surface is all anyone discusses. A person saying "minimalism" is handing over a closed box; a screenshot gallery is a shelf of closed boxes. frames.gallery is an attempt to open them.
05
You don't need more inspiration
There is no shortage of it. Behance, Dribbble, Mobbin, Landbook, and a hundred smaller feeds supply more screens in an afternoon than anyone can use in a year, and what they produce is a folder called "inspo" that keeps growing without getting more useful. That kind of inspiration comes unsorted, or sorted by product type, flow, and popularity; rarely by the visual language the screens share.
↓
Methodology
Visual styles, understood as manifestations of human creativity, are not separate entities with distinct and rigid boundaries.
Their categorisation aims to capture an essence that, on a perceptual level, produces a specific response — one triggered by a specific set of parameters
↓ highlighted parameters and their example values
01
——
14
Typography
The type and style of fonts used in the design, including headings, paragraphs, and buttons.
serif
sans-serif
monospaced
display
grotesk
02
——
14
Rounding the Corners of Frames
The degree to which the edges of UI elements are rounded: from sharp to very rounded.
none (0px)
subtle (2-8px)
medium (8-20px)
strong (20-40px)
maximum (pill)
03
——
14
Borders
The presence and visibility of element borders. Affects the separation and overall starkness of the interface.
none
subtle (1px, low contrast)
distinct (2px, high contrast)
prominent (+3px, full color)
04
——
14
Contrast
The brightness ratio between foreground elements and the background.
dynamic
fixed
05
——
14
Gradients
Whether and how often the style uses color gradients: ranging from none at all to dominant.
none
accent
frequent
dominant
06
——
14
Layer Order
Whether light elements are placed on a dark background or vice versa.
lighter on top
darker on top
07
——
14
Frame Shape
Whether containers and UI elements have a regular, geometric shape or an organic, irregular one.
regular
irregular
08
——
14
Content separation
Are the dividing lines between sections visible, or is content separated by other visual techniques, such as whitespace and hierarchy?
whitespace
subtle line
distinct line
09
——
14
Transparency
Whether and how often elements are semi-transparent.
none
accent
frequent
dominant
10
——
14
Shadows
The presence and nature of shadows used in the interface.
none (flat)
highlighted (elevation)
pronounced
11
——
14
Iconography
Style of icons used
none
outline
filled
emoji
duotone
12
——
14
Color palette
The overall chromatic character of the interface: its temperature, saturation, and range. Determines whether color functions as decoration, information, or structural element.
monochromatic
cool
warm
pastel
neon
13
——
14
Illustrations
The presence, role, and character of illustrations in the interface.
none
geometric
technical
hand-drawn
collages
14
——
14
Blur
Use of blur on the background or interface elements.
none
subtle
moderate
intense
In this regard, this entire undertaking is an attempt to scientificize the phenomenon of visual style. In order to fit styles into measurable categories, I therefore decided to deconstruct the GUI to isolate a set of parameters that together form the visual system known as an interface.
The list above does not claim to be exhaustive; rather, it reflects my personal perception, filtered through certain software-level measurable characteristics. The list of parameters is intended to be expanded on an ongoing basis, based on the styles archived.
↓
Details
frames.gallery was created as part of a master’s thesis project in the Art & Design program at the Institute of Art and Design at UKEN in Kraków. The project was developed in the Web Design laboratory under the supervision of Jacek Doroszenko, PhD.
research & design & dev
supervisor
support with translation
timeline
Research & design: Mar – Jun 2026
Development: Sep 2026
Stack
Figma + Framer + Claude
styles in archive as of sep 2026
5
albums listened to during work
The idea for this project stemmed from a fascination with the medium of the interface—specifically, its graphic form. At the same time, it is a response to the challenges I observed over several years of working as a digital product designer and to the varying approaches taken by the various organizations with which I had the good fortune to collaborate when it comes to establishing a leading design style.
what now?
The offline collection
SOON
Unframed
SOON
All visual works featured on frames.gallery are displayed for editorial purposes. Copyright remains with the original authors and rights holders.
↓
Intro
When thinking in terms of systems, the interface is one of the manifestations of styles that are bidirectionally linked to trends in graphic design in the broadest sense: it adapts them to the limitations of the digital screen medium, while interface elements and their aesthetics—as infrastructure of the information age—are often creatively utilized in visual culture at large.
Thanks to platforms such as Behance, Dribbble, Mobbin, and Landbook (to name the largest) and countless smaller initiatives, designers are more likely to complain about an excess of inspiration than a lack of it. Rarely, however, does any source focus strictly on visual style as one manifestation of creativity.
At the same time, in the field of interface design, it’s hard to find initiatives that expand the vocabulary used to describe visual trends beyond categories that, in my view, have long since lost their explanatory power—such as minimalism, flat design, or skeuomorphism.
It is difficult to describe a style using sufficiently narrow categories that do not overlap with all others, which should serve as a rationale for the need to enrich the linguistic toolkit for describing interfaces. It is the language that we use in our daily design work, and the success of a project may depend on how well we understand our colleagues’ intentions through communication and agreeing on the meaning of certain terms.
↓
Manifesto
01
Minimalism explains nothing
The word has been through an inflation. Two people can say "minimalist" in the same meeting and mean opposite things — emptiness for one, precision for the other; warmth here, a laboratory there. They agree on the word and disagree on every parameter underneath it, and the disagreement waits until something is actually on the screen.
02
Vibes are not a brief
"Vibes" became a working word because the screen is changing faster than the vocabulary for it. It's what people say when they recognise something they can't yet describe — a useful signal and a poor specification. A brief built on it hands the entire act of description to the designer, then judges the result against something that was never said out loud.
03
We know more than we can tell
This Polanyi's line describes most of visual taste. A client rejects five drafts and accepts the sixth without being able to say why. A designer sees the difference between two grays and has no word for it. They're working with knowledge that hasn't been put into language yet. frames.gallery exists to do that translation: to give the thing you recognise a name you can brief with.
04
Open the black box
In Latour's sense, a black box is anything that works well enough that nobody looks inside it anymore, only at what goes in and what comes out. Styles are black boxes. Plenty of decisions: a radius, a contrast ratio, a typeface, the presence or absence of a line, arrive as one finished surface, and the surface is all anyone discusses. A person saying "minimalism" is handing over a closed box; a screenshot gallery is a shelf of closed boxes. frames.gallery is an attempt to open them.
05
You don't need more inspiration
There is no shortage of it. Behance, Dribbble, Mobbin, Landbook, and a hundred smaller feeds supply more screens in an afternoon than anyone can use in a year, and what they produce is a folder called "inspo" that keeps growing without getting more useful. That kind of inspiration comes unsorted, or sorted by product type, flow, and popularity; rarely by the visual language the screens share.
↓
Methodology
Visual styles, understood as manifestations of human creativity, are not separate entities with distinct and rigid boundaries.
Their categorisation aims to capture an essence that, on a perceptual level, produces a specific response — one triggered by a specific set of parameters
↓ highlighted parameters and their example values
01
——
14
Typography
The type and style of fonts used in the design, including headings, paragraphs, and buttons.
serif
sans-serif
monospaced
display
grotesk
02
——
14
Rounding the Corners of Frames
The degree to which the edges of UI elements are rounded: from sharp to very rounded.
none (0px)
subtle (2-8px)
medium (8-20px)
strong (20-40px)
maximum (pill)
03
——
14
Borders
The presence and visibility of element borders. Affects the separation and overall starkness of the interface.
none
subtle (1px, low contrast)
distinct (2px, high contrast)
prominent (+3px, full color)
04
——
14
Contrast
The brightness ratio between foreground elements and the background.
dynamic
fixed
05
——
14
Gradients
Whether and how often the style uses color gradients: ranging from none at all to dominant.
none
accent
frequent
dominant
06
——
14
Layer Order
Whether light elements are placed on a dark background or vice versa.
lighter on top
darker on top
07
——
14
Frame Shape
Whether containers and UI elements have a regular, geometric shape or an organic, irregular one.
regular
irregular
08
——
14
Content separation
Are the dividing lines between sections visible, or is content separated by other visual techniques, such as whitespace and hierarchy?
whitespace
subtle line
distinct line
09
——
14
Transparency
Whether and how often elements are semi-transparent.
none
accent
frequent
dominant
10
——
14
Shadows
The presence and nature of shadows used in the interface.
none (flat)
highlighted (elevation)
pronounced
11
——
14
Iconography
Style of icons used
none
outline
filled
emoji
duotone
12
——
14
Color palette
The overall chromatic character of the interface: its temperature, saturation, and range. Determines whether color functions as decoration, information, or structural element.
monochromatic
cool
warm
pastel
neon
13
——
14
Illustrations
The presence, role, and character of illustrations in the interface.
none
geometric
technical
hand-drawn
collages
14
——
14
Blur
Use of blur on the background or interface elements.
none
subtle
moderate
intense
In this regard, this entire undertaking is an attempt to scientificize the phenomenon of visual style. In order to fit styles into measurable categories, I therefore decided to deconstruct the GUI to isolate a set of parameters that together form the visual system known as an interface.
The list above does not claim to be exhaustive; rather, it reflects my personal perception, filtered through certain software-level measurable characteristics. The list of parameters is intended to be expanded on an ongoing basis, based on the styles archived.
↓
Details
frames.gallery was created as part of a master’s thesis project in the Art & Design program at the Institute of Art and Design at UKEN in Kraków. The project was developed in the Web Design laboratory under the supervision of Jacek Doroszenko, PhD.
research & design & dev
supervisor
support with translation
timeline
Research & design: Mar – Jun 2026
Development: Sep 2026
Stack
Figma + Framer + Claude
styles in archive as of sep 2026
5
albums listened to during work
The idea for this project stemmed from a fascination with the medium of the interface—specifically, its graphic form. At the same time, it is a response to the challenges I observed over several years of working as a digital product designer and to the varying approaches taken by the various organizations with which I had the good fortune to collaborate when it comes to establishing a leading design style.
what now?
The offline collection
SOON
Unframed
SOON
All visual works featured on frames.gallery are displayed for editorial purposes. Copyright remains with the original authors and rights holders.
↓
Intro
When thinking in terms of systems, the interface is one of the manifestations of styles that are bidirectionally linked to trends in graphic design in the broadest sense: it adapts them to the limitations of the digital screen medium, while interface elements and their aesthetics—as infrastructure of the information age—are often creatively utilized in visual culture at large.
Thanks to platforms such as Behance, Dribbble, Mobbin, and Landbook (to name the largest) and countless smaller initiatives, designers are more likely to complain about an excess of inspiration than a lack of it. Rarely, however, does any source focus strictly on visual style as one manifestation of creativity.
At the same time, in the field of interface design, it’s hard to find initiatives that expand the vocabulary used to describe visual trends beyond categories that, in my view, have long since lost their explanatory power—such as minimalism, flat design, or skeuomorphism.
It is difficult to describe a style using sufficiently narrow categories that do not overlap with all others, which should serve as a rationale for the need to enrich the linguistic toolkit for describing interfaces. It is the language that we use in our daily design work, and the success of a project may depend on how well we understand our colleagues’ intentions through communication and agreeing on the meaning of certain terms.
↓
Manifesto
01
Minimalism explains nothing
The word has been through an inflation. Two people can say "minimalist" in the same meeting and mean opposite things — emptiness for one, precision for the other; warmth here, a laboratory there. They agree on the word and disagree on every parameter underneath it, and the disagreement waits until something is actually on the screen.
02
Vibes are not a brief
"Vibes" became a working word because the screen is changing faster than the vocabulary for it. It's what people say when they recognise something they can't yet describe — a useful signal and a poor specification. A brief built on it hands the entire act of description to the designer, then judges the result against something that was never said out loud.
03
We know more than we can tell
This Polanyi's line describes most of visual taste. A client rejects five drafts and accepts the sixth without being able to say why. A designer sees the difference between two grays and has no word for it. They're working with knowledge that hasn't been put into language yet. frames.gallery exists to do that translation: to give the thing you recognise a name you can brief with.
04
Open the black box
In Latour's sense, a black box is anything that works well enough that nobody looks inside it anymore, only at what goes in and what comes out. Styles are black boxes. Plenty of decisions: a radius, a contrast ratio, a typeface, the presence or absence of a line, arrive as one finished surface, and the surface is all anyone discusses. A person saying "minimalism" is handing over a closed box; a screenshot gallery is a shelf of closed boxes. frames.gallery is an attempt to open them.
05
You don't need more inspiration
There is no shortage of it. Behance, Dribbble, Mobbin, Landbook, and a hundred smaller feeds supply more screens in an afternoon than anyone can use in a year, and what they produce is a folder called "inspo" that keeps growing without getting more useful. That kind of inspiration comes unsorted, or sorted by product type, flow, and popularity; rarely by the visual language the screens share.
↓
Methodology
Visual styles, understood as manifestations of human creativity, are not separate entities with distinct and rigid boundaries.
Their categorisation aims to capture an essence that, on a perceptual level, produces a specific response — one triggered by a specific set of parameters
↓ highlighted parameters and their example values
01
——
14
Typography
The type and style of fonts used in the design, including headings, paragraphs, and buttons.
serif
sans-serif
monospaced
display
grotesk
02
——
14
Rounding the Corners of Frames
The degree to which the edges of UI elements are rounded: from sharp to very rounded.
none (0px)
subtle (2-8px)
medium (8-20px)
strong (20-40px)
maximum (pill)
03
——
14
Borders
The presence and visibility of element borders. Affects the separation and overall starkness of the interface.
none
subtle (1px, low contrast)
distinct (2px, high contrast)
prominent (+3px, full color)
04
——
14
Contrast
The brightness ratio between foreground elements and the background.
dynamic
fixed
05
——
14
Gradients
Whether and how often the style uses color gradients: ranging from none at all to dominant.
none
accent
frequent
dominant
06
——
14
Layer Order
Whether light elements are placed on a dark background or vice versa.
lighter on top
darker on top
07
——
14
Frame Shape
Whether containers and UI elements have a regular, geometric shape or an organic, irregular one.
regular
irregular
08
——
14
Content separation
Are the dividing lines between sections visible, or is content separated by other visual techniques, such as whitespace and hierarchy?
whitespace
subtle line
distinct line
09
——
14
Transparency
Whether and how often elements are semi-transparent.
none
accent
frequent
dominant
10
——
14
Shadows
The presence and nature of shadows used in the interface.
none (flat)
highlighted (elevation)
pronounced
11
——
14
Iconography
Style of icons used
none
outline
filled
emoji
duotone
12
——
14
Color palette
The overall chromatic character of the interface: its temperature, saturation, and range. Determines whether color functions as decoration, information, or structural element.
monochromatic
cool
warm
pastel
neon
13
——
14
Illustrations
The presence, role, and character of illustrations in the interface.
none
geometric
technical
hand-drawn
collages
14
——
14
Blur
Use of blur on the background or interface elements.
none
subtle
moderate
intense
In this regard, this entire undertaking is an attempt to scientificize the phenomenon of visual style. In order to fit styles into measurable categories, I therefore decided to deconstruct the GUI to isolate a set of parameters that together form the visual system known as an interface.
The list above does not claim to be exhaustive; rather, it reflects my personal perception, filtered through certain software-level measurable characteristics. The list of parameters is intended to be expanded on an ongoing basis, based on the styles archived.
↓
Details
frames.gallery was created as part of a master’s thesis project in the Art & Design program at the Institute of Art and Design at UKEN in Kraków. The project was developed in the Web Design laboratory under the supervision of Jacek Doroszenko, PhD.
research & design & dev
supervisor
support with translation
timeline
Research & design: Mar – Jun 2026
Development: Sep 2026
Stack
Figma + Framer + Claude
styles in archive as of sep 2026
5
albums listened to during work
The idea for this project stemmed from a fascination with the medium of the interface—specifically, its graphic form. At the same time, it is a response to the challenges I observed over several years of working as a digital product designer and to the varying approaches taken by the various organizations with which I had the good fortune to collaborate when it comes to establishing a leading design style.
what now?
The offline collection
SOON
Unframed
SOON
All visual works featured on frames.gallery are displayed for editorial purposes. Copyright remains with the original authors and rights holders.