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Design language comparison

Hex vs Plain

Both Hex and Plain commit to a dark-canvas approach, and they pair different display families (IBM Plex Sans vs sans-serif). Beyond surface, motion levels are both subtle.

Palette · side by side

Up to 8 dominant swatches each

Side A · dark

Hex

Full Page

#01011b

brand

#31263b

foreground

#717a94

foreground

#000000

foreground

#22863a

accent

#472d7b

accent

#ecedf2

background

#5ec962

accent

Side B · dark

Plain

Full Page

#000000

foreground

#0a2414

brand

#17b267

brand

#0000ee

accent

#f3fbe9

background

#ffffff

background

#1f1f28

foreground

#f9f6f1

background

Typography · side by side

Primary family + weight ladder + sample

Side A · dark

Hex

Full Page

Display
IBM Plex Sans
Body
Cinetype
Mono
IBM Plex Mono
Weights
400 · 500 · 600 · 700

Sample

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

1234567890 — Body sample renders in the captured family if your browser has it; otherwise system fallback signals the weight ladder.

Side B · dark

Plain

Full Page

Display
ABC Favorit Regular
Body
sans-serif
Mono
Geist Mono
Weights
400

Sample

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

1234567890 — Body sample renders in the captured family if your browser has it; otherwise system fallback signals the weight ladder.

Spacing scale · side by side

Base unit + first 8 scale values

Side A · dark

Hex

Full Page

Base unit
4 px
Container max
1000 px
1px
4px
6px
8px
10px
12px
14px
16px

Side B · dark

Plain

Full Page

Base unit
4 px
Container max
1200 px
4px
8px
10px
12px
16px
20px
24px
30px

Motion vocabulary · side by side

Level + durations + easings

Side A · dark

Hex

Full Page

Level
subtle
Libraries
Framer Motion

Durations

100ms150ms250ms

Easings

cubic-bezier(0.25, 0.1, 0…easelinear

Side B · dark

Plain

Full Page

Level
subtle
Libraries
Framer Motion

Durations

0.4s

Easings

cubic-bezier(0.44, 0, 0.5…

Palette & spacing overlap

Their palettes share 10% of swatches at the dominant tier — a quiet signal both teams drew from the same neutral library before applying brand accents. Their spacing scales overlap by 67% (4, 8, 10, 12, 16 px shared) — a rhythm any agent can transfer between the two systems with minimal recalibration.

Shared swatches (2)

#000000#ffffff

Curator verdict

If you are building an interface that needs to reference both, Hex's restraint reads as the safer default and Plain's rhythm provides the accent moments — pair them at section-level, not at component-level.

Full Hex brief →Full Plain brief →Back to gallery

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