reid-miles-designlisted

# Reid Miles Design Style (Typography Edition) Reid Miles was Blue Note Records' art director from roughly 1956 to 1967, designing over 500 album covers. Influenced by Swiss/International Typographic Style (Josef Müller-Brockmann and others), he established a style in which "the letterforms visualize the rhythm of jazz." Several of his covers used no photography at all, relying entirely on typography and flat color. This skill is a reference for recreating that style under a no-photography constraint (app design, UI, cards, banners, etc.). Instead of a photograph, flat color blocks, shapes, rules, and negative space become the "subject." ## Four core principles 1. **Typography is the lead actor** — the lettering itself is the dominant element. No photography. 2. **Color blocks stand in for photography** — flat color fields, rectangles, and lines create contrast and guide the eye where a monochrome photo once did. 3. **Asymmetric, dynamic composition** — avoid centered, evenly balanced layouts. 4. **Rhythm through repetition and scale contrast** — translate musical groove into visual rhythm. See `references/typography.md`, `references/color.md`, and `references/layout.md` for detail. ## Additional principles for single-image outputs (icons, splash screens, key visuals) Multi-screen UI (lists, settings screens, etc.) prioritizes consistency, so the four principles above are enough. But an icon, splash screen, or key visual that has to carry the whole mood in a single fra