The colophon
A short accounting of the choices behind this publication. The typeface decisions, the engineering stack, and a few principles that the whole product runs on.
The sans is Inter, set on the optical-size axis so it tightens up at display sizes and breathes out for body. It carries every UI label, every paragraph, every chip.
The serif is Fraunces. It appears sparingly — italic accents inside otherwise sans headlines, the IssueMark, the metric numerals, the pull quotes, the colophon labels. Fraunces was the right call because of its optical-size axis, its SOFT roundness control, and its WONK axis — the one that lets us nudge a single letterform toward character without committing the whole paragraph.
You're reading the result. The sans does the work; the serif does the bow.
A specimen
Inter · h-mega
All at once.
Fraunces · h-mega-serif italic
All at once.
Inter body · cv11 single-storey g
The first geographic grid of the morning, lit and ready by 9:14 a.m.
Fraunces · pull-quote italic
Every tile is a real AVQueuePlayer with a true AVPlayerLooper.
Principle · 01
SwiftUI for the surface, AVFoundation for every player, Vision for fourteen on-device detectors, FoundationModels for the AI work, and the Mach kernel for memory pressure. The framework matrix at /apple is the receipts.
Principle · 02
Not a fourteen-day flirt. Nine cells, gapless loops, borrowed-player fullscreen, Siri & Shortcuts, persona picker, the whole engine. Plus unlocks more of the surface, in place, with one StoreKit 2 purchase.
Principle · 03
If a feature can't be made reliable, we send it back. That's why Lava Lamp, Reaction camera and SmartFlex aren't in v1. It's also why Editorial Layout and Smart cell display came back changed for the better.
Principle · 04
The engine work is invisible by design. You don't have to know about AVPlayerLooper, the PlayerPool, or the four-passes-one-render trick to feel them. You just notice the wall plays, the loops are clean, the seams don't show, and the fan stays quiet.
None of these are flagship features on their own. The flagship is that you don't have to know about any of them.
docs/HELP_AND_PROMOTIONAL_MATERIALS.md
A small studio making native Apple apps for visual obsessives, calm workflows, and anyone tired of software trying to be their best friend. flexGrid is the first piece that earned its own publication; the rest live at apps.pixelantern.com.
Get in touch: patlee@pixeLantern.com. We answer fast.
Made on a Mac, for a Mac
A short sign-off
That's the whole accounting. The rest is in the app — which is where the engine notes stop being notes and start being the experience.