# Mail-order catalogue (sref-7BFTD4) Slice style ref: sref-7BFTD4 Page: https://tryslicemedia.com/styles/sref-7BFTD4 Slug: mail-order-catalogue > THIS IS A MOODBOARD, NOT A TEMPLATE. The style below is inspiration for the look and feel. Keep its materials, colours, textures and the way it moves, but invent your own scenes, characters and objects for this clip. You are not limited to anything shown in the preview, and nothing in it has to appear. Use illustration and animation to help tell the clip's story. ## At a glance - Feel: Old objects printed in halftone on flat colour tiles, numbered like a mail-order page. - Group: Collage & photo - Energy: medium; mood: nostalgic, tidy, playful - Pictures: uses photo cut-outs - Palette: #F1E6CC, #D2452B, #1F3F73, #E8B83A, #1C1B18 - Preview shape: 4:5 (the look works in any shape: 9:16, 4:5, 1:1 or 16:9) ## The look LOOK: a mid-century mail-order catalogue page. Old objects are printed as coarse black halftone dots over flat colour tiles of mustard #E8B83A and pale blue, with a second blue #1F3F73 halftone slightly out of register. Cream newsprint ground #F1E6CC with grain, a red #D2452B header band, a heavy black rule. Every object is numbered with a short product name and one plain line of description. Never any prices. PICTURES: single vintage objects on plain grounds: cameras, radios, typewriters, lamps, telephones, tools, kitchenware, toys. Halftone and two-ink printing hide the source photo, so museum photos and stock photos both work. Where to get them: public-domain and CC0 collections (The Met Open Access, Smithsonian Open Access, Biodiversity Heritage Library plates, NASA, Wikimedia Commons files marked public domain or CC0), Slice's stock search, or the person's own photos. Cut every object out cleanly; never use a picture with a real brand or logo on it. LINE AND FILL: flat tiles with a small rounded corner, no gradients, no shadows. Dots only on the objects. CAMERA: flat page, locked. The one peak is a red pen circle drawn around one item, as if the reader picked it. MOTION: tiles print in one at a time: the colour block wipes down, then the dots fade in, then the number and name type on. About 80 percent still. TYPE: a heavy grotesque in capitals for headers, a monospace for item numbers, plain sans for the description line. Product names are two words or fewer. THE RULE: objects are products on a page: a tidy grid, numbered, labelled, never priced. DON'T: no real brands or logos, no prices or money symbols, no photographic colour on the objects, no starbursts, no purple. Treat these as the look, never a template: choose fresh objects, words and compositions from what this clip says. ## What it suits - Content: explainer, business, nostalgia, how-to, announcement - Tone: playful, tidy, nostalgic - Pace: medium - Best for: comparing options, a list of tools, picking one - Avoid for: grief, faith, intimate stories - Keywords: catalogue, products, halftone, retro, list, choose - Suits (from the library): Lists, Reviews, Business, Nostalgia ## How to use it Lay most of the clip out as a catalogue page, one numbered tile per option or tool, then circle the pick, cutting back to the speaker once or twice for the verdict. ## Where the speaker sits Suits Full scene, Side, Small; avoid Drawn over. (save_scene speaker: {"mode":"hidden"}, {"mode":"side","where":"left"}, {"mode":"corner","where":"lower-left"}) ## Story first STORY FIRST. Read the whole clip before you design anything. 1. Write the clip's arc in one line: setup, tension, turn, pay-off. Name the one line that is the reveal. 2. Tag every sentence with its job: setup, context, tension, turn, reveal, example, number, contrast, list, quote, feeling, metaphor, callback, pay-off, aside. 3. The visuals carry the whole clip. If the clip shows the speaker's face, open on them (the first scene keeps them on screen) unless the person says otherwise. After that, never cut back to the speaker full-frame unless the person asks for it; if they do, only on the ending, never in the middle of an explanation. The speaker can still sit inside a scene (a corner, a split or drawn in) when the person wants to be seen. 4. Build one flowing visual story, not a new picture per sentence. Each scene covers a whole thought (one to three sentences), holds 3 to 8 seconds and turns into the next. 5. Start each scene on the first word of its sentence, or up to half a second before. Never cut mid-sentence. 6. Inside a scene, bring small details in on the words they show (an item, a tag, a tick). Earlier details stay. 7. Choose one or two recurring objects or characters in the first scene and bring them back changed. Callbacks beat new pictures. 8. Build up the same picture where you can (add to it, move the camera across it) instead of replacing it. 9. Energy: about 80 percent still, drifting or gentle. Allow one big move in the whole clip, on the reveal, for 1 to 2 seconds, then settle and hold. 10. Numbers sit on a scale (gauge, bar, table, timeline) and hold long enough to read. Contrasts are a still split or the same layout twice. 11. Feelings get a quiet image, or one of the cuts back to the speaker; never effects. 12. On-screen text names, labels or quotes; it never repeats the caption. Five words or fewer per label. 13. End every scene by settling or thinning out, or by turning into the next scene. No exit effects. 14. The style sets the look. These rules set when, how long and how calmly. If the style's own motion rules ask for more energy than this, use less. PICTURES: this style uses photo cut-outs. Before you start, ask the person one short question: use stills from their own clip, Slice's stock search, their own uploads, or (only if you can make images) images you generate. If they don't mind, use stills from the clip, then stock. TECH: one HTML file, one GSAP 3 timeline created paused as window.__timelines.main, duration = the scene's length, transforms and opacity only. ## Sample frames - Frame 1: https://ripttgmjfyhtufiygtbe.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/style-frames/sref-7BFTD4/f1-ebd36b94.webp - Frame 2: https://ripttgmjfyhtufiygtbe.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/style-frames/sref-7BFTD4/f2-c9429a5c.webp - Frame 3: https://ripttgmjfyhtufiygtbe.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/style-frames/sref-7BFTD4/f3-971574d6.webp - Frame 4: https://ripttgmjfyhtufiygtbe.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/style-frames/sref-7BFTD4/f4-537a0020.webp ## More - Every style: https://tryslicemedia.com/styles - All styles as plain text: https://tryslicemedia.com/styles.txt - Make it in Slice: https://tryslicemedia.com/shorts