Engraved atlas

How to use it

Ink a dotted route across an old map through most of the clip, one stop per chapter of the move or the change, cutting back to the speaker once or twice for the departure and the arrival.

Where the speaker sits

Full sceneSuits itSmallSuits itSplitSuits itSideWorksDrawn overAvoid

Split: the scene above, the speaker below. Stock speaker from Pexels.

Palette

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.

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.

VISUAL STYLE: Engraved atlas
Slice style ref: sref-978J40
LOOK: an old engraved paper atlas. Pale green-grey sea #D3DDD2, parchment land #E7DCBF, paper #ECE5D1, iron-gall ink #2E2B26, one vermilion #C4472E for the route and the place that matters, a little old gold #B0862F at most.
LINE AND FILL: fine engraved ink lines. Every coast is ringed by five to seven parallel water lines that fade out to sea. Land carries small engraved hill marks and tree dots, never colour fills beyond the parchment. A thin graticule crosses the sea. The frame has a neatline border of alternating ink and paper bars, a small compass rose and a scale bar.
TEXTURE: paper fibres and foxing on both sea and land, slight ink spread.
LIGHT: none; flat printed map.
CAMERA: a slow drift across the sheet, then at most one long, calm push-in to a single place, and a slow pull back.
MOTION: routes ink themselves on as dotted or dashed lines with a tiny vessel or marker riding the tip. Pins set down with a small bounce and a ring that spreads once. Labels write on left to right. Everything that lands stays.
TYPE: an old-style engraved serif: spaced small capitals for seas and regions, italic lowercase for place notes.
THE RULE: shapes are suggestive, hand-engraved places, never a precise real map; the vermilion is spent on one route and one place.
DON'T: no satellite or navigation-app look, no gradients, no drop shadows, no real borders or real place names unless the clip says them, no purple.
Treat these as the look, never a template: invent fresh pictures, words and compositions from what this clip says.
Accent: as in the palette.
Frame shape: ask me before you start (9:16 vertical, 4:5 portrait, 1:1 square or 16:9 wide).
Energy: normal.

TECH: one HTML file, one GSAP 3 timeline created paused as window.__timelines.main, duration = the scene's length, transforms and opacity only.

Look rules

• LOOK: an old engraved paper atlas. Pale green-grey sea #D3DDD2, parchment land #E7DCBF, paper #ECE5D1, iron-gall ink #2E2B26, one vermilion #C4472E for the route and the place that matters, a little old gold #B0862F at most.
• LINE AND FILL: fine engraved ink lines. Every coast is ringed by five to seven parallel water lines that fade out to sea. Land carries small engraved hill marks and tree dots, never colour fills beyond the parchment. A thin graticule crosses the sea. The frame has a neatline border of alternating ink and paper bars, a small compass rose and a scale bar.
• TEXTURE: paper fibres and foxing on both sea and land, slight ink spread.
• LIGHT: none; flat printed map.
• CAMERA: a slow drift across the sheet, then at most one long, calm push-in to a single place, and a slow pull back.
• MOTION: routes ink themselves on as dotted or dashed lines with a tiny vessel or marker riding the tip. Pins set down with a small bounce and a ring that spreads once. Labels write on left to right. Everything that lands stays.
• TYPE: an old-style engraved serif: spaced small capitals for seas and regions, italic lowercase for place notes.
• THE RULE: shapes are suggestive, hand-engraved places, never a precise real map; the vermilion is spent on one route and one place.
• DON'T: no satellite or navigation-app look, no gradients, no drop shadows, no real borders or real place names unless the clip says them, no purple.
• Treat these as the look, never a template: invent fresh pictures, words and compositions from what this clip says.

What it suits

Best for

stories about distance and change: moving country, a career path, how a company got from A to B

Avoid for

fast hype, jokes, or anything with no sense of place or journey

Content

Personal story, Nostalgia, Money or business, Interview, Explainer

Tone

Reflective, Warm, Adventurous, Grounded

Pace

Slow

Topics

map, atlas, engraving, water lines, route, compass, journey, antique

Colours

#ECE5D1 #D3DDD2 #E7DCBF #2E2B26 #C4472E

For AIs: this style as plain text.