f/5.61/1000ISO 800R5 · 500mm
hensler photography · management console direction
This page is the working design brief for the site's photographer console, published as part of building this site in the open. It is not a finished interface; it is the plan the console is being built toward.
One word is the whole spec. The console should feel like the quiet back room of the gallery: cotton-rag paper in the light, the darkroom after hours in the dark. The photographs supply all the color; the interface supplies calm. The intelligence works out of sight, and things are simply ready when you look.
Use the toggle at the top of this page to switch between the two grounds: cotton rag (light) and darkroom (dark). The serif here is Playfair Display, the same face used on the public hero.
palette
Both themes are warm-neutral, built around the sand accent the public site already owns (#e8d5b5: the category links and focus rings on adrian. and liam.). On the light ground the accent deepens to bronze so it can carry buttons; on the dark ground the sand is used straight, which ties the console to the public gallery exactly.
the upload flow
Drop the files and walk away from the machinery. While a photo is analyzing, its fields shimmer like the public site's hero skeleton. When it's done, the title, caption, and EXIF are just there: marked only by a small sand dot meaning "suggested; edit anything." No robot badges, no cost talk, no purple. One primary action per card.
Re-extract EXIF, regenerate suggestions, and delete all live behind the ⋮ menu: present, never prominent.
the gallery manager
Rows read like a contact sheet: image first, state second, everything else on request. Published is a quiet green; a draft is sand. Featured is a star you tap, not a form you fill.
one system
Three button voices across every console page, and no others. Serif lowercase for page titles only. Mono for EXIF only. Everything interactive focuses with a sand ring.