Aesop

Reference it for

• The warm-cream background (#fffef2) on a near-monochrome consumer page. Pure white reads as clinical for this category; a half-step warmer reads as considered and inviting.
• A complete typographic system using one humanist sans at two weights (400 and 500), with a modular 1.13 ratio. No display face, no serif accent, no italics in marketing copy.
• The eyebrow + H2-over-photograph + outline-CTA hero pattern: small 12-14px uppercase tracked label, ~30px H2 in cream-on-dark photograph overlay, single bordered button. Repeated on every hero across the site.
• A 1200px content cap (24 hits) with a 1170px inner content width — the 30px difference gives breathing room without making the page feel narrow.
• Restrained motion: opacity 0.4s ease as the workhorse, background-color, color 0.25s ease-out for hover-fills, background 0.5s ease-out for surface mode-flips. Nineteen total keyframes, all named for behaviour.
• Hover discipline: most text links lift via opacity 0.4s ease, never colour-shift to an accent. The result reads as expensive without ever performing.
• Dark footer (rgb(37,37,37)) on a cream page — the same mode-flip closing pattern as Anthropic, but with a near-black charcoal rather than slate.

Do not copy

• Suisse Intl + Suisse Intl Medium — Swiss Typefaces, expensive license, and an Aesop signature. Substitute with Inter, Söhne, or the client's own humanist sans at similar metrics.
• The #fffef2 cream specifically — Aesop-coded. Pick a different warm-white tone for the client (a touch more peach, a touch more grey, etc.).
• The teal accent rgb(0, 102, 128) / #006680 that appears on ~13 feature panels. It is rare and contextual on Aesop's site; lifting it as a default panel colour will read as derivative.
• The five-deep navigation taxonomy (Stores / Skin / Body & Hand / Hair / Fragrance / Home etc.) — only works because Aesop has decades of named SKUs.
• The 123-script tag load (Optimizely + Forter + Cookielaw + Bazaarvoice + Salesforce Commerce Cloud — Aesop is on SFCC). A Jiffi build should ship 5-15 scripts maximum.
• Capture caveat: the desktop and tablet screenshot calls during this run were intercepted by Aesop's Cloudflare bot wall (showing the "Verify you are human" challenge), but the mobile screenshot got through and the deep CSS extraction reads the real homepage state. Notes below are written from the real captured data.