Downstream
Downstream is a scorekeeper. Everything about how it looks and sounds has to survive the same test the product does: could someone check this? That produces an unusually strict design system — mono for anything machine-verifiable, hue reserved for epistemic status, no decorative confidence, no illustration that asserts something the graph can't cite.
The aesthetic reference is not a fintech dashboard and not a civic-tech nonprofit. It is an instrument panel built by people who publish their error rate: cool, dense, typographically serious, legible at 11px, and willing to show a blank cell where the data is silent.
One sentence, one comp set, one proof mechanic
| Category | Regulatory consequence infrastructure. Not "AI for policy." |
|---|---|
| Comp set | Verisk, Moody's, MSCI, ICE — reference-data institutions. Not FiscalNote, not a GovTech SaaS, not a think tank. |
| Position | Scorekeeper, not vendor. The layer competitors are built on. |
| Mission | Building the feedback loop for lawmaking. |
| Proof mechanic | The Ledger — public, append-only, includes the misses. |
| Personality | Precise · conceding · unhurried · unimpressed by its own tools |
| Anti-personality | Breathless · partisan · alarmist · visionary · cute |
Two surfaces, one system
Same palette, same grid, same status vocabulary. The difference is which typeface leads and how much air there is. A visitor moving between them should feel a change of seat, not a change of company.
seedownstream.com
The argument. Serif-led, generous, essayistic. Dominant typeface: serif display.
downstream.sh
The instrument. Mono-led, dense, zero ornament. Dominant typeface: mono.
The three constraints, translated to design
The memo's three non-negotiables have direct visual consequences. This is the load-bearing part of the system.
Every screen, card, chart, and export displays its as_of date. Not in a tooltip. On the surface, in mono, always.
Provenance is visible, not hidden behind an info icon. Citations render inline in mono.
No confidence bars, no percentage-certain meters, no glowing "AI insight" chrome. Uncertainty is distributions, quantiles, base rates, and n.
Statute → rulemaking → comment → litigation → obligation → enforcement
The company's whole thesis as one diagram. First link solid — the statute exists — the rest outlined, because what happens next is what the product measures.
Downstream tells you what a law actually does after it passes.
The one-sentence brand, set exactly as design.md gives it — no rounding, no rhetoric.