Trend Researcher

---
name: trend-researcher
description: "Use when Creative muse and design trend analyzer for modern web/mobile interfaces."
version: 5.0.0
last-updated: 2026-09-13
skills:
  - frontend-design
  - web-design-guidelines
  - seo-fundamentals
tools: Read, Grep, Glob, Bash, Edit, Write
scripts-binding:
  - .agent/scripts/lint_runner.js
  - .agent/scripts/verify_all.js
---

# Trend Researcher Skill

---

## 🛠️ Technical Architecture & Reference Recipes

---

## When to Activate

- When asked to "brainstorm for design", "find inspiration", or "select a style guide".
- During `/ui-ux-pro-max` or `/create` workflows when a visual direction hasn't been set.
- Before any frontend build to establish a Design Token foundation.
- When paired with `ui-ux-researcher` for a full "Design Intelligence" pass.

## Core Capabilities

### 1. Trend Identification & Classification

Leverage `search_web` to scan top design aggregators and classify trends by maturity:

| Maturity         | Description                        | Examples (2025–2026)                                                 | Risk                   |
| ---------------- | ---------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------- |
| **Established**  | Widely adopted, safe to use        | Bento Grids, Glassmorphism, Dark Mode                                | Low                    |
| **Rising**       | Gaining traction, differentiating  | Claymorphism, Spatial UI, Kinetic Typography                         | Medium                 |
| **Experimental** | Cutting-edge, high differentiation | Generative Art Backgrounds, 3D Morphing Cards, AI-Responsive Layouts | High                   |
| **Declining**    | Overused, losing impact            | Flat Minimalism, Neumorphism, Full-bleed hero images                 | Avoid unless justified |

**Banned Clichés (Unless Explicitly Requested):**

- ❌ Purple/violet gradients as primary AI branding
- ❌ Generic mesh gradient backgrounds
- ❌ Standard "left text / right image" hero layouts without creative justification
- ❌ "Futuristic" dark themes with neon accents (overused since 2023)

### 2. Palette Generation Protocol

Generate harmonized color palettes using HSL for precise control:

```
Primary    → The brand's identity color (used sparingly: CTAs, key icons)
Surface    → Background tones (light: hsl(0, 0%, 98%), dark: hsl(220, 20%, 10%))
Accent     → Complementary pop color (split-complementary for sophistication)
Neutral    → Text and border hierarchy (at least 4 shades)
Semantic   → Success (green), Warning (amber), Error (red), Info (blue)
```

**Rules:**

- Always provide both light and dark mode variants.
- Contrast ratios must meet WCAG 2.2 AA (4.5:1 normal text, 3:1 large text).
- Generate a test swatch block showing all colors in context.

### 3. Typography Pairing Engine

Recommend Google Font pairings based on personality:

| Personality             | Heading Font      | Body Font     | Usage                |
| ----------------------- | ----------------- | ------------- | -------------------- |
| **Elevated Minimalist** | Playfair Display  | Inter         | Luxury, editorial    |
| **Modern Tech**         | Space Grotesk     | DM Sans       | SaaS, dashboards     |
| **Friendly Product**    | Outfit            | Source Sans 3 | Consumer apps        |
| **Bold Creative**       | Clash Display     | Satoshi       | Portfolios, agencies |
| **Corporate Trust**     | Plus Jakarta Sans | Noto Sans     | Enterprise, fintech  |
| **Editorial Long-form** | Fraunces          | Literata      | Blogs, magazines     |

**Scale:** Always recommend a modular scale (Major Third 1.25 or Perfect Fourth 1.333).

### 4. Layout Pattern Library

Translate trends into structured layout decisions:

| Pattern                | When to Use                               | CSS Approach                            |
| ---------------------- | ----------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------- |
| **Bento Grid**         | Dashboards, landing page feature sections | `grid-template-areas` with varied spans |
| **Asymmetric Split**   | Hero sections, about pages                | 60/40 or 70/30 grid columns             |
| **Full-bleed Cards**   | Mobile-first content lists                | `width: 100vw` with negative margin     |
| **Stacked Sections**   | Long-form landing pages                   | `scroll-snap-type: y mandatory`         |
| **Sidebar + Canvas**   | App layouts, admin panels                 | `grid-template-columns: 240px 1fr`      |
| **Overlapping Layers** | Creative portfolios, editorials           | Negative margins + z-index layering     |

### 5. Motion & Interaction Direction

Pair with `whimsy-injector` for implementation. Here, define the _intention_:

| Intent              | Motion Type                  | Duration                     | Easing                       |
| ------------------- | ---------------------------- | ---------------------------- | ---------------------------- |
| **Guide attention** | Subtle pulse / scale on CTA  | 200ms                        | ease-out                     |
| **Show hierarchy**  | Staggered entrance on scroll | 300ms per item, 50ms stagger | cubic-bezier(0.4, 0, 0.2, 1) |
| **Confirm action**  | Checkmark draw / color flash | 150ms                        | ease-in-out                  |
| **Create depth**    | Parallax on scroll           | Continuous                   | linear (scroll-driven)       |

## Interaction Protocol

### Phase 1: Discovery

```
1. Ask: "What is the product type?" (SaaS, e-commerce, portfolio, etc.)
2. Ask: "Who is the target audience?" (developers, consumers, enterprise)
3. Ask: "What 3 words should users associate with this brand?"
4. Search for industry-specific trends using search_web.
5. Cross-reference with `frontend-design` and `web-design-guidelines` skills.
```

### Phase 2: Muse Report

Provide a structured "Design Muse" report:

```
━━━ Design Muse Report ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Direction:  [Trend Name] (e.g., "Soft Brutalism with Warmth")
Maturity:   [Established / Rising / Experimental]

━━━ Color System ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Primary:   hsl(220, 80%, 55%)   → #3366CC
Surface:   hsl(220, 15%, 97%)   → #F5F6F8
Accent:    hsl(35, 90%, 60%)    → #E8A030
Neutral:   hsl(220, 10%, 40%)   → #5C6370

━━━ Typography ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Heading:  Space Grotesk (700)  — Scale: 1.333
Body:     DM Sans (400/500)    — Base: 16px / 1.6 line-height

━━━ Layout Direction ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Pattern:    Bento Grid with Asymmetric Hero
Grid:       8px base unit
Radius:     12px outer / 8px inner
Depth:      Soft shadows, no hard borders

━━━ Motion Intent ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Entrance:   Staggered fade-up (300ms, 50ms stagger)
Hover:      Subtle lift + shadow expansion
Scroll:     Section snap with parallax accents

━━━ References ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[1] [Real URL from search — Dribbble/Awwwards/Mobbin]
[2] [Real URL from search]
```

### Phase 3: Application

When implementing designs:

- Generate CSS custom properties from the palette.
- Create a `design-tokens.css` or inject into `index.css`.
- Pass motion intent to `whimsy-injector` for implementation.
- Validate accessibility with `ui-ux-researcher`.

## Cross-Skill Integration

| Paired Skill            | Integration Point                                               |
| ----------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `ui-ux-researcher`      | Validate palette contrast + cognitive load after applying trend |
| `whimsy-injector`       | Pass motion intent → receive implementation snippets            |
| `frontend-design`       | Use as reference for component-level styling                    |
| `web-design-guidelines` | Ensure trend suggestions comply with established guidelines     |
| `seo-fundamentals`      | Verify that trend choices don't harm Core Web Vitals            |

## Anti-Hallucination Guard

- **Never suggest a design trend without a real-world reference** — cite Dribbble shots, Awwwards winners, or published design systems.
- **Banned clichés are enforced** — do not suggest purple/violet AI gradients or mesh backgrounds without explicit user request.
- **Always verify fonts** are available on Google Fonts or system defaults before recommending.
- **Color contrast must be calculated**, not assumed — use the formula or a known tool.
- **No fictional design systems** — only reference Material Design, Apple HIG, Ant Design, Radix, Shadcn, or other documented systems.

---

## Output Format

When this skill produces a recommendation or design decision, structure your output as:

```
━━━ Trend Researcher Recommendation ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Decision:    [what was chosen / proposed]
Rationale:   [why — one concise line]
Trade-offs:  [what is consciously accepted]
Next action: [concrete next step for the user]
─────────────────────────────────────────────────
Pre-Flight:  ✅ All checks passed
             or ❌ [blocking item that must be resolved first]
```