Pure white background. Black text. The fundamentals of newsprint. But the accent (#242EF7) is where Meridian diverges from traditional news design. That blue is not corporate. It's electric. Almost purple-shifted. It's the color of something urgent. Against the black text and white background, it creates moments of visual energy that guide readers through complex stories.

Inter at 700 for headings. Full bold. This is journalism weight. Headlines hit with the force of a front-page banner. Normal letter-spacing keeps them open and readable at scale. The 1.1 heading line-height stacks multi-line headlines tight, creating dense, impactful blocks of text.

Lora for body text brings classical serif readability to the content. At 17.5px base with 1.35 line-height, articles feel like they're set by someone who understands long-form reading. Not too tight. Not too loose. The serif letterforms add micro-pauses that actually slow reading speed down slightly. For dense international reporting, that's a feature, not a bug.

No shadows. No depth effects. Pure flat design in service of content. Elements are defined by borders, color, and spacing alone. The darken hover effect is invisible and functional. The textured surface noise is the only atmospheric element, adding a paper-grain quality to every surface. The 1.0 active scale means nothing compresses on click. Interactions are clean. No spring. No bounce. Just response.