Resolves contradictions between design rules with thirteen if/then arbitration decisions - pure black vs near-black, pill vs rectangle CTAs, duration ceilings, entrance-ease bans vs camera eases, scroll pinning vs scroll-jacking, dark vs light default, translate distance caps, bounce, centered composition, typeface sourcing, gradients, signature WebGL vs performance budgets, and mandated imperfection vs utilitarian surfaces. Use when someone asks "can we ever use pure black", "one rule says pills, one says rectangles - which wins", "one rule says 500ms max and our trailer runs 900ms - which wins", "are gradients banned or is one allowed", or whenever two skills, teams, or references cite conflicting design rules. Do NOT use to build a motion or color system - use animation-system or color-palette-builder instead; for the fork decisions themselves, use premium-design-foundations; for a quality verdict on finished work, use creative-quality-ladder.
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name: creative-arbitration-rules
description: Resolves contradictions between design rules with thirteen if/then arbitration decisions - pure black vs near-black, pill vs rectangle CTAs, duration ceilings, entrance-ease bans vs camera eases, scroll pinning vs scroll-jacking, dark vs light default, translate distance caps, bounce, centered composition, typeface sourcing, gradients, signature WebGL vs performance budgets, and mandated imperfection vs utilitarian surfaces. Use when someone asks "can we ever use pure black", "one rule says pills, one says rectangles - which wins", "one rule says 500ms max and our trailer runs 900ms - which wins", "are gradients banned or is one allowed", or whenever two skills, teams, or references cite conflicting design rules. Do NOT use to build a motion or color system - use animation-system or color-palette-builder instead; for the fork decisions themselves, use premium-design-foundations; for a quality verdict on finished work, use creative-quality-ladder.
---
# creative-arbitration-rules
Two true rules colliding is the normal state of serious design systems: flagship consumer hardware ships #000 while devtool style guides ban it, and motion doctrine sanctions a 900ms cinematic reveal while product lint fails anything over 500ms. Teams that lack arbitration either deadlock, or the loudest reference wins and the system drifts. This skill makes every known collision resolve the same way twice: thirteen if/then rules, each keyed on a condition a non-designer can check, never on who ships it.
## Operating procedure
Follow the steps in order. Classification comes before rule application because the thirteen rules group by three mechanisms - brand fork, mode split, scope split - and the classification tells you whether the answer is a decision, a mode check, or a scope check. Recording comes last so the ruling never re-litigates.
### Step 1: Elicit the conflict
Paste the charter block if one exists. If the client has a charter but the foundations pack is not installed, elicit the needed values directly and label them provisional. If no charter exists at all, halt and route to premium-design-foundations - never substitute worked-example values. The charter core values are forks, accent, canvas and ink, radius, weight set, motion bands.
Then gather:
1. The two conflicting rules, verbatim, with their sources - which skill, team, or reference asserts each one.
2. The surface in question: product UI, marketing page, film, or print.
3. The brand's three fork decisions, if made: pill or rectangle, dark canvas or light canvas, playful or precise.
4. Whether a prior ruling on this conflict already exists in the art direction brief - if so, the prior ruling stands and the job is to restate it, not re-decide it.
If a fork is undecided, that IS the finding: route to premium-design-foundations to decide it once; never default it here. If any input is a guess, label it a guess and move on.