The other side

ETS27 becomes a record sleeve with two sides: Side A is the summit in its published order; Side B is the sequence a visitor cuts by asking the mind. A gatefold crease divides one typographic plate into two inks, and a real run-out groove gives the question its physical cause.

The story

Begin with listening. “Free Your Mind” has a musical history, and ETS already makes space for music, art and conversation. The concept takes the conviction of a record sleeve—cover, spine, liner notes, personnel, running order and reverse—and makes those objects behave as a website. There is no photograph or rendered disc.

The first second belongs to the FREE / YOUR / MIND plate. The crease cuts through the letters and reverses their ink without interrupting the composition. In the next ten seconds, the visitor finds a quarter of a concentric run-out groove, with a substantial tonearm and cartridge that follow the pointer. On a phone the arm already rests at an angle; the discovery does not depend on hover.

The cover states the full event name, May 3–6, 2027, Austin, the four destinations and tickets. “Flip to side B” explains the fork in the page itself: “Side A is published. Side B is yours.”

Typography

Dela Gothic One, Regular 400 remains the cover’s printing voice. FREE and MIND use 286 SVG units, optically fitted to a 1,300-unit plate; YOUR uses 109. The inversion is registered against the actual plate and crease, rather than guessed independently. The same face supplies the uppercase section statements. It is not used for lowercase names or questions.

Barlow Condensed, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Semibold 600 supplies the human voice. Personnel names are uppercase Semibold with +0.005 em tracking, approximately 91 px at the desktop review width and 40 px at 390. Questions use the same open tracking, with a 48 px answer heading on desktop and 35 px on the phone. Body text is generally 18–22 px; mobile session titles are 24 px with a wider measure. Tickets shares the date’s 30 px weight class on desktop.

Both families remain self-hosted in fonts/, with their OFL licences. The plate keeps its unusual proportions; the readable names no longer inherit its tight letter spacing.

Colour and material

Oxblood #A31F2D prints on warm paper #F3E6DA. Plum-black #3C151D is the darker inside of the sleeve, used for the running order and the sole Side B. The warm stock replaces shell pink to make this a distinct physical object in the concept gallery. It remains a full substrate, never a decorative accent. There are no gradients between colours, shadows, photography, grain or additional inks. The SVG’s two-stop colour map is a hard ink boundary.

Layout grammar

The spine carries the title, A/B switches and the persistent “Ask the mind” entry. It is 46 px on desktop and 28 px on the phone. The mobile spine drops the redundant catalogue line. A short horizontal tick travels along the outer edge, clear of the letters. Both side controls and the mind entry sit above the lower 90 px of the review viewport.

The cover contents are under the masthead, entirely in the paper field. They are one line on desktop and a 2×2 arrangement on the phone. There is no coloured patch beneath them. The phone fold moves from 70% to 64%, crossing broad letterforms rather than almost coinciding with a stem. The right-hand ink continues to the viewport edge, so the last E and D have a true red margin. The date breaks deliberately before 2027.

The middle row now has concentric quarter grooves instead of an oscillating ribbon. Its tonearm uses a 4.5 px stroke that remains visible as the plate scales. On desktop there is approximately 32 px of clear stock between the groove and MIND’s cap line. The subtitle sits above YOUR with its own clearance. The flip action has room beneath the plate and remains above a 90 px consent strip.

The inner spreads change structure:

• Liner notes: WHAT IF? opens without an eyebrow. A question to take to the mind faces a short reading passage, with substantial space around both. The phone uses one text column.
• Personnel: MANY VOICES. spans the page beside a stamped archive disclosure. Names alternate left and right on desktop, a deliberate A/B rule; organization and role hang one gutter inward beneath each name. The phone sets a single aligned credit list. Opening a name reveals its exact archived role.
• Running order: TRACK LIST. runs vertically along the desktop edge. Four worded date links jump into one continuous programme, with all four days and eight sessions present. There are no equal numeral cells and no hollow panel after two tracks. Long sample titles are edited for this sleeve and disclosed as such; the 390 px titles stay within three lines.
• Austin: BE THERE. takes the full width. The reading copy sits beneath it, followed by one ruled strip containing the date, Austin and Get tickets. One shared colophon closes either side, with ordinary sentence case and no tracked centre line.

Catalogue codes are confined to places where they identify an actual sleeve or sequence: the spine, the four cover destinations, session numbers, cut numbers and the colophon. They no longer constitute every section’s label grammar. Underlines identify text links; the northeast arrow belongs to the flip, return and cut actions.

The fork and the mind

There is exactly one Side B and one composer. Side A ends after Austin and the shared colophon; it does not contain a second reverse-side teaser, composer or duplicate first cut.

The cover flip or spine B opens the plum reverse. The persistent spine entry opens the same place and focuses the write-on line; / is its keyboard shortcut. Returning to Side A restores the reading position. The theme’s question and the archive prompts carry a question into this composer for the visitor to submit.

A complete B01 already exists on the reverse: its question, a continuous address reading “Austin, Texas. Monday–Thursday, May 3–6, 2027,” the venue status and the printed source. These facts form one reading block rather than a miniature statistic row. The first answer and the composer share the opening frame at both review sizes. Focus reinforces the writing rule instead of drawing an input box.

Submitting a question cuts B02, B03 and onward into the page. Answers reuse the sleeve’s actual credits or session rows, retain their archive disclosure and print a source. Earlier cuts remain. There is no docked input, floating badge, avatar, orb, chat bubble or suggestion-chip row.

This static preview uses curated local answers and says so. ETS26 speakers and sessions are samples, never claimed as confirmed ETS27 records. Session dates and timings are illustrative. Venue and hotel remain unannounced; current ticket details live at the supplied Eventbrite destination.

Motion and sound

Motion has a cause: pointer attention angles the tonearm, scrolling moves the edge tick, and a same-document view transition flips the sleeve. Reduced motion disables the transition and tonearm response. The groove itself is static SVG and remains readable without JavaScript.

Sound starts silent. “Play the sleeve” starts an original four-note Web Audio sketch and becomes “Stop.” Leaving the tab or flipping to Side B mutes it. No borrowed recording or autoplay is involved. Essential Side A facts, credits and all four programme days remain readable with JavaScript disabled.

Round-two decisions

The jury’s strongest evidence was the printable plate and the mind’s ability to compose page material. Both are protected. The revision removes the duplicated reverse, the omnibar silhouette, catalogue slashes as a universal voice, the numeral selector, arbitrary credit indents and the repeated title-left/paragraph-right opening. The sharp split remains; it has not become a conventional header or a neutral event template.

The original families stay because the fitted plate is the identity. Warm paper and a different division of labour between the faces separate this sleeve from the other Astra concepts. The physical apparatus is enlarged and redrawn rather than deleted, because listening is the reason this object exists.

Verification

The supplied project-root render command was run three times with --settle 4500. Every PNG in shots/ was viewed after each pass. shots/meta.json records the final desktop and mobile render, local font families and empty error/console arrays. The final interaction results are in shots/interaction-checks.json.

Additional screenshots show the actual reverse, composed sample credits, theme, agenda and a temporary 90 px consent strip at both review sizes. The test strip exists only in those proof images; it is not part of the page. Interaction checks cover ink registration measurements, overflow, source and composer visibility, continuous days, credit disclosure, the question handoff, sourced cuts, unique IDs, return position, optional sound, reduced motion and no-JavaScript reading.

What to build next

Connect the existing concierge’s structured answer contract to the sleeve renderer. The model should select real records and permitted components, not invent styles. Replace archive samples only when ETS27 records are confirmed, keeping the disclosure and source until then. Extend the same plate and running order into a printed gatefold programme, passes and signage. Validate Safari, assistive technology and long confirmed programme content before production.