Trend styles that fight legibility
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Rule · bucket: mechanical · severity: error · detector: backdrop-blur · since: v0.1.0
Section: Things to avoid
Group: Generic-AI aesthetic

Forbidden:
  Glassmorphism (translucent fill + `backdrop-filter: blur()`), neumorphism (soft inset/outset shadows on a matching background), and their successors

Instead:
  Opaque `--color-bg-raised` with a `--color-stroke-weak` edge. Use translucency only over media, and only when legibility is verified against the worst frame.

Both styles make sufficient contrast and clear hierarchy structurally difficult — neumorphism in particular defines every element with shadow alone, which fails at 3:1 almost by construction. Trend styles also age badly: the more of them a product carries, the more precisely it is dated. Minimal styling that foregrounds content lasts longer.
Experiment freely — but not where it costs legibility or excludes people.
**Everywhere is its own failure.** A frosted panel over a video is a layering decision; frosted cards, a frosted nav, frosted buttons and glowing glass borders on a flat page are decoration applied to everything, and they solve no layering problem at all.