Upstage — Design Reference

Enterprise AI for document-heavy work. (Current public-surface reference, observed 2026-07-13)

1. Visual Theme & Atmosphere

Upstage is a Korean AI company building language models and document-processing engines for work. Its public site frames the offer through Solar models, document intelligence, and Studio workflows for high-stakes industries, rather than as a generic consumer chatbot. The current public expression is a compact, white-led enterprise marketing system: dark #0A0D14 headings, #52525B long-form copy, and #5B52FF conversion actions organise the page. The hero is the conspicuous exception: a loaded Espeak face appears only in the public home’s large display treatment, while loaded Geist carries the rest of the observed marketing and public pricing content. The design’s rhythm comes from restrained, square-to-8px geometry and repeated direct actions, not from a broad decorative palette. Upstage’s own About and Studio pages connect this visual restraint to a practical proposition: making document-heavy workflows more controllable, traceable, and useful for enterprises.

What is distinctive in the evidence:

• A narrow violet action lane. #5B52FF appears on observed filled and outlined calls to action; it is not promoted as a general semantic/status palette.
• Marketing display has a bounded job. Espeak is loaded for the home hero, while Geist is the repeatedly resolved public UI/content family.
• Public pricing is calmer than the hero. The API-pricing surface uses white model cards, #CDD0D5 borders, and #525866 supporting text.
• Geometry is mostly flat. Buttons and observed cards use 8px corners; the supplied samples show no general card-shadow system.

Primary tasks

• Compare what each model costs on the API pricing page.
• Switch between models to reach the one you need.
• Design, deploy, and operate a document agent in Studio.
• Check how deployment, traceability, and controlled access are handled.
• Find which Upstage product fits a document-heavy industry.

2. Layout & Grid

• Public action scale: the repeated home filled and outlined action controls use 12px 18px padding; the compact outlined action uses 10px 16px.
• Public pricing card: the captured API-pricing model card uses 32px 96px 32px 32px padding and a 24px internal gap.
• Observed rhythm: 8, 12, 16, 24, 32, 40, 96, and 128px occur in the collector’s spacing aggregation. This is a frequency record, not a claimed universal spacing scale.
• Boundary: no responsive breakpoint, desktop container maximum, or logged-in application layout is promoted from the supplied capture.

3. Color & Typography

Color tokens

• #FFFFFF — observed page/card canvas
• #0A0D14 — observed dark heading/ink
• #52525B — dominant observed public body-copy tone
• #525866 — observed pricing-surface supporting-copy tone
• #5B52FF — observed public action foreground/background and catalog primary color
• #CDD0D5 — observed API-pricing card border

The collector also sees isolated browser/default-like blue and red values. They are not assigned a brand or product role because the raw public capture does not establish one.

Typography evidence classes

• Live public UI/content use — Geist. The collector records Geist as loaded/high confidence, with 626 visible uses across body, actions, navigation-like controls, cards, tabs, and headings, backed by five Google Fonts source URLs. It is the sole general UI-family token. The official Geist project identifies the family and publishes it under SIL Open Font License 1.1; that licence describes the font software, not an Upstage visual-identity licence.
• Live public marketing-display use — Espeak. The collector records Espeak as loaded/high confidence for five visible h1 uses and two Upstage-hosted WOFF2 sources. The observed home hero reaches 64px/600/70.4px. This is a marketing-display token only, not evidence for an authenticated product UI. No public first-party licence terms for the face were found in this update; Upstage’s Brand Resource Center says brand assets and associated intellectual-property rights belong to Upstage.
• System-resolved values. system-ui (three observed uses) and monospace (one observed hero use) are operating-system families, not Upstage font assets or substitute specimens.
• Declared-only assets. Archivo, Inter, Montserrat, Noto Sans JP, and Noto Sans KR have @font-face declarations in the bundle but zero observed visible uses. They stay declared-only and are not machine UI-family tokens.
• Measured public styles. The capture records 48px/500 section headings, 18px/400 body text at 28.8px line height, and 16px/500 actions at 24px line height. These remain public-surface measurements, not a complete product type scale.

4. Components

Public primary action

Default

• Background: #5B52FF
• Text: #FFFFFF
• Border: 1px solid #5B52FF
• Radius: 8px
• Padding: 12px 18px
• Font: 16px / 500
• Use: public filled conversion action on the home surface; evidence home::[data-omd-capture="7"]

Hover and pressed (measured 2026-09-29 on Try in Playground): the fill, border and label never change colour; only the two arrow layers slide 19.2px to the right (matrix(1, 0, 0, 1, 19.2, 0)). Pressed equals hover. Keyboard focus: the browser's default ring, not a brand token.

Public secondary action

Default

• Background: #FFFFFF
• Text: #5B52FF
• Border: 1px solid #5B52FF
• Radius: 8px
• Padding: 12px 18px
• Font: 16px / 500
• Use: public outlined conversion action on the home surface; evidence home::[data-omd-capture="8"]

Hover and pressed (measured 2026-09-29 on Learn more): background #FFFFFF → #FAFAFA, nothing else. Keyboard focus: browser default ring.

Hero primary action

Default — #5B52FF fill, #FFFFFF text, 1px solid #5B52FF, 8px radius, 16px 32px, 158×58px, 16px / 500 Geist; evidence home::[data-omd-capture="5"] (Try Studio). Hover and pressed: no change within the compared scope (self, its ::before/::after, 4 descendants including 1 svg and 1 path, 3 ancestor levels). Keyboard focus: browser default ring.

Hero secondary action

Default — #FFFFFF fill, #5B52FF text and 1px solid #5B52FF border, 8px radius, 16px 32px, 222×58px, 16px / 500; evidence home::[data-omd-capture="6"]. Not probed.

Compact secondary action

Default — #FFFFFF / #5B52FF, 1px solid #5B52FF, 8px radius, 10px 16px, 345×43px, 14px / 500; evidence home::[data-omd-capture="19"], four occurrences on home and pricing. Not probed.

Text action and header contact action

• Text action: transparent, #5B52FF 18px / 500, no padding; evidence home::[data-omd-capture="1"] (class button is-text, hidden below desktop).
• Header contact action: #5B52FF fill, #FFFFFF text, 1px solid #5B52FF, 8px radius, 8px 16px, 106×40px, 16px / 500; evidence home::[data-omd-capture="4"] (class btn-contact).
• Default only; not probed.

Products dropdown toggle

Default (probe rest reading, 2026-09-29) — transparent over the dark #151727 navigation band, #FFFFFF 15.04px / 400 Geist, 12px 40px 12px 16px, 116×48px (div role=button). Hover and pressed: no change within the compared scope (self, its ::before/::after, 4 descendants, 3 ancestor levels); the dropdown list is a sibling and was not compared. Keyboard focus: an authored 2px solid #4D65FF outline, offset 2px. Whether it comes from the site's CSS or Webflow's platform stylesheet was not verified, so it is recorded on this component only, not as a brand focus token.

Product card

Default — transparent, #52525B text, 1px solid #CDD0D5, 8px radius, 24px padding, 416×528px; evidence home::div.basic_card-2, the card that holds the filled and outlined actions. Not probed.

API pricing card

Default

• Background: #FFFFFF
• Text: #52525B
• Border: 1px solid #CDD0D5
• Radius: 8px
• Padding: 32px 96px 32px 32px
• Font: 18px / 400
• Use: public API-pricing model card; evidence surface-2::#solar-pro-3 (July). In the 2026-09-29 DOM the card holding the Solar Pro 3 title carries id solar-pro-4; the title link's 440×186 geometry matches, but whether it is the same card element was not established.

Hover (measured 2026-09-29 through the Solar Pro 3 title link): the card wrapper's border darkens #CDD0D5 → #525866 and it gains rgba(0,0,0,0.09) 0px 4px 6px 0px. Pressed: the same two changes; the anchor's red (#0000EE → #FF0000) is Chromium's default pressed-link colour on non-text wrappers, not a brand state, and the visible #0A0D14 title does not change. Keyboard focus: browser default ring on the link; the card's border and shadow stay at rest.

Public model tab

Current item as captured

• Background: #FFFFFF
• Text: #0A0D14
• Border: 1px solid #E2E4E9
• Radius: 8px
• Padding: 8px 16px
• Font: 18px / 500
• Shadow: rgba(0,0,0,0.06) 0px 2px 3px 0px (present in the July capture, missing from the July declaration)
• Use: currently selected model tab on public API pricing; evidence surface-2::[data-omd-capture="5"], class w--current

Inactive item — transparent over the #F3F4F6 tab track, #525866 text, 1px solid transparent, 10px radius, 8px 16px, 18px / 500; evidence surface-2::[data-omd-capture="6"].

States (measured 2026-09-29): hover and pressed change nothing on either tab within the compared scope (self, its ::before/::after, 1 descendant, 3 ancestor levels). The current tab shows no keyboard focus indication within that scope (Tab 12). The inactive tab's keyboard focus is unmeasured: it has tabIndex -1, so the Tab walk never reached it, and arrow keys were not tested.

The July bundle's only state frames are 27 ::state-pressed samples on links, all reading Chromium's default pressed-link colour (#0000EE → #FF0000); they are not a brand state. Its interactionCount: 0 means no dialog, menu or tab interaction was enumerated, not that no state was sampled. Every hover, pressed and focus value above comes from the 2026-09-29 live state probe on www.upstage.ai; the console, studio and chat product domains were not loaded, and disabled, menu, dialog and form variants remain unobserved.

Verified: 2026-07-13 Tier 1 sources: https://www.upstage.ai/ (public marketing), https://www.upstage.ai/pricing/api (public API-pricing), https://www.upstage.ai/about (corporate context), https://www.upstage.ai/products/studio (public product context), https://www.upstage.ai/resources/brand-resource-center (official brand-asset ownership), https://github.com/vercel/geist-font (official Geist family and SIL OFL 1.1 licence) Tier 2 sources: https://getdesign.md/upstage (attempted; built-in web open safe-open failure), https://styles.refero.design/?q=upstage (attempted; built-in web open safe-open failure), web search for both catalog names (no Upstage record returned) Conflicts unresolved: none

The prior #3C043B plum / #D2FF95 Solar-accent palette, 2025 font counts, generic card claim, inferred motion timing, and unbounded product claims are not supported by the supplied 2026 capture and were removed rather than carried forward.

5. Elevation

The observed filled/outlined actions and API-pricing cards have box-shadow: none at rest. Hovering a pricing card adds rgba(0,0,0,0.09) 0px 4px 6px 0px and darkens its border to #525866 (measured 2026-09-29). The currently selected pricing tab's local 0px 2px 3px rgba(0,0,0,0.06) shadow is now declared on the model-tab component. Neither shadow is promoted as a general elevation token or a tab-interaction rule.

6. Imagery & Illustration

• The public home and product pages use product screenshots and workflow/process imagery to explain document intelligence, Solar, and Studio. They are marketing evidence, not a reusable application-image component specification.
• The Brand Resource Center distributes logo, product-logo, media-kit, and leadership assets. Its ownership statement is an asset/IP boundary, not permission to reproduce those binaries.
• No repeated crop ratio, overlay rule, illustration style, or image-frame token is established by the supplied capture.

7. Iconography

The capture identifies ordinary links, buttons, and product imagery but no named icon library, icon-stroke rule, or reusable icon-size scale. No icon token is inferred.

8. Motion

The 2026-09-29 probe read transition: all 0s on the CTAs, model tabs and pricing-card link, and all 0.3s on the Products toggle. The filled action's 19.2px arrow slide is a settled position, not a timed curve. No easing curve, duration scale or scroll sequence is promoted, and nothing is inferred from Webflow classes.

9. Accessibility

• #0A0D14 on #FFFFFF and #5B52FF on #FFFFFF are observed public text/action pairings; implementations should test each exact size and weight rather than treating this reference as an accessibility audit.
• Keyboard focus, measured 2026-09-29: the browser's default ring on four controls (Try Studio, Try in Playground, Learn more, the pricing-card link), an authored 2px #4D65FF ring on the Products toggle, and nothing within scope on the current model tab; the inactive tab is outside the Tab order. Disabled, error, dialog and menu states are not established. Provide accessible behaviour in an implementation without claiming it is an observed Upstage state.
• Geist has live FontFaceSet/source corroboration. Espeak is live only in the observed marketing hero; declared-only and system families must not be rendered as Upstage UI-family substitutes.

10. Voice & Tone

Voice adjectives: precise · enterprise-ready · workflow-oriented

These are source-derived communication characteristics, not permission to reuse Upstage copy verbatim.

11. Brand Narrative

Upstage’s first-party About page says the company was founded in 2020 and builds intelligence for the future of work through language models and document-processing engines. Its founding story explains the name as helping companies move “up” to the stage of AI and describes the initial motivation as making advanced AI practical for organizations with data and IT teams. The current public site presents Solar, Document Parse, Information Extract, Studio, and AI Space, with industry framing for insurance, healthcare, manufacturing, and financial services.

The current evolution is toward document workflows that can be designed, deployed, and operated with visibility, control, governance, review, and traceability. Studio’s public page makes that product direction explicit while the About page supplies company context. Neither page is treated as evidence for private application visual tokens.

12. Principles

1. Make work context explicit. Frame the value around documents, operational control, and the environment where a model is deployed. UI implication: keep public claims tied to an identifiable workflow rather than generic capability badges.
2. Reserve violet for conversion. #5B52FF is observed on the public action treatments. UI implication: do not expand it into unsupported product status meanings.
3. Use typography by source domain. Geist is the loaded public UI/content family; Espeak is the bounded marketing display face. UI implication: do not use the hero face as a general product-app default.
4. Preserve evidence boundaries. Marketing, public pricing, corporate narrative, asset distribution, and unobserved documentation/app surfaces have different evidentiary roles. UI implication: do not merge their claims into a fictional unified component library.

13. Personas

Upstage’s public pages identify stakeholder groups without supplying formal user research or demographics. This reference preserves only those named functional contexts:

• Document-workflow teams: use Studio to design, deploy, and operate document-oriented agents with review and governance.
• Enterprise technology and operations leaders: evaluate deployment, traceability, security, and controlled access in high-stakes workflows.
• AI/API builders: evaluate Solar and document-intelligence services through public pricing and developer-oriented conversion paths.

No fictional names, demographic details, or unverified motivations are added.

14. States

Hover, pressed and keyboard focus are documented per component in §4 (live state probe, 2026-09-29); six controls have all three. No loading, empty, success, error, disabled or validation state is documented, and tab transitions and the menu opened by the Products toggle were not observed.

15. Motion & Easing

Only per-control transition values were read (see §8). No easing curve or duration scale is promoted; preserve that absence rather than assigning default curves or durations.

16. Do's and Don'ts

Do

• Use the observed white / dark-ink public-surface foundation with #5B52FF reserved for conversion actions.
• Keep Geist as the loaded general public UI/content family and confine Espeak to the verified public marketing-display context.
• Use the 8px action/card geometry only where the public evidence establishes it.
• Keep public pricing-card claims separate from marketing, corporate, documentation, and logged-in product UI claims.
• Retain selector and surface provenance when reusing a documented component pattern.

Don't

• Reintroduce the prior plum or Solar-lime palette as a current token without fresh source evidence.
• Present Archivo, Inter, Montserrat, Noto Sans JP/KR, system-ui, or monospace as an Upstage UI-family token.
• Read the July pressed-link red (#0000EE → #FF0000) as an Upstage state, or invent disabled, dialog or form variants.
• Treat the Brand Resource Center’s asset ownership notice as a licence to redistribute logos, photographs, or the Espeak face.
• Infer an authenticated product design system from these public surfaces.