Sill Sleep and sound clinic · identity and interface

Nothing is raised that cannot be pressed.

Sill runs overnight sound and sleep assessments for the Norfolk trust. The interface is soft-UI, a style that usually extrudes everything and leaves patients guessing which parts respond. Here the extrusion is a grammar: raised means you can press it, pressed means it is reporting a number, and flat means neither. Three states, and a person can learn them in one night.

Client
Sill (invented)
Place
Norwich, Norfolk
Style
Neumorphism
After
Michal Malewicz, who named it, 2019
Type
Manrope and DM Mono
Depths
6 px surface, 4 px control, no third
Ink
12.2 to 1 on the ground
01

A mark that is both states at once

A raised block with a pressed slot cut into it: a sill with a window in it, and the whole grammar in one object. If a viewer only ever sees the mark, they have still been shown what raised and pressed mean here.

Sill
On screen
Printed · keyline and fill
One colour · embroidery

The mark, and the two reductions it is allowed

Both states
The block is raised at control depth and the slot is pressed at the same depth. One object, both halves of the grammar, and the proportion between them is fixed at 1 to 2.
Off screen
Shadows do not print and do not embroider. On paper raised becomes a keyline and pressed becomes a fill, which keeps the distinction without pretending the ink has depth.
Never
Never a moon, never a pillow, never a sleeping face. This is a clinic that measures things overnight, not a mattress company.
Contrast
The mark is legible with every shadow removed. If it were not, the shadows would be carrying the shape, and the whole rule below would be a decoration.
02

Switch the grammar off and count what lies

Seven elements: three you can press, three readings, one label. With the grammar on, three things look pressable and three of them are. Turn it off and the panel extrudes everything, which is what this style normally looks like.

Room level28 dB
Room2
Slept6h 12m
TonightTwo sensors, no wires

The rule running · seven elements, three of them pressable

What it costs
With the grammar off, four things look pressable that are not. Nobody notices for a while, because everything soft-UI looks pleasant; they notice at four in the morning when they press the number to make it stop.
Flat
The third state, and the one most systems in this style leave out. A label is not a control and not a reading, so it gets no shadow at all, which is only possible because the ink can carry it alone.
Pressed twice
A control pressed goes to the inset shadow at the same depth, so the down state of a button and the resting state of a reading look alike. That is deliberate: pressing something is briefly making it report.
Two depths
Six pixels for a surface, four for a control, and no third value anywhere. A third depth turns a two-word rule into something a person has to be taught.
03

One ground, two shadows, one green

Soft-UI has a single surface colour by definition, so the palette is mostly not colour at all: it is a light and a dark that make the ground look like it has been pushed. The green does one job, which is marking the thing that is currently recording.

Ground#E9ECF1
Highlight#FFFFFF
Shade#C3CAD6
Recording#1F6F5C

Four values · the green only ever means something is being measured

Ink
#252A33 on the ground is 12.2 to 1. This style fails accessibility so often because the ink is chosen to look soft; here it is chosen to be read, and the softness is entirely in the shadows.
The green
5.1 to 1 on the ground, and white on it is 6.0. On any artefact it appears on a recording indicator and nowhere else: not on headings, not on buttons, not to make a screen feel calmer. The section numbers and voice labels on this page are series furniture, not Sill.
Dark
Ground, highlight and shade all move together, because a pushed surface in the dark needs the same relationship inverted. Printed pieces do not move: paper has one colourway.
04

Read at four in the morning

Manrope for everything spoken, DM Mono for everything measured. The split is the same as the shadow grammar: a number the clinic recorded is set in mono, and a sentence a person wrote is not.

Display

Two sensors, no wires, one night

Subhead

You can get up. The room keeps recording.

Text

Everything on the bedside screen is written to be read by somebody half asleep who has never used it before and will not use it again. Short sentences, no jargon, and the one button that stops the session is always in the same place.

Mono · anything measured

28 dB · 6h 12m · room 2 · ref SL-4471

Two faces · mono means the clinic measured it

Why Manrope
Open apertures and a tall x-height, which is what survives being read at low brightness by somebody who has taken their glasses off.
Weight
400, 500, 600 and 700, and nothing lighter. A thin weight on a soft ground is the second most common way this style becomes unreadable, after the shadows.
Never
Never all caps for anything longer than a label, never letter-spaced body text, and never a number set in the text face. If it was measured, it is mono.
05

Applications

Five pieces. Two of them are paper, and paper has no shadows, so the grammar is translated rather than dropped: a keyline for what you can act on, a fill for what is being reported.

SillRecording
28dB now
Bedside screen · three raised, one pressed
Room 2
Occupied until07:00
Sound floor26 dB
Door sign · everything pressed, nothing to press
SillAppointment
Patient refSL-4471
NightTue 3 March, 21:00
Room2, second floor
BringUsual medication
Confirm by 28 February
Appointment card · keyline is the thing to act on
SillNight report
Slept6h 12m
Woke4 times, longest 18m
Room level28 dB mean, 41 dB peak
Reported, not diagnosed
Report · fill is the thing being reported
Sill SL-4471 · Room 2
Wristband · no depth at all, one colour
MorningSession ended
Slept6h 12m
Woke
Morning screen · one raised, because one thing is left to do
06

Voice

A clinic that measures and does not diagnose. Everything it says is either a number it recorded or an instruction it wants followed at 3am.

Say

You slept six hours and twelve minutes. You woke four times, the longest for eighteen minutes.

You had a poor night’s sleep.

Say

Press End when you get up. If you forget, we will stop it at seven.

Don’t forget to end your session!

Say

Reported, not diagnosed. Your consultant sees this on Thursday.

Your results show signs of disturbed sleep.

Say

You can get up. The room keeps recording.

Please remain in bed for accurate results.

07

What breaks it

This style has a reputation it earned, and every way it fails is a way of letting the shadow do a job the ink should be doing. Four, and the first ends it.

Start 28 dB Room 2 Tonight
Everything raised The one that ends it. Once a reading is extruded like a button the grammar is gone, and the interface is back to being a pleasant surface where you find out what works by pressing things.
12.2 2.15
Soft ink on a soft ground Grey text chosen to match the mood: 2.15 to 1 against the ground, where the ink runs 12.2. The shadows are the softness in this system and the type is not allowed to join in, because the person reading it is half asleep in a dark room.
4 px 6 px 11 px
A third depth An extra elevation added for something that felt important. With two depths a person learns the grammar without being told; with three they have to be, and nobody reads the guide at 3am.
Sleep well Room 2
The green spent on mood Recording green used on a greeting and a room number because it looks calm. It means one thing, something is being measured right now, and a patient who has learned that deserves to keep relying on it.

Sill is invented, built as a portfolio exercise in the neumorphism revival. Norwich and Norfolk are real; this clinic, its rooms, patients, reference numbers, readings and staff are not, and nothing here should be read as clinical guidance or as real sleep data. The approach is after the soft-UI look named by Michal Malewicz in 2019 and revived from about 2026, credited as an influence only. Part of the One Rule Each series.

Rule

Nothing is raised that cannot be pressed. Raised is a control, pressed is a reading, flat is neither, and there are two depths and no third.