modern industrial: giving the synth a face

An instrument you can’t read is an instrument you won’t use. This pass made the front panel legible instead of merely present.

• A Modern Industrial theme on the 320×240 color display: high contrast, two-column layouts, graphical parameter indicators instead of bare numbers
• An eight-bar performance macro strip, M1 through M8, so the eight things you actually reach for are always visible
• Patch storage moved to internal flash via LittleFS, so patches don’t vanish when the power does
• A startup animation — expanding rings, a centered logo — because the first second of a device sets expectations for the rest of it
• The current patch name in the header bar, and text sizes retuned for a screen this size: primary values get the larger type, everything else gives way

The other half was an HTML and JavaScript preview of the interface that runs with no hardware attached. It mirrors the firmware layout closely enough that I don’t have to flash the board and squint at 320 pixels to make a layout decision.

That preview has quietly saved me more time than anything else in this project. Possibly more than the synth, which is a comparison I’d rather not look at.