Zed homepage, decoded: a text-only hero, product later

This is iter0's independent analysis of the Zed homepage as we captured it on 2 Oct 2026, at a 1440px desktop width and a 390px phone width. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or written with Zed. Everything below comes from a design spec we already hold for the page: its measurements, its layout and what the capture did and did not show. There are no screenshots, logos or marketing copy from Zed here, and a live site can change at any time.

On desktop the hero is 448px high, from y=94 to y=542, and contains no visible product image. A 390px by 58px serif headline (48px at an unusual weight 340) sits centred, a 512px support line below it, two 36px actions (162px and 152px wide) and a small 13px availability note. A 36px announcement strip sits above and a three-column feature band follows. The spec warns that adding an illustration would change the measured composition.

A shallow sticky header, 57px high, holds a nav container 1120px wide (x=160 to 1280). The identity sits at the left, a row of links with 32px hit areas follows, and after a deliberately large gap come a utility control, a text action and a filled action. Link text is 14px with slight negative tracking, and a compact keyboard-hint treatment is a monospaced 11px.

The signature is a large software-interface demonstration below the feature band: a work-list at the left, a central assistant conversation pane and a code pane, framed around x=113 to 911 and continuing below the viewport. A 114px by 27px demo control sits at the top of the wrapper. Interface type is only 10 to 12px, so it reads as a real screen.

A serif display face for the headline (48px with 57.6px line height, -0.96px tracking), a neutral sans at 16px for support, a monospaced face for code. The ground is warm near-white with restrained charcoal body text, and saturated blue for the headline and primary action. The secondary action is pale with a fine edge.

At 390px the announcement runs from y=57 to y=119, the heading is two lines at x=32, and the actions stack at 326px by 36px. The note follows at y=486. The product-preview section begins at y=568 and is cropped by the screen. Desktop links disappear, leaving the identity and a square menu control.

The exact panel boundaries and lower content of the demo are not established, and the spec says not to invent interface behaviour. The menu-open state is not shown.

A hero does not need a picture. A confident serif, two buttons and white space can be enough, as long as the product demo arrives soon after. A very large interface mock with small real-looking type earns trust more than a polished render.

We keep a longer craft spec for this page: hero, navigation and signature component, with the measured sizes, a list of what not to copy and checks you can run. It is free to download as a Markdown file, and you can use it as a pattern guide for your own site. It describes layout and proportion, so use your own name, wording and imagery. If you want a site built around the same pattern, give the spec to iter0 and it will build you an original page from it.