A dark theme that is not black - choosing a warm near-black for Jot

Most dark themes are built by inverting a light one: white becomes black, black becomes white, and the brand colour stays. The result is usually either pure black, which makes bright text vibrate, or a cool blue-grey that looks like every developer tool from the last decade.

Jot’s dark theme starts somewhere else: a warm near-black, #14120E. This post explains that choice and the handful of rules around it.

Why not pure black

Pure black (#000000) with pure white text maximises contrast, and maximum contrast is not the same as readable. On many screens, bright text on true black can look like it glows or smears, especially for people with astigmatism. Most well-designed dark interfaces use a dark grey ground instead. Google’s Material Design guidance on dark theme, for example, recommends a dark grey rather than black as the base surface.

Why warm

Cool greys read as technical and slightly clinical. Jot is something you open dozens of times a day, often while stressed, so the 2026 redesign aimed for “calm and warm”. The ground has a slight brown cast; the main text is a cream, #F4EFE6, rather than white; secondary text is a warm taupe. On a dim evening screen the difference is noticeable: the overlay feels like paper under a lamp rather than a terminal.

Layers, not shadows

Structure comes from small steps in the ground colour and from hairlines, not from heavy shadows. The base ground is #14120E, raised surfaces such as the overlay sheet are a touch lighter at #1C1917, and the sidebar is a touch darker. Dividers are a white hairline at about 5% opacity. More on that in hairlines, not shadows.

Two fixed accents

Instead of one accent colour, or the Windows accent colour, Jot uses two fixed ones:

• Amber, #E9A93C, for todos.
• Clay, #C4705F, for notes.

That lets the colour carry meaning: you can tell a todo from a note at a glance. It also means the app looks the same on every PC instead of inheriting whatever accent the user picked years ago. See when the app stopped imitating Windows.

Text on an accent

Text sitting on a solid amber fill uses a dark colour, not white, because white on amber fails contrast. That dark colour is only for text on a solid accent; used anywhere else it is nearly invisible on the dark ground. Rules like that are why every colour in the app comes from a named token rather than a hex value in a component.

The light theme mirrors it

The light theme uses an oat-coloured ground, #F6F2E9, rather than white, with the same two accents adjusted for contrast. A hardcoded translucent white that looks fine on the dark ground disappears on oat, which is one of the bugs tokens exist to prevent.

Check contrast, not taste

Whatever palette you choose, check text contrast against the WCAG contrast requirements: 4.5:1 for normal text. Warm and calm is a preference. Readable is a requirement.

Jot is on the Microsoft Store.

Jot is a quick-capture app for Windows: one hotkey, one line, back to what you were doing. What it is, or what is still unproven.