Rise of the Dark Mode

In this video, we'll talk about colors one more time, but with a focus on dark mode designs.

// ✨ Try your dark mode colors on a real website:

// ✨ Dark mode design inspirations:

// ✨ Let's connect:

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Music (support the artist):

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#darkmode #webdesign #uidesign

[juxtopposed]

So what do you think about going dark mode? 🤨 Let me know below!

[questwalkerko]

Dark mode is fantastic but it's always good to have a light mode for users with astigmatism.

[Riteshkrpanda]

As a Full time dark mode user i welcome this trend but i think there should be a option for light mode as i feel the frustration when I can't go to dark mode and the light mode users may feel the same

[iAmTheWagon]

I refuse to make my websites have a light mode. Instead, I make a less dark version.

[bravesonly]

I love dark mode when I'm in actually dark environment. It makes things easier to read for a long time.
But when I'm outside or working on my laptop on a sunny day on my balcony, I would really appreciate a light mode option.
Instead of trying to find a right angle, shadow or going inside, I just switch to light mode and I'm able to read things with zero problems.
Please, don't bash on option B, just because you personally like the option A.

[michaelblum]

You need no advice from me, but this is a sick niche you're filling in and your channel is obviously growing crazy rapidly. Design-centric advice for developers - that is good, current, thoughtful, and not focused on selling Framer, SS, Wix, etc. - is probably the least saturated of the tech/design tutorial area on YT. So thank you!!!! And keep it up :)

[Goodwarrior]

Honestly... I kinda prefer light mode a lot of the time. Sure, dark mode looks all cool and stuff, but black on white is just way easier to read than white on black. I spend my working days staring at my IDE and my medication can sometimes dry my eyes and make light text on a dark background look really blurry and hard to read. You know what always helps a lot? Switching to a light theme!

Similarly, I switched a lot of websites and apps from dark back to light mode because idk, it just looks... slicker. Sharper. Better. Don't get me wrong, a well-done dark mode can look amazing, but it often feels like most websites do it badly, and making light mode look good is like 10x easier.

[NFSHeld]

Very important to tell people that the humanly visible difference in lightness is based on fractions not absolute values. So the difference between 5% and 15% lightness is a lot stronger than the difference between 70% and 85%. That's important if you're used to "dark color = light base color - 15% lightness" and now try "light color = dark base color + 15% lightness". It's probably more like +3-7% lightness, depending on how dark your "dark base color" is.

Also, the reason why there are gaussian blurs in dark mode is to prevent color banding on gradients which appear much easier on dark modes (everybody watching an almost-black scene in a YouTube video will have noticed that effect; there it is also caused by compression, but the effect is pretty much the same for gradients).

[Swenthorian]

I'm all for dark mode; but light mode is important for certain e-ink displays, and I'm sure there are some other niche uses for light mode, too. It's best to support both if you can; but it's quite a bit of work to do so: when you want more than one theme, you have to build a theming engine; you can't just hard-code everything.

[dimii]

I have astigmatism but I always prefer true black background. It's just the best.

[gameofpj]

Actually, it doesn't save energy if you have some sort of display that uses a backlight, because that's gonna "burn" the most energy. I'd have to turn it up so much higher when I'm outside using dark mode, so I just use light mode.

[woodybob]

I've just started programming my own website. And I'm just realising how helpful this channel is going to be every step of the way! Thank you

[aliengeo]

Light mode is necessary for accessibility, btw. There are people who literally can't make out white text on a dark background. That's why disabled users got so angry at Discord removing light mode for April Fool's Day as a "joke."

Also the energy savings only apply to OLED and CRT (if anyone's still using one). LCD screens use *more* energy displaying black and the least energy displaying white.

[ondrejsedlak]

Dark mode has no power saving benefits when used with and LCD/IPS displays, as the backlight is always on.
Some people even claim dark mode may use a bit more power on those display types as people tend to turn the brightness up so as to be more readable.
There's even evidence to suggest having a current run through the the LCD crystals to turn it "black/blocked" consumes more power, as opposed to the "white/transpaprent" state which simply turns the current off.


The only power saving benefits are on OLED type displays where each pixel is its own ligth source and even that's minimal.

[CrackyCreates]

this channel helps me make the most insufferable sites imagine.

bright pink on pure black with a gradient to cyan is what I need in my life

[gradientO]

Every other landing page is a dark theme website with purple primary colour

[SpaceDorito]

Purple in dark mode is like sugar in coffee

[osaroadade]

There's not a lot of cats, but I'll take it.

I have seen myself move towards more dark themed + "glassmorphic" designs over the past months and I do agree with you, there's a lot more that can be done with "dark mode" than "light mode". Something I noticed while working with dark mode is that you don't necessarily have to ever use shadows like we do on light mode for depth (and I think you touched on this in your video), when you have a dark background as a parent, all you need to do to have the child show elevation is to reduce the lightness and there's a point on that scale that you'd get to where the depth effect would naturally just show.

Really great video and like last time, I demand (just joking) more cats. 🐱

Cheers.

[qlum]

I personally much prefer light mode, I don't have astigmatism, but in terms of reading comfort it is just much better for me. Yes, in dimly lit rooms it can form a wall of light, however the solution is quite simple, just use at least a night light. That being said I recognize for some people there is a strong desire for dark mode, I just don't think it should ever be the default, unless you are following the system theme.

[lamehdennaoui]

can we just take a moment to appreciate how cool the animations and editing are in this video?
Amazing work!