Showerthought: My darkest theme ever came from a week where I was too depressed to turn on any lights

Back in March I spent 4 days designing in a pitch black room after a breakup and ended up with a color palette so moody and usable that I still use it in all my app projects - has anyone else found that bad moods push you toward better dark mode choices?

3 comments

3 Comments

holly474h ago

Two days after my cat died last winter I built a whole moodboard around this weird gray-purple that looked like the sky before a storm. It ended up being the most functional color system Ive ever made, no joke. I think when youre feeling low you stop caring about impressing people and just focus on what actually feels right to look at. Same thing happens with music playlists or even the way I arrange furniture in my room when Im in a funk. There's some real honesty in designs that come from a bad week, they dont have that fake polished vibe that tries too hard.

webb.xena3h agoTop Commenter

My friend painted her whole apartment that exact gray-purple after a breakup last year.

charlie_stone721h ago

That thing you said about "stop caring about impressing people" really hit home. I had a rough patch a couple years back and ended up dialing my monitor brightness way down to like 10% while I was just staring at a blank screen at 3am. That weird half-lit glow turned into a whole color scheme I never would have tried otherwise, some muted olive and a really washed out amber that looks terrible in daylight but feels perfect at night. @webb.xena probably gets it since youre talking about that gray-purple vibe too. Theres something about being in a low place that strips away all the pretend polish and leaves you with stuff that just works.

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