dark · structured · sans · notes · purple · local-first · developer
DESIGN.md inspired by Obsidian
Near-black canvas, near-white text, a single electric-purple CTA and a crystal mark — a local-first knowledge base that looks like the editor it ships.
By webdesignhot · obsidian.md ↗
$ npx @webdesignhot/design-md add obsidian
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Aave Ghost-soft DeFi — lavender #978fff on white, custom Aave Repro sans, pastel gradients in a usually-brutalist lending space. Accenture Dark hero, white Graphik, and one electric purple — the `>` greater-than mark made into a whole consulting brand. '#a600ff' is always moving forward. Adidas Pure-black sport-utility, AdihausDIN/adidasFG uppercase, three-stripe geometry — the engineering canon for global sportswear. Adobe Creative-suite chrome — paper-white canvas, magenta-to-orange wordmark gradient, and Adobe Clean carrying every product grid. Affirm Honest-money fintech in the dark — indigo #4a4af4 CTAs at near-pill 96px radius, light-weight white headlines, no fine print. AgentKit Three swappable themes for AI agent products — editorial dark, daylight bright, fintech cool-blue. Airbnb Pure-white marketplace canvas with one Rausch coral and Cereal — generous photography, soft pills, modest type. Airtable White-canvas editorial workflow software with full-bleed coral and forest signature cards punctuating a near-black pill-CTA system. Alibaba Electric orange `#ff6a00` + dense merchant grids — the global B2B wholesale floor as a website. Allbirds Oatmeal-canvas eco-minimalism — Geograph sans on warm Amazon Smile-orange CTA, Amazon Ember sans, dense product grids — the canonical everything-store interface. Amazon Web Services Squid-ink navy with Smile-orange CTAs — the densest tile-portal on the cloud-platform internet. American Express White-canvas premium-restraint membership UI — signature Amex Blue accent, near-black editorial type, concierge-tier hierarchy. Anthropic Editorial broadsheet for AI safety — cream canvas, Anthropic Serif body, terracotta clay accent, magazine geometry. Apple White-canvas product theatre — SF Pro Text, 980px pill CTAs, and a single-blue accent system. Apple Music Pink-red gradient hero with album-grid kinesthetics — SF Pro precision, signature `#fa233b` brand pink, glassy dark canvas. Apple TV+ Pure-black cinematic theatre with SF Pro and ruthless minimalism — content as the only voice. Arbitrum Arbitrum Blue on white — Layer 2 chain marketing with Inter sans, structured grids, sophisticated-restraint contrasted with Solana's cinematic. Arc Browser-as-personality marketing — buttery cream canvas, Marlin Soft display, hand-tooled blue-and-coral palette. Are.na Bare grey-and-orange minimalism — a single Helvetica-class sans, hairline borders, and a stubborn refusal to optimise for engagement. Asana Approachable work management in soft purple — Asana Sans at modest weights with a rainbow accent palette and warm sky-tinted whitespace. Astro Cosmos navy canvas with violet-to-orange brand gradient — Mona Sans display, Inter body, Astro''s star-chart MPA framework dressed as an observatory dashboard. ASUS Republic of Gamers red `#cd0000` on black with bold sans — Taiwan engineering meets esports brutalism. Atlassian Enterprise-blue corporate canvas — signature Atlassian Blue, Charlie display type, four-product mark. Audi Vorsprung durch Technik on near-black — Audi Type sans, four-rings precision, and a near-monochrome canvas with `#bb0a30` reserved for sport. Auth0 Twilight-blue dark canvas with TWK Lausanne 300 display + Aeonik body — the original identity-platform aesthetic. Away Editorial travel-luggage DTC — Graphik on white, photography-led, sharp 0px white CTAs over dark hero imagery. Axiom Deep-navy observability with a cyan electric accent — Inter for body, JetBrains Mono for every event label, and a structural grid that reads as logs at planet scale. Axios Smart-brevity in chromatic form — blocky white canvas, Tiempos-flavored Atiza serif, signature `Why it matters:` time-bars and bullet-first prose. Bandcamp Bandcamp Cyan + Helvetica — indie-music marketplace honesty, no streaming-platform polish, no algorithmic carousels. Base Coinbase-adjacent L2 minimalism — coinbaseSans on white, signature electric blue Baseten White canvas with Inter and a signature `#6c5ce7` purple — ML model deployment dressed in approachable workshop chrome. BBC News Signature BBC red (`#bb1919`), Reith Sans + Reith Serif, the global broadcaster authority typography of the world''s public-service news. Bear Off-white canvas, a custom bearsans display, a red bear icon, and tealish handwritten underlines — a Markdown notes app dressed as a Mac Pro magazine. beehiiv Aggressive black-on-yellow newsletter punch — heavy display sans, hyper-flat cards, and a `#ffd60a` highway-yellow that reads like a tabloid front page. Best Buy Yellow price-tag mark, electric blue trust, bold sans — big-box electronics design with Geek-Squad confidence. Binance Trading-floor near-black with a single high-voltage Binance Yellow doing all the brand work — BinanceNova for type, BinancePlex for numbers. Biome A white-canvas Rust toolchain page where one deep azure blue does all the work. Bloomberg Iconic black-orange financial broadsheet — BWHaasHead headlines, AvenirNextPForBBG chrome, terminal-grade data density. Bluesky Sky-blue `#0085ff` on bright white with Inter sans — the AT-Protocol social network rendered as airy, federated, open. Blur Pure-black canvas, neon `#ff8700` orange voltage, and JetBrains-Mono-default everywhere — brutalist NFT trader terminal as competitive instrument. BMW Corporate-blue calm — BMW Type Next on a cream-tinted white, dark navy hero bands, and the M-stripe triplet in reserve. BMW M Performance black on M-blue/M-violet/M-red — the motorsport variant that turns BMW corporate into track-day theatre. Bolt An electric-blue command line for the web — StackBlitz's AI builder on a near-black #1e1e21 canvas, Inter Display, builder's register. Booking.com Deep-blue commerce engine — Bookin Sans on white, yellow CTA voltage, dense booking-funnel maximalism. Booking.com Booking Blue + signal yellow — the deal-finder design language at maximum density, optimized for conversion not contemplation. Bose Pure black canvas, Helvetica restraint, and premium-audio confidence — sound presented as engineering art. Brex Cool grey-blue surfaces, magenta-to-purple-to-indigo gradient, Söhne 600 — fintech as fast, modern, slightly flashy. Brilliant STEM education with playful diagram-energy — warm coral CTA on near-black, custom Brilliant Sans, illustrated geometry as hero. Bugatti French-engineered austerity — pure black canvas, three Bugatti typefaces, and full-bleed photography as the only voltage. Bun Cream canvas with chunky pink accents and the wide-eyed mascot — a JS runtime dressed as a 1970s bakery sign. Buttondown Indie newsletter software in heavy 900-weight Auto Pro — electric `#0069ff` pill CTAs and soft-yellow highlights on a pure-white canvas. Cal.com Open-source calendly with one bold custom font — Cal Sans on a soft `#f4f4f4` paper canvas. Calm Signature `#0066ff` deep blue + Aktiv Grotesk + meditation-deep cool atmospheric calm. Calm Mindfulness in a serif — Calm Cream canvas, soft moonlit blue and forest green, Visby Round display, breathing-pace motion. Capacities Cream-yellow canvas, Inter at 700 with a Crimson Pro serif fallback, and a yellow underline as page ornament — a PKM that thinks like a sketchbook. Capital One Confident-accessible banking — navy authority, one red swoosh, 2px-sharp blue. Cartesia Bright clinical white with a single deep-blue action — voice-AI presented as scientific instrument rather than consumer product. Cash App Electric `#00d54b` green on near-black, Cash Sans monospace-flavoured geometry, and p2p-money youth aesthetic. Casper Cozy DTC sleep brand — Casper navy/indigo ink (`#1e306e`) on a pure-white canvas, deep-navy `#012169` pill CTAs at 32px radius, Calibre body under New Kansas friendly-serif display. Premium that tucks you in. Character.AI Cool zinc canvas, custom atHauss sans, and dark pill CTAs — a roleplay social product dressed in TikTok-grade neutrality. Chase Trust-institutional banking UI — white canvas, near-black ink, bright-blue primary + green secondary CTAs in Open Sans. Chevrolet Gold-cross American classic — Louis sans on white with a `#cd9834` bowtie, a `#003876` corporate blue, and Camaro/Corvette red drama in reserve. CircleCI Light-content CI/CD platform — near-black hero, Inter sans, navy chrome with a restrained CircleCI-green accent. ClassPass Wellness-marketplace energy — coral-pink CTA on warm white, GT America sans, photographed-class-as-hero pattern. Claude.ai Cream paper canvas, Anthropic Sans for body and Anthropic Serif for the headline — an AI assistant set in literary type. Clerk Geist + Suisse on near-black canvas with `#6c47ff` violet CTA — the drop-in-auth dev-tool aesthetic. ClickHouse Near-pure black canvas with electric yellow as the brand voltage — database performance dressed in voltmeter chrome. Cloudinary Media-API technical infrastructure in confident blue — Inter at modest weights with a deep navy-blue brand and a single chromatic accent for media moments. CodeRabbit Near-black AI-review canvas — warm CodeRabbit orange accent, Plus Jakarta Sans, sharp 4px white CTAs. CodeSandbox Pale-lime electricity on a Cohere Stark white editorial canvas with deep green-black product bands and a CohereText/Unica77 type split. Coinbase Institutional-grade calm — pure white canvas, a single Coinbase Blue, and Coinbase Display set at weight 400 instead of 700. Composio Near-black canvas with deep-electric-blue voltage and a 2x2 terminal-mockup hero — agent infrastructure dressed as developer instrumentation. Corsair Yellow `#ffff00` lightning on black with Roboto — RGB-everything peripherals and PC components. Costco Warehouse blue + signature red, Helvetica utilitarian — bulk-buying signage translated to web. Coursera University-blue `#0056d2` on warm-white parchment with Source Sans — the canonical online-degree marketplace. Cursor Warm cream IDE-marketing — `#f7f7f4` canvas, `#26251e` ink, custom CursorGothic display, JetBrains Mono code, vivid orange accent. CVS Health CVS-red heart on a clean white canvas — custom CVS Sans, near-black ink, trustworthy healthcare clarity. Databricks Signature Databricks Red Datadog NationalWeb on white with the iconic `#632ca6` purple — observability dressed as an enterprise dashboard, structurally dense, chromatically restrained, multicolour where the data demands it. Deel A warm dark canvas with electric coral and orange accents — global payroll dressed as a confident product portrait. DeepSeek Deep-blue Chinese-tech minimalism — a research lab dressed in `#4d6bfe` and stark white space. Deliveroo Deliveroo Teal on white — food-delivery design at maximum saturation, custom Roo Sans, kangaroo-mark mascot energy. Dell Pragmatic blue `#007db8` with custom Roboto-derivative — business-first PC commerce since the dorm room. Deloitte Big-4 gravitas — pure-white canvas, true-black ink, Open Sans at light 300, and the signature green dot. Delta Air Lines Whitney sans on near-white, Delta navy + signal red — the Hartsfield-Jackson aircraft livery translated to web typography. Deno Inkwell black on warm white with the dinosaur mascot — TypeScript runtime as Eric Carle children's book. Descript Cream-pink canvas, a custom Brett display serif, and a wine-dark CTA — an AI video editor that ships like a magazine. Discord Indigo-ground hangout — gg sans body, ABC Ginto Nord display, 12-16px tile radii, white pill CTAs. Disney+ Deep navy gradient streaming hall with custom Inspire display sans and the unmistakable Disney+ wordmark arc. DoorDash Signature red-orange CTA, custom DoorDash Sans, delivery-funnel commerce — the dominant on-demand local marketplace. Duolingo Owl-green confidence and DIN-Round buttons that lift like candy — the gamified language app distilled to four colors and one mascot. dYdX Pure-black canvas, Satoshi-compressed display, and one signature indigo-purple #7774ff CTA — a pro-trader perps terminal as a brand. Dyson Engineering-greyscale on white — Dyson Futura Light at 44px (weight `300`, never bold), body ink `#333` not pure black, zero-radius CTAs with a fluid-dynamics ripple hover, and a single magenta accent reserved for haircare. The web brand of an engineering company that refuses to look like a marketing site. ElevenLabs Near-black voice-tech ground with white voice-wave aesthetic — Inter at studio scale, pill CTAs, and a single saturated accent that reads as both wayfinding and brand. Emirates Custom-serif luxury — Emirates red on light grey, gold accents, Fly Better editorial calm. Epic Games Pure-black canvas with custom Brutal Type / Heading Now display — Fortnite-saturated marketing meets PC-storefront merchandising. Ethereum Off-white canvas, ethereum-blue `#1c64f2` voltage, and Inter + serif duet — community-owned protocol as open documentation. Etsy Burnt-orange CTA, Graphik humanist sans, handcrafted-warmth aesthetic — the marketplace for makers and small batch. Everlane Pure white canvas, Maison Neue Book, near-black ink — radical-transparency DTC minimalism. Excalidraw Literal hand-drawn whiteboard — wobbly SVG strokes, Virgil-style handwriting, and a deliberately primitive UI that turns digital sketching into nostalgia. Expedia Navy commerce + Mango yellow voltage — Expedia Sans, dense travel-funnel density with One Key loyalty colour-coding. fal Pure white canvas, focal display at 120px, and near-black #252527 CTAs — generative-AI inference at editorial scale. Fantastical White paper, Effra geometric sans, full-round blue pills, and a rainbow of app-icon glass squares — a calendar app marketed like Apple''s Pro Apps. Ferrari Cinematic editorial in near-black — Rosso Corsa restraint, FerrariSans 500, and full-bleed cavallino photography. Figma Bright multi-color section bands with figmaSans display and figmaMono eyebrows — a marketing site that designs in scenes. Financial Times Salmon-pink page (`#fff1e5`) — the world''s most recognizable newspaper background, paired with Financier display + MetricWeb sans for global markets coverage. Fireworks AI Light canvas with Inter sans and a signature `#6720ff` purple-amber-orange spark — fast-inference platform dressed in speed-of-light kinetic chrome. Fly.io Mackinac display + Fragment Mono on a violet-saturated canvas — a PaaS that dresses like a small-press magazine. Ford American-truck heritage in corporate blue — Antenna sans, oval-script wordmark, and a deep `#003478` voltage that has carried the brand since 1927. Fortnite Battle-royale design at maximum saturation — neon yellow + electric blue on near-black, Burbank Big condensed display, season-driven brand kaleidoscope. Framer Black-on-white maximalism with electric gradient floods — Inter Display at heroic sizes, motion as a first-class material. Frontegg PP Neue Machina display + Neue Montreal body — plug-and-play user-management with deep-blue gravitas. Gemini (Google) Blue-into-violet gradient, Google Sans, soft Material 3 surfaces — Google''s house style applied to a chat interface. Ghost Warm-cream content CMS aesthetic — Inter for chrome, a soft serif for the writing surface, and a single confident green for action. GitHub Dark-canvas developer-platform marketing — Mona Sans variable headings, lime-green accent, near-black ground. GitHub Copilot Pure-white canvas, pure-black inverted CTAs, Mona Sans display — GitHub's editorial confidence applied to AI tooling. GitLab Light DevOps-platform marketing — GitLab Sans, near-black ink, oversized 96px headlines, tanuki-orange accent. Gitpod Editorial dev-tool calm — light canvas, near-black navy text, ABC Diatype sans + Martina Plantijn serif, 8px radius. Glif Near-black Manrope on near-white, anchored by one confident green CTA — a playful creative-agent canvas. Glossier Post-pink austerity — white canvas, single-family Apercu, 0px radius rectangles. The brand that invented millennial-pink chrome in 2014 has retired pink to a footer wash and a single badge color. Grafana Dark observability canvas with the iconic `#f46800` orange — Inter for body, Roboto Mono everywhere a label hides, multi-colour chart palette ripped straight from a real dashboard. Granola White paper, a custom Quadrant book serif, and an olive-green CTA — an AI notepad that dresses like a stationery shop. Graphite Near-black developer canvas — Matter type, near-white ink, one clean blue, 8px CTAs. Groq Warm off-white canvas, light-weight Space Grotesk, and a single hot `#f43e01` orange — speed-obsessed AI inference. Grubhub Friendly red-orange CTA, Sentinel display + Avenir body, dense delivery-app commerce — the long-running incumbent. Gumroad Hot pink `#ff90e8` on cream, ABC Favorit at 96px, hard black borders and offset shadows — neo-brutalist creator commerce. Gymshark Pure white canvas, black ink, Montserrat bold display over Roboto body — every CTA a fully-rounded 56px pill. HashiCorp Black canvas hosting a per-product color portfolio — Terraform purple, Vault yellow, Consul red, Waypoint cyan — multi-product identity made literal. Hashnode Developer publishing platform — deep navy canvas, electric blue brand, Inter sans + JetBrains Mono code chrome. HBO Max Deep purple-black premium streaming canvas with custom Sharp Grotesk and the unmistakable Max wordmark. Headspace Signature `#ffac1d` orange + custom round display + meditation-friendly playful warmth. Height AI-PM workspace dressed in chalk pastels — Inter at modest weights over a near-paper canvas, with a single confident accent and an AI-purple voltage moment. HEY Warm-white canvas, deep purple-ink, and a crayon-box of saturated pastels — opinionated email dressed as a friendly poster. Hilton Hilton Blue on white — confident-contemporary hospitality with Söhne-adjacent sans, blue-on-white photography-led layouts. Honda Reliability-first restraint — HondaGlobalFont on white, signature red HP Cyan-blue `#0096d6` HP-circle on white with Forma DJR — the 84-year-old technology brand''s mainstream face. HubSpot Warm coral-orange (#FF7A59) on a near-white canvas, a humanist sans set generous and round, and a brand voice that turned inbound marketing into a methodology. Hugging Face AI community canvas — deep blue-black ground, Source Sans Pro headlines, pill auth + 8px tile cards. Hulu Near-black canvas anchored on Hulu Green `#1ce783` with Graphik sans — the bright, cable-meets-streaming UI. Hume AI Warm cream canvas, custom Fellix type, and near-black pill CTAs — voice-AI research presented with humanist calm rather than tech coldness. Hyperliquid Near-black IBM Carbon Design System made literal — pure-white canvas, IBM Plex Sans at light 300, square corners, and one assertive `#0f62fe` blue. Ideogram A bright white canvas with a single saturated violet cue — a typography-first AI image tool that lets the gallery do all the talking. IKEA Yellow `#ffdb00` on blue `#0058a3`, Noto IKEA sans, Swedish-democratic-design retail at planetary scale. Instacart Grocery-shopping-list practical — Instacart Sans on white, signature carrot green JetBlue JetBlue Blue on white — friendly aviation with a custom rounded sans, Mint cabin orange accent, lower-case microcopy. Jupiter Jupiter lime on near-black — Solana DeFi aggregator with Inter, a cat-in-space mascot, and playful pill-CTA energy. Kagi A premium search engine dressed in warm cream and Plex — the indie answer to ad-funded search. KAYAK Burnt-orange flight-search density — Open Sans on white, comparison-engine maximalism, price-graph data viz. Khan Academy Signature `#14bf96` mint green on white with Lato sans — free-for-everyone education in a warm, encouraging register. Kinde White canvas with Inter 72/500 display + dev-friendly pink-coral accent — the approachable auth-billing-access platform. Kit A cream newsletter canvas with a custom KitSans display, a Libre Franklin secondary, and a pastel-rainbow chip set — the editorial register reborn from ConvertKit. Klarna Klarna PINK `#ffa8cd` on white, near-black navy `#0b051d` ink, Klarna Title at billboard scale. Kraken Kraken Purple `#7132f5` on white — Kraken-Brand display + Kraken-Product UI for a calmer, less-bombastic crypto exchange. Krea A pure-black studio with Suisse Intl set quietly at 60px — a creative-AI gallery that lets the work and the cobalt CTA carry the colour. Lamborghini Cathedral of darkness — true black canvas, Lamborghini Gold accents, and LamboType angled-terminal display. LangChain Deep navy canvas with Inter precision and a quietly confident teal accent — agent orchestration dressed as engineering documentation. Ledger White canvas, Inter at rest, and one unmistakable Ledger Orange on full-pill CTAs — security made calm. Lego Lego Yellow + Red on white — primary-color toy theatre, custom Lego Sans, brick-as-hero photography. Lemon Squeezy A dark hero with white Circular display, signature lemon-yellow Leonardo.Ai A pure-black cinematic canvas where ufficioDisplay headlines and white full-pill CTAs frame generative imagery — a film studio's title card, Canva-owned. Linear Dark-canvas product surface — pure-black ground, indigo accent, custom Inter weights, pill CTAs. LiveKit Realtime audio-video infra — Public Sans 300 weight on near-black, signature cyan LlamaIndex White canvas with Inter and a signature `#1b9aff` blue — RAG infrastructure dressed as a clean technical reference card. Logitech Soft consumer-tech blue gradients with Brown sans — design for the way you work, play, and create. Lovable Pink-into-violet gradient on white — vibe-coding dressed in playful, friendly chromatics. Lowe's Signature navy blue on white canvas — residential-DIY warmth rendered as big-box retail. lululemon Quiet-luxury athleisure — Saans variable on bone-off-white, off-black ink (`#140f0f`, not pure black), pill CTAs on square product cards, mixed-case sentence-cased headlines tracked −4px. The athletic brand that murmurs. Luma AI A cinematic black screening room that opens into a white studio — Graphik set tight, every CTA a full white pill. Magic Eden Mint-cream canvas, magenta-mint accent duet, and a custom Foundry display — Solana-native marketplace as boutique gallery. Mailchimp Cavendish-yellow chunkiness — a custom display serif (Cooper Light), the signature `#ffe01b` block, and a brand voice that hugs you while it ships campaigns. Marriott Luxury-hospitality restraint — Caudex serif for editorial moments, off-white canvas, gold-bronze CTA, photographed-resort hero. Mastercard Cream-canvas editorial fintech, circular-portrait orbits, MarkForMC at 450 weight — institutional-but-warm payments brand. MasterClass Pure-black cinema with custom display serif and editorial reverence — celebrity-instructor learning as a premium streaming product. Medium Editorial reading-first publishing — magazine-grade serif body, GT Super display, signature green-on-white pill CTAs. Mercedes-Benz Three-pointed-star authority — MBCorpo on near-black canvas, silver-blue Mercury A near-pure white canvas with a literary serif headline and a signature mercury-mint accent — banking dressed as a quiet magazine. Meta Optimistic blue (#0467df) on a white corporate canvas — Optimistic Display headlines, generous space, social-platform conglomerate at rest. MetaMask Foxy Orange on white — Ethereum wallet design with custom MM Sans, 8-bit fox mascot, friendly-utility voice. Microsoft Fluent surfaces — off-white canvas, Segoe UI Variable Display, and a Cortana-blue action color carrying every product. Midjourney A deep cosmic canvas where JetBrains Mono headlines float over a wide-gamut OKLCH rainbow — a research lab dressed as a chapel. MiniMax Stark monochrome canvas broken open by vibrant gradient product cards — coral, magenta, blue, purple as model identity. Mintlify Documentation-platform marketing — pure white canvas, mint-green accent, Inter at tight tracking, near-black pill CTAs. Miro Canary-yellow Mistral Butter-yellow canvas, Arial as a deliberate anti-tech statement, and zero-radius rectangles — French AI as a brutalist art-school manifesto. Modal Serverless GPU infra in lime-green — `#0c0c0c` canvas, electric `#7fee64` accent, custom Modal Mono on every chip and code block. Monday.com Project management in confident red-pink — Poppins display at bold weights with a colorful saturated palette and a playfully energetic visual rhythm. MongoDB Signature MongoDB green Monzo Hot Coral `#ff4f40` on bright white, MonzoSans humanist geometry, and a transparent challenger-bank warmth. Motion AI-calendar productivity in green-and-purple — Inter at modest weights with a green-to-purple voltage gradient signaling the AI scheduler, anchored by a clean white canvas. MSI Dragon-red `#ff0000` on jet black with bold display sans — the Taipei dragon-heritage gaming hardware brand. Mux Video API for developers — Aeonik on light-cream, Rotonto display, JetBrainsMono CTAs, sharp 0px corners. MyFitnessPal Fitness-tracking utility — MFP Blue on white, Inter sans, dense calorie-and-macro grids, conversion-first navigation. Neon Serverless Postgres dressed in late-night green — a near-black canvas with a single electric mint accent. Netflix Pure-black streaming theatre with signature `#e50914` red and Netflix Sans — the canonical media-tile grid. Nike Pure black, pure white, Helvetica Now — pill CTAs and full-bleed athletic photography on a single soft cloud gray. Nintendo Joyful red on paper-white — Nintendo's site is the toy-aisle of the web, illustration-rich and refusal-of-darkness intentional. Notion Off-white canvas with Lyon serif accents and a custom NotionInter — a workspace dressed as a literary magazine. Nubank Roxo #8d0de3 as the whole brand — white nuSansDisplay on dark purple, 999px pill CTAs, anti-bank warmth. Nuxt Forest-green `#00dc82` glow on a near-black canvas — Vue-flavored warmth dressed for the cosmos. NVIDIA Engineering-grade canvas — pure black hero / paper-white body / one violently saturated `#76b900` green that carries every CTA and corner square. Omnivore Open-source read-it-later — near-white reading canvas, focused emerald-on-paper brand, archival elegance after the Eleven Labs sunset. On Swiss-engineered monochrome — true-black ink on white, custom On sans, bold 700 heads and 40px full-pill CTAs. OpenAI Pure white canvas, OpenAI Sans set in calm 500-weight, and a single black pill for the only action that matters — try ChatGPT. OpenRouter Pure-black canvas with custom display typography and pragmatic mono — LLM-router infrastructure dressed as a terminal billing dashboard. OpenSea Pure-black canvas, electric `#2081e2` blue, and Inter at trader-pro density — the original NFT marketplace as financial terminal. Optimism Pure-white canvas, signature `#ff0420` red voltage, and Inter at confident L2 register — Ethereum rollup as bold optimistic infrastructure. Ory White canvas with Inter 48/400 display + signature deep-navy `#0f172a` CTA — open-source-first identity for technical teams. Oura Pure-black canvas with Inter precision and gold-stamped scores — the premium-ring health-precision aesthetic. Paddle Merchant-of-record calm — condensed serif headlines on a near-black canvas with warm cream and sand CTAs. Paper Website A literal sheet-of-paper website — single literary serif, off-white sheet canvas, narrow reading columns, ink-blue links. Patagonia Outdoor-cooperative editorial — Futura sans on cream, ranger-station palette, photography-led story-first marketing. Patreon Patreon Coral on white — creator-economy patronage with Söhne sans, photographer-led marketing, mid-2024 brand refresh language. PayPal Dual-blue corporate trust — PayPal Sans Big over white, with a deep-navy ink and a sky-blue counterpoint. Peloton Signature `#cb1e4e` red on midnight ink, Inter display, instructor-led premium-fitness storefront. Perplexity Cream paper canvas, custom pplxSans, and the unmistakable Tropic-cyan accent — a reference-library answer engine dressed in warm tones. Phantom Phantom Purple on near-black — crypto wallet design that respects the user's intelligence with editorial restraint. Picoko Warm-white canvas, weight-900 Outfit, and one blazing pink — product photography reimagined in seconds. Pika A cream-canvas AI video studio in custom Telka type, with peach and black pill CTAs. Pinecone White canvas with Inter and a signature `#1cb0d0` cyan — vector database technical-marketing dressed in clean blueprint chrome. Pinterest Masonry feed as product, restrained chrome around it — white canvas, near-black text, Pinterest red reserved for action. Pitch Enormous Mark Pro headlines on a black hero, then a clean white workspace — violet Plaid Pale blue trust on white, classical Stripe-adjacent type, and a Benjamin-Franklin-as-mascot moment of personality. Plain B2B support tool with a Dinamo grotesk and a single radioactive `#1ad379` action — Linear-restraint applied to support. PlanetScale Pure-black canvas, blood-red accent, mono-set numerals — a database brand styled like a financial terminal. PlayStation Sony's Cinema-Black canvas with PS Blue and a custom SST sans — gaming-as-cinema, premium hardware in editorial restraint. Polar Dev-tool obsidian — 8rem editorial display headlines, indigo accents, Louize serif moments. Polygon Deep purple `#8247e5` voltage, soft surface ladder, and Inter at enterprise calm — Ethereum L2 as institutional infrastructure. Porsche Engineering-purity black-on-white — Porsche Next at 96px regular, Rosso PostHog Cream-canvas analytics with mustard-yellow CTAs and IBM Plex — open-source craft, not SaaS gloss. Postmark Postal-yellow #ffde00 + warm-black #1c1d1f + paper-white canvas — the transactional email API designed like a friendly post office sign. Prime Video Amazon-blue streaming canvas with Ember sans and the dense, utility-first marketplace UI vocabulary. PropelAuth White canvas with SF Pro Rounded display 60/900 + deep-navy ink — B2B multi-tenant auth with Apple-tinted polish. Quizlet Study-buddy design — Quizlet purple-blue on white, custom Hurmes Geometric, flashcard-as-hero pattern. Qwik Electric purple-to-blue gradient on near-black — resumable execution dressed as a lightning bolt. Railway Ship software peacefully — IBM Plex Serif headlines on a deep eggplant canvas, with a single confident violet for action. Rainbow White canvas, SF Pro Rounded Black at 96px, and a pink-orange-blue-purple rainbow — the friendliest Ethereum wallet onchain. Raindrop.io White paper, system-ui sans, soft watercolor blob backgrounds, and a vivid `#0b7ed0` blue CTA — a bookmark manager that ships like a creative-tool sketch. Ramp Off-yellow `#fcfb70` and black-on-white editorial — finance ops dressed as a printed annual report. Rare Beauty Soft lavender on cream — Selena Gomez's beauty brand with mental-health-aware editorial restraint and serif-led product cards. Raycast Near-black canvas, glowing keycaps, monospaced shortcut chips — a marketing site that thinks like a launcher. Razer Neon `#44d62c` snake-green on jet black with Roboto — the For Gamers, By Gamers visual signature. Readwise Pastel-orange book-club warmth — soft cream canvas, friendly Tiempos serif accents, and a tangerine that signals 'this is your library.' Recraft A jet-black studio where ABC Gravity Condensed slams the headline at weight 900 and a single electric-lime CTA does all the shouting. Reddit Front-page-of-the-internet orange — community-card density, IBM Plex Sans display, and a confident Remix Signature `#3992ff` blue on pure white with Inter — a nested-routes web framework dressed as a manifesto poster. Render Lavender on white — a PaaS that swapped Heroku purple for a candy-bright #8a05ff and kept the airy whitespace. Replicate AI-API marketing — light page chrome, dark hero canvas, rb-Freigeist Neue display, JetBrains Mono code, sharp 0px corners. Replit Saturated turquoise on `#0e1525` ink — the cloud-IDE aesthetic with IBM Plex DNA and a JetBrains Mono soul. Resend Pure-black canvas with Domaine Display serif at 96px and Commit Mono code chips — email infra that thinks in italics. Retool Pragmatic blue #3a55fc + Inter + dense product mocks — the internal-tool platform that designed itself like a well-organised admin panel. Reuters Global newswire restraint — signature orange (`#ff8000`), Knowledge Medium custom sans, broadsheet rigor for the world''s oldest news agency. Revolut Dark Aeonik Pro hero, white Inter content, near-black `#191c1f` ink, fully-pill CTAs and gradient-accented fintech sleekness. Riot Games Crimson `#d13639` red on near-black with custom Riot Beam display — esports-tournament drama and competitive-MOBA editorial. Ritual Visible-supply-chain wellness — white lab canvas, Ritual Navy #142b6f everywhere, CircularXX, 25px rounded CTAs, warm yellow as the one accent. Rive Chunky animated display type and saturated playful colour — interactive graphics platform that wears its motion design on its sleeve. Robinhood Chartreuse `#CCFF00` lime on a black `#000` canvas, Martina Plantijn serif headlines paired with Capsule Sans Text — financial-editorial register, not tech-app sans. Roblox Bright `#ed1d24` red on white with Builder Sans — the youth-block-builder playground turned multi-billion-game social platform. RunPod Deep slate canvas with Inter and a signature `#673ab7` purple — accessible GPU cloud dressed in friendly developer chrome. Runway A near-black research canvas with ABC Normal headlines pulled tight at -2.5px — a film studio, an ML lab, and a brutalist gallery in one shell. Salesforce Cloud-trust dashboards — Salesforce Sans on a sky-blue ground, with Astro the bear standing guard over a dense CRM portal. SAP Enterprise-ERP precision in cobalt — SAP72 sans, signal-blue accents, and a calm white canvas built for trust. Segment Twilio Segment's customer-data-platform canvas — Whitney SSm humanist sans, navy-on-white, single confident `#1866ee` blue. Semafor Paper-cream canvas (`#f8f5d7`) with FeatureFlatHeadline serif and signature flag-style topic columns — global-news editorial built for the post-Twitter era. SendGrid Functional API-blue on white — the email-platform dashboard aesthetic, now folded under the Twilio umbrella. Sentry Deep-aubergine observability — Dammit Sans display, Rubik body, JetBrains Mono code, signature violet #7553ff and pill CTAs. shadcn/ui Copy-paste components in pure black-on-white — the most influential design system not actually shipped as a library. Shopify Dark-first commerce theatre — 96px NeueHaasGrotesk at weight 330, electric mint focus rings, and stacked multi-layer shadows. Shortwave A dark AI-email canvas with Poppins display weight and one electric blue — Inbox rebuilt by the people who built it. Signal Privacy-first messaging in `#3a76f0` Signal blue with Inter sans — minimal, ad-free, end-to-end-encrypted by default. Slack Aubergine workspace marketing — Salesforce-Avant-Garde headlines, all-caps 4px CTAs, white canvas with `#4a154b` accents. Snowflake Deeper cyan Solana Solana Gradient + Diatype on near-black — Layer 1 chain marketing as cinematic experiment, magenta-purple-cyan brand prism. SolidJS Deep navy with a blue-to-cyan brand gradient — reactive primitives dressed as a circuit diagram. Sonos Pure black canvas, Inter typography, and audio-system minimalism — speakers presented as gallery objects. SoundCloud Signature `#ff5500` orange on `#f2f2f2` paper with Interstate sans — waveform-first audio social UI. Sourcegraph Near-black code-intelligence canvas — PolySans display, coral-red accent, big quiet headlines. Southwest Airlines Heart-warm low-cost airline — Southwest Sans on light grey, yellow CTA voltage with navy ink, sharp 2px corners. SpaceX Pure-black cinematic photography, D-DIN aerospace stencil type, ghost-button minimalism — the interface disappears. Spotify Electric `#1ed760` green on near-black canvas with Spotify Mix sans — the canonical streaming-audio tile grid. Square Pure black on pure white, Square Sans grids, and retail-POS minimalism — commerce as black-and-white geometry. StackBlitz Electric blue `#1574ef` on a graphite `#1c1f25` canvas — the in-browser IDE that built Bolt. Starbucks Forest-green storefront — SoDoSans, full-pill buttons, warm-cream canvas, and a floating Frap CTA the brand calls home. Steam Deep blue-gray `#1b2838` with Motiva Sans — the utilitarian PC-gaming library that runs the world's largest digital storefront. SteelSeries Esports orange `#ff6900` on near-black with Inter — Danish precision peripherals for competitive play. Storybook Open-source frontend workshop — white canvas, Nunito Sans, dark hero band, and the signature coral-pink brand mark. Strava Signature `#fc4c02` orange + Inter on white — endurance-athlete data-driven storefront with map-overlay heritage. Stripe Editorial fintech polish — light Söhne headlines at weight 300, navy-not-black text, signature `#533afd` purple CTAs. Stytch Paper-cream canvas with Booton display + Chivo Mono body — passwordless-modern auth, joined Twilio. Substack Magazine-on-the-internet — Spectral serif body at 19px, Cahuenga display, signature `#ff6719` orange CTAs. Suno A near-black booth with cream Neue Montreal and a hot-pink cue light — a music studio, a record sleeve, and a chat app fused into one canvas. Sunsama Thoughtful daily planning in warm cream and ink — Inter at modest weights over a paper-cream canvas with sage and rose accents and a calm, unhurried voice. Supabase Off-black canvas, signature emerald `#3ecf8e`, Circular as display, Postgres-grade type discipline. Superhuman White paper canvas, a custom Super Sans variable, and a single confident lavender — premium email dressed as a stationery brand. Supreme Box-logo red, Courier monospace, skate-deadpan minimalism — the most influential streetwear store on the web. Svelte Hot orange #ff3e00 against clean white with a confident sans — the framework that wears its flame as a wordmark. T-Mobile T-Mobile magenta (#E20074) dominates a near-white canvas — Un-carrier loudness in TeleNeo display weight. Tailscale Warm-light approachable-technical — off-white canvas, near-black Inter, brick-red accent. Tailwind CSS The system applied to itself — Inter Variable on white canvas, signature cyan #06b6d4, every component built from Tailwind utilities. Tana Pure black canvas, a custom tanaClassic serif at 83px, and a pale-pistachio CTA — a knowledge graph dressed as a literary supplement. Target Bullseye red CTA, Helvetica Neue, photographic hero — friendly mass-market design with confident chromatic restraint. Telegram Cloud-blue messaging — Tesla Cinematic showroom on white — one Electric Blue CTA, Universal Sans, and viewport-height car photography. The Atlantic Modern serif headlines on cream-paper, signature Atlantic orange `#fbb33b`, long-form magazine reading rendered for the web. The Economist Deep cinnabar red `#e3120b`, Milo serif body, Econ Sans labels — the global-affairs weekly rendered with cover-illustration discipline. The Guardian Guardian Egyptian slab serif, signature navy `#052962`, structured ruled hierarchy with bold section accents. The Home Depot Signature orange on white, Helvetica bold — hardware-aisle signage as a web storefront. The New York Times Cheltenham serif headlines on paper-white, signature breaking-news red, the canonical American broadsheet rendered for the web. The New Yorker Adobe Caslon Pro + Irvin headline cap — a century of editorial gravitas in cream paper, ink black, and signature cartoon line. The Washington Post Postoni serif blackletter masthead, "Democracy Dies in Darkness" tagline, sober ink-on-paper political broadsheet. Things Cool light-blue canvas, system-ui sans, vivid Things-blue accent — a task manager that ships like an Apple Pro Display. Threads Instagram-adjacent text-first social — pure-black canvas, system-sans clarity, and a quiet brand restraint built from the @ glyph alone. TikTok Electric cyan-magenta on pure black — vertical-video voltage with custom Proxima Nova display and a bold neon brand grammar. tldraw Casual whiteboard sketchy — hand-drawn UI primitives, dotted-grid canvas, and a soft pastel palette that wears its toy-like energy with confidence. Together AI Deep navy on near-white with Inter sans — open-source LLM cloud rendered as developer-platform infrastructure. Toyota Japanese-reliability mainstream — `#eb0a1e` Toyota red on white, ToyotaType sans, and a calm-confident marketing surface for the world's most-sold automotive brand. Turbo Vercel-grade pure-black canvas with a magenta-to-blue Turbo gradient — the build system that wears its speed as a sweep. Turso SQLite at the edge — a deep-teal canvas with a CRT-bright cyan accent (#00face) that reads as a glowing edge node. Twilio Signal-red `#f22f46` against clean white — communications APIs given the visual weight of a broadcast colour. Twitch Purple `#9146ff` on `#0e0e10` canvas with Inter — the live-streaming UI built around chat, raids, and gaming density. Uber Eats Pure-black ground, Uber Move custom sans, Uber-app continuity — the operating system of food delivery. Udemy Signature `#a435f0` purple on white with Sailec sans — the open course-marketplace bazaar made approachable. Udio A pitch-black stage with near-white Innovator display type and a single magenta-pink spotlight — a recording console reimagined as a creative canvas. Uniqlo Signature red `#ff0000`, Helvetica Neue system stack, japanese-utility-functional grid — the LifeWear engine. Uniswap Uniswap Pink on white — DEX design with Basel sans, unicorn-mark whimsy, and rounded-card softness in a usually-brutalist DeFi space. v0 A near-white prompt canvas with GeistSans and pure OKLCH grayscale — Vercel''s AI builder dressed as the calmest text editor on the internet. Valorant Tactical-shooter design language — Tungsten condensed all-caps, signal-red CTAs, and an off-white text the brand calls "ECE8E1". Venmo A single confident `#3d95ce` blue, Aktiv Grotesk geometry, and a social-feed informality — payments dressed as group chat. Vercel Brutalist developer-product polish — near-white canvas, near-pure black-on-near-white type, Geist sans + mono, conic-gradient accents. Visa Bright-blue + golden-yellow payment-rail confidence — saturated `#1434CB` primary, ceremonial `#FCC015` yellow on hero pill CTAs, pill geometry throughout, custom visa-font-latin in light/regular weights. Vite Electric purple #646cff + Manrope display + a literal lightning-bolt mark — the build tool that designed itself to feel as fast as it is. Vodafone Vodafone Red broadcast band, monumental 144px display, two-tier button system — corporate-newsroom telecom design. Volkswagen People's-car blue — the deep `#001e50` corporate hue, custom VW Sans, and a friendly-German marketing surface that sells everyday mobility with confidence. Walmart Spark-yellow on big-box blue, Antonio Display + Bogle sans — everyday low prices made loud. Warby Parker Friendly-premium DTC eyewear — white canvas, bright blue + deep navy, fully pill CTAs. Warp Near-black canvas, neon-lime cursor, real terminal screenshots — a marketing site that boots like a shell. Wayfair Near-white canvas, ink-black type, photographic product cards — editorial-light home retail at marketplace scale. Weaviate White canvas with Inter and a signature `#1cdb46` open-source green — modular vector database dressed in approachable engineering chrome. webdesignhot AI-era editorial dark — pure black with one acid-lime accent. Webflow Indigo-to-purple gradient discipline with a precise structural sans — the visual builder that markets itself like a design conference. WHOOP Lime `#a0d10b` voltage on jet-black, Inter precision, recovery-data athlete-grade aesthetic. Wikipedia System-default information design — Linux Libertine serif headings, Vector skin, deliberate non-branding for the encyclopedia of record. WIRED Newsstand-density editorial grid, sharp-corner buttons, mono ALL-CAPS kickers — Conde Nast meets engineering lab. Wise A flexible bright-lime green on cream-white — money that travels in sans-serif and a single confident accent. Workday HR-warm professional in tangerine — Adelle Sans humanist curves, signature `#f37721` orange, and a calm white people-first canvas. WorkOS Pure-white canvas with Untitled Sans 80/500 display + indigo-violet h2 — the B2B-enterprise gravitas aesthetic. X Pure-black canvas with Chirp display — algorithmic minimalism, single-letter wordmark, ruthless type discipline. Xbox Xbox Green on near-black, Microsoft's Segoe UI Display dialed to gamer-coded confidence — bold, energetic, Game Pass-first. Y Combinator Brutalist orange monolith — system-font sans on white canvas, signature `#f26625` orange-red blocks with hard 0px corners. You.com Crisp white developer-doc canvas, custom Lumen Sans, and the indigo `#5368EE` accent — a search API rebrand done as enterprise infrastructure. YouTube YouTube Sans + Roboto + signature `#ff0000` red — content-density at planetary scale. Zed Warm paper-light canvas, IBM Plex Serif headlines at light weight, one electric-blue download button — a code editor's site that reads like a typesetter's page. Zoom Zoom Blue `#0B5CFF` on white — geometric sans wordmark, Workplace-era AI Companion friendly-corporate register. Zora Cream-white canvas, electric purple-orange duet, and a custom display — onchain creator network as zine cover.
try on →
theme
mobile · 390 × 844
Tokens webdesignhot/0.1
- bg
#0f0f0f - bg-deep
#0a0a0a - surface
#161616 - surface-elev
#1f1f1f - surface-hover
#262626 - text AAA · 16.5
#eeeeee - text-strong
#ffffff - text-secondary
#b0b0b0 - text-muted
#a3a3a3 - text-faint AA·LG · 4.0
#737373 - brand AA·LG · 3.4
#7c3aed - brand-hover
#6d28d9 - brand-active
#5b21b6 - brand-text
#a78bfa - brand-text-hover
#c4b5fd - brand-soft
#2a1a4a - on-brand
#ffffff - border — · 1.3
#2a2a2a - border-soft
#1f1f1f - border-strong — · 1.7
#3a3a3a - border-brand
#7c3aed - shadow-ambient
rgba(0,0,0,0.40) - shadow-card
rgba(0,0,0,0.50) - shadow-modal
rgba(0,0,0,0.70) - scrim
rgba(0,0,0,0.65) - success
#4ade80 - success-soft
#14321f - warning
#fbbf24 - warning-soft
#33270a - danger
#f87171 - danger-soft
#3a1717 - info
#a78bfa
Ship faster than ever.
display-hero ui-sans-serif 60px w600 -0.02em
Ship faster than ever.
display-lg ui-sans-serif 48px w600 -0.018em
Ship faster than ever.
h1 ui-sans-serif 40px w600 -0.015em
Built for teams that ship.
h2 ui-sans-serif 32px w600 -0.012em
A complete kit
h3 ui-sans-serif 24px w600 -0.005em
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
h4 ui-sans-serif 20px w600 0
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
title-lg ui-sans-serif 18px w600 0
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
body-lg ui-sans-serif 18px w400 0
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
body ui-sans-serif 16px w400 0
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
button ui-sans-serif 15px w500 0
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
nav-link ui-sans-serif 15px w500 0
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
body-sm ui-sans-serif 14px w400 0
npx @webdesignhot/design-md add stripe
code ui-monospace 14px w400 0
OUR DESIGN SYSTEM
label ui-sans-serif 13px w500 0
OUR DESIGN SYSTEM
caption ui-sans-serif 12px w500 0.02em
npx @webdesignhot/design-md add stripe
code-micro ui-monospace 12px w400 0
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
overline ui-sans-serif 11px w600 0.08em
- step-0 0px
- step-1 4px
- step-2 8px
- step-3 12px
- step-4 16px
- step-5 24px
- step-6 32px
- step-7 48px
- step-8 64px
- step-9 96px
- step-10 128px
- micro
2px - sm
4px - md
8px - lg
12px - xl
16px - pill
9999px
Text link →
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A complete kit — everything your product needs.
Hero, pricing, FAQ, dashboard, docs — every layout your product needs.
New
Stable
v1.0
Design roles 6/8 mapped · webdesignhot/0.1
Maps the 8 canonical role names to this entry's actual tokens. Use these to plug the design into role-aware tools — shadcn/ui themes, role-aware Tailwind plugins, atelier-lint — without hard-coding token names.
- background → bg
- foreground → text
- primary → —
- primary-foreground → —
- accent → brand
- muted → text-muted
- border → border
- ring → brand
Export
4 formats · paste-ready
Tailwind
theme.extend block for tailwind.config.js
CSS variables
:root { --bg, --text, --brand, … } you can paste anywhere
DTCG JSON
W3C Design Tokens Community Group format
Figma Variables
Importable into Figma → Variables → Import
---
name: Obsidian
tagline: Near-black canvas, near-white text, a single electric-purple CTA and a crystal mark — a local-first knowledge base that looks like the editor it ships.
updated_at: 2026-05-28T23:12:43.991Z
published_at: 2026-05-28T23:12:43.991Z
author: webdesignhot
source_url: https://obsidian.md
spec: webdesignhot/0.1
quality: curated
featured: false
categories: [saas]
tags: [dark, structured, sans, notes, purple, local-first, developer]
preview_swatch: ['#0f0f0f', '#7c3aed', '#a78bfa']
related: [notion, bear-app, linear]
description: 'Obsidian''s site is the editor it sells, rendered as a marketing page — a near-black `#0f0f0f` canvas, near-white `#eeeeee` body text, and a single electric-purple `#7c3aed` CTA ("Get Obsidian for macOS", `8px` radius, white text) that carries the entire chromatic load. The hero "Sharpen your thinking" sets at 60px / 600 in the platform''s own UI sans (`ui-sans-serif` — no webfont loaded, a deliberate local-first / privacy gesture). The crystal-facet logo is the only ornament. Everything else is dark surface, hairline borders, and disciplined restraint: the page reads as a developer tool that respects your attention, not a SaaS funnel that mines it. Obsidian is the rare site where "your notes are yours" is a design philosophy you can see — no gradients to load, no tracking pixels to dodge, no system font to download.'
# Canonical 8-role aliases (bg / text / brand / border / accent / muted / surface / danger).
# Maps role names to this entry's actual token names so role-aware
# downstream tools resolve `theme.background` → entry's `bg`, etc.
# Auto-generated by scripts/add-aliases.mjs — do not edit manually;
# regenerate after changing color token names.
aliases:
background: bg
foreground: text
accent: brand
muted: text-muted
border: border
ring: brand
colors:
bg: '#0f0f0f' # near-black page canvas — the editor metaphor
bg-deep: '#0a0a0a' # deepest well — behind elevated panels, footer
surface: '#161616' # raised card / panel surface, one step off canvas
surface-elev: '#1f1f1f' # nested card / hovered surface
surface-hover: '#262626' # interactive hover fill (ghost button, list row)
text: '#eeeeee' # primary body + display copy — near-white, never pure
text-strong: '#ffffff' # rare peak — single heaviest display moment
text-secondary: '#b0b0b0' # secondary running-text, deck copy
text-muted: '#a3a3a3' # captions, metadata, footer links
text-faint: '#737373' # disabled / placeholder / fine print
brand: '#7c3aed' # electric purple — the single CTA voltage
brand-hover: '#6d28d9' # pressed / hover state — one stop darker
brand-active: '#5b21b6' # active / depressed CTA
brand-text: '#a78bfa' # lightened purple for links/text on dark (AA-safe)
brand-text-hover: '#c4b5fd' # hover for purple text links
brand-soft: '#2a1a4a' # purple-tinted soft fill for badges/highlights
on-brand: '#ffffff' # white text on the purple CTA
border: '#2a2a2a' # default hairline divider on dark
border-soft: '#1f1f1f' # near-invisible structural divider
border-strong: '#3a3a3a' # focused input / emphasized edge
border-brand: '#7c3aed' # focus ring + active-input edge
shadow-ambient: 'rgba(0,0,0,0.40)' # subtle lift on dark
shadow-card: 'rgba(0,0,0,0.50)' # raised card / dropdown
shadow-modal: 'rgba(0,0,0,0.70)' # heavy lift for modals/popovers
scrim: 'rgba(0,0,0,0.65)' # modal backdrop over canvas
success: '#4ade80' # confirmation green
success-soft: '#14321f'
warning: '#fbbf24' # advisory amber
warning-soft: '#33270a'
danger: '#f87171' # form-error red on dark
danger-soft: '#3a1717'
info: '#a78bfa' # informational accent — same family as brand-text
typography:
display:
family: 'ui-sans-serif, system-ui, -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto, sans-serif'
weights: [500, 600, 700]
opentype-features: ['kern', 'liga']
body:
family: 'ui-sans-serif, system-ui, -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto, sans-serif'
weights: [400, 500, 600]
mono:
family: 'ui-monospace, SFMono-Regular, "SF Mono", Menlo, Monaco, Consolas, "Liberation Mono", monospace'
weights: [400, 500]
scale:
display-hero: { size: 60, weight: 600, lineHeight: 1.05, tracking: '-0.02em', family: display, opentype: ['kern'] }
display-lg: { size: 48, weight: 600, lineHeight: 1.08, tracking: '-0.018em', family: display }
h1: { size: 40, weight: 600, lineHeight: 1.10, tracking: '-0.015em', family: display }
h2: { size: 32, weight: 600, lineHeight: 1.20, tracking: '-0.012em', family: display }
h3: { size: 24, weight: 600, lineHeight: 1.25, tracking: '-0.005em', family: display }
h4: { size: 20, weight: 600, lineHeight: 1.30, tracking: '0', family: body }
title-lg: { size: 18, weight: 600, lineHeight: 1.40, tracking: '0', family: body }
body-lg: { size: 18, weight: 400, lineHeight: 1.60, tracking: '0', family: body }
body: { size: 16, weight: 400, lineHeight: 1.55, tracking: '0', family: body }
body-sm: { size: 14, weight: 400, lineHeight: 1.50, tracking: '0', family: body }
label: { size: 13, weight: 500, lineHeight: 1.40, tracking: '0', family: body }
button: { size: 15, weight: 500, lineHeight: 1.20, tracking: '0', family: body }
nav-link: { size: 15, weight: 500, lineHeight: 1.40, tracking: '0', family: body }
caption: { size: 12, weight: 500, lineHeight: 1.40, tracking: '0.02em', family: body }
overline: { size: 11, weight: 600, lineHeight: 1.30, tracking: '0.08em', family: body, transform: uppercase }
code: { size: 14, weight: 400, lineHeight: 1.55, tracking: '0', family: mono }
code-micro: { size: 12, weight: 400, lineHeight: 1.50, tracking: '0', family: mono }
radius:
micro: 2
sm: 4
md: 8 # the CTA + buttons + inputs — the dominant rounding
lg: 12 # cards / panels
xl: 16 # large feature shells / screenshots
pill: 9999
spacing:
base: 4
scale: [0, 4, 8, 12, 16, 24, 32, 48, 64, 96, 128]
layout:
page-width: 1280
prose-width: 720
header-height: 64
hero-height: 640
components:
cta-primary:
bg: '#7c3aed'
color: '#ffffff'
radius: 8
padding: '10px 16px'
height: 40
font: button
use: 'The signature CTA — "Get Obsidian for macOS". Electric purple, white text, 8px radius. The only saturated element on the page.'
cta-primary-hover:
bg: '#6d28d9'
color: '#ffffff'
radius: 8
use: 'Hover — one stop darker purple. No transform, no glow.'
button-ghost:
bg: 'transparent'
color: '#eeeeee'
border: '1px solid #2a2a2a'
radius: 8
padding: '10px 16px'
height: 40
font: button
use: 'Secondary action — outlined ghost on dark. Fill warms to #262626 on hover.'
button-quiet:
bg: 'transparent'
color: '#b0b0b0'
radius: 8
padding: '8px 12px'
use: 'Tertiary / nav-adjacent text button. Text brightens to #eeeeee on hover, no border.'
cta-platform-split:
bg: '#7c3aed'
color: '#ffffff'
radius: 8
use: 'The download CTA with an OS-selector caret on the right edge (macOS / Windows / Linux / mobile). Caret region divides with a subtle on-brand hairline.'
card:
bg: '#161616'
color: '#eeeeee'
border: '1px solid #2a2a2a'
radius: 12
padding: '24px'
use: 'Feature panel — raised one step off canvas via surface tone + hairline, not shadow.'
card-elev:
bg: '#1f1f1f'
color: '#eeeeee'
border: '1px solid #3a3a3a'
radius: 12
use: 'Nested / hovered card — a second tonal step up.'
input:
bg: '#0f0f0f'
color: '#eeeeee'
border: '1px solid #2a2a2a'
radius: 8
height: 40
padding: '8px 12px'
placeholder: '#737373'
focus: 'border becomes #7c3aed (1px) + faint purple ring'
use: 'Text input — inset darker than card, purple focus edge.'
badge-soft:
bg: '#2a1a4a'
color: '#a78bfa'
radius: 9999
padding: '3px 10px'
font: caption
use: 'Inline tag / status chip — purple-tinted soft fill, lightened-purple text. Used sparingly ("New", "v1.x").'
badge-neutral:
bg: '#1f1f1f'
color: '#a3a3a3'
border: '1px solid #2a2a2a'
radius: 9999
padding: '3px 10px'
font: caption
use: 'Neutral metadata chip — platform / category tags.'
nav-top:
bg: '#0f0f0fcc'
color: '#eeeeee'
height: 64
border: '0 0 1px 0 solid #2a2a2a'
use: 'Sticky top nav — translucent near-black with backdrop blur, hairline bottom border. Crystal mark left, links centre, purple CTA right.'
link-inline:
color: '#a78bfa'
use: 'Inline body link — lightened purple (AA-safe on dark). Underline appears on hover.'
motion:
ease-standard: 'cubic-bezier(0.4, 0, 0.2, 1)'
ease-out: 'cubic-bezier(0.0, 0, 0.2, 1)'
ease-emphasized: 'cubic-bezier(0.2, 0, 0, 1)'
duration-fast: 150
duration-standard: 240
duration-slow: 320
button-hover: 'background 150ms standard — colour only, no transform'
link-underline: 'underline fades in over 150ms on hover'
scroll-reveal: 'sections fade + 8px rise over 320ms ease-out on viewport entry'
graph-pulse: 'optional node-graph ornament gently animates connection lines — decorative only'
reduced-motion: 'respects prefers-reduced-motion: reduce — scroll-reveal becomes static render, graph animation pauses, transforms suppressed'
breakpoints:
mobile: 640
tablet: 1024
desktop: 1280
wide: 1536
shadows:
ambient: 'rgba(0,0,0,0.40) 0 1px 2px 0'
card: 'rgba(0,0,0,0.50) 0 8px 24px -8px'
modal: 'rgba(0,0,0,0.70) 0 24px 64px -16px'
ring: '0 0 0 3px rgba(124,58,237,0.40)'
accessibility:
contrast-text-on-bg: 16.5 # #eeeeee on #0f0f0f — AAA
contrast-text-on-surface: 14.6 # #eeeeee on #161616 — AAA
contrast-on-brand: 5.7 # #ffffff on #7c3aed — AA (CTA label)
contrast-brand-on-bg: 3.4 # #7c3aed on #0f0f0f — AA large only (never body text)
contrast-brand-text-on-bg: 7.0 # #a78bfa on #0f0f0f — AAA (the safe purple for links/text)
contrast-secondary-on-bg: 8.8 # #b0b0b0 on #0f0f0f — AAA
contrast-muted-on-bg: 7.6 # #a3a3a3 on #0f0f0f — AAA
focus-ring: '3px rgba(124,58,237,0.40) ring + 1px solid #7c3aed border on focusable controls'
reduced-motion-honored: true
touch-target-min: 40
dark-mode: 'dark-only' # The marketing site is dark-only — it mirrors Obsidian's default dark editor theme. The app itself ships full light/dark + community themes, but the public site renders near-black canvas exclusively as a brand-identity choice.
---
## 1. Visual Theme & Atmosphere
Obsidian's site is the editor it sells, rendered as a marketing page. The canvas is a near-black `#0f0f0f` — the exact mood of the app's default dark theme — and the body copy sits in a near-white `#eeeeee` that never tips to pure white. The hero, "Sharpen your thinking", sets at 60px in the platform's own UI sans (`ui-sans-serif`) at weight 600 — not 700, not bold-marketing impact, just confident. The single saturated element on the entire page is the electric-purple `#7c3aed` "Get Obsidian for macOS" button at 8px radius. Everything else is dark surface, hairline borders, and the crystal-facet logo. The page does not so much sell you a tool as *show* you the room the tool lives in.
The atmosphere is **developer-tool restraint**: a page built by people who treat your attention as something to be respected rather than harvested. There are no gradient washes to download, no hero video, no animated illustrations beyond an optional gently-pulsing node-graph ornament that nods at Obsidian's signature graph view. The whole composition reads as *quiet competence* — closer to a well-configured terminal or a Linear/Vercel dashboard than to a consumer-SaaS funnel. The single purple CTA does all the chromatic work; remove it and the page would be a pure greyscale study.
The most telling decision is the typography: **no webfont is loaded.** The page renders entirely in `ui-sans-serif` / `system-ui` — San Francisco on Mac, Segoe on Windows, Roboto on Android. This is not laziness; it is the brand's local-first ethos made visible. A product whose entire pitch is "your notes are plain files on your own disk, no cloud required" refuses to make your browser phone home for a font. The page loads instantly, works offline-ish, and tracks nothing — the medium *is* the message.
Colour is rationed with monastic discipline. The palette is a near-black canvas, a near-white ink, a stepped greyscale of surfaces (`#0f0f0f` → `#161616` → `#1f1f1f` → `#262626`), hairline borders in `#2a2a2a`, and exactly one accent: purple. Purple is the brand voltage and the CTA fill; on dark backgrounds where the saturated `#7c3aed` fails contrast as text, it is lightened to a violet `#a78bfa` for links. The page never introduces a second accent. There is no teal, no amber-for-warmth, no blue-for-trust — just purple-on-near-black, the way the crystal logo glints against the editor.
The result is a page that signals its values before you read a word: **dark because that is where focused work happens; system-font because your machine is yours; purple-and-crystal because that is the mark; nothing else, because everything else is noise.** Obsidian is the rare site where "your notes are yours" is a design philosophy you can actually see.
**Key Characteristics:**
- Near-black canvas (`#0f0f0f`) — the app's default dark editor theme, lifted to marketing
- Near-white ink (`#eeeeee`) — never pure white; calmer on dark, hits 16.5:1 AAA contrast
- A single accent — electric purple (`#7c3aed`) — carrying the entire chromatic load
- System UI sans (`ui-sans-serif`), no webfont — the local-first / privacy ethos made literal
- Hero at 60px / weight 600 — confident, not bold-marketing-loud
- Crystal-facet logo as the only ornament; optional pulsing node-graph nod to graph view
- Stepped greyscale surfaces (`#0f0f0f` → `#161616` → `#1f1f1f` → `#262626`) for elevation, not shadow stacks
- Hairline `#2a2a2a` borders define structure; depth comes from tone, not drop shadow
- 8px radius on the CTA / buttons / inputs — crisp, developer-tool corners (not pill, not sharp)
- Purple lightens to `#a78bfa` for text/links on dark (the saturated brand fails AA as small text)
- Page loads instantly and tracks nothing — performance and privacy are aesthetic choices
## 2. Color Palette & Roles
### Primary
- **Canvas** (`#0f0f0f`) [→ `bg`]: near-black page floor — the editor metaphor; the default of everything.
- **Deep Well** (`#0a0a0a`) [→ `bg-deep`]: the darkest tone — behind elevated panels and in the footer.
- **Ink** (`#eeeeee`) [→ `text`]: primary body and display copy — near-white, never pure `#ffffff`.
- **Ink Strong** (`#ffffff`) [→ `text-strong`]: rare; the single heaviest display moment per page.
### Brand
- **Brand Purple** (`#7c3aed`) [→ `brand`]: the one accent — CTA fill, focus edge, the crystal-logo voltage.
- **Brand Hover** (`#6d28d9`) [→ `brand-hover`]: CTA hover — one stop darker.
- **Brand Active** (`#5b21b6`) [→ `brand-active`]: pressed CTA — two stops darker.
- **Brand Soft** (`#2a1a4a`) [→ `brand-soft`]: purple-tinted soft fill for badges and inline highlights.
### Accent
There is no decorative accent beyond purple. The page is greyscale + a single purple voltage. Any "second accent" is a violation of the system.
### Interactive
- **Brand Text** (`#a78bfa`) [→ `brand-text`]: inline links and purple text *on dark* — lightened so it passes AAA where `#7c3aed` would fail. **Use this, not `brand`, for any purple text.**
- **Brand Text Hover** (`#c4b5fd`) [→ `brand-text-hover`]: link hover — lighter still; underline fades in.
- **On-Brand** (`#ffffff`) [→ `on-brand`]: white label on the purple CTA fill.
- **Focus Ring** (`rgba(124,58,237,0.40)`) [→ `border-brand`]: 3px purple ring + 1px purple border on focused controls.
- **Disabled** (`#737373` text on `#161616` fill): drained grey, no purple.
### Neutral Scale
- **Ink Strong** (`#ffffff`) — peak display, single moment per page
- **Ink** (`#eeeeee`) — body, primary display, the dominant text colour
- **Secondary** (`#b0b0b0`) — deck copy, secondary running-text (8.8:1 AAA)
- **Muted** (`#a3a3a3`) — captions, metadata, footer links (7.6:1 AAA)
- **Faint** (`#737373`) — disabled, placeholder, fine print
### Surface & Borders
- **Canvas** (`#0f0f0f`) — page floor
- **Surface** (`#161616`) — raised card / panel, one step off canvas
- **Surface Elev** (`#1f1f1f`) — nested / hovered card, second step
- **Surface Hover** (`#262626`) — interactive hover fill (ghost button, list row)
- **Border** (`#2a2a2a`) — default hairline divider
- **Border Soft** (`#1f1f1f`) — near-invisible structural divider
- **Border Strong** (`#3a3a3a`) — focused input / emphasized edge
### Shadow Colors
Obsidian uses **pure-black** shadows (`rgba(0,0,0,…)`) at higher opacities than a light site would — on a near-black canvas, shadow must be deeper than the surface to register at all. Most surfaces, however, use *no shadow*; elevation is communicated by stepping the surface tone up (`#0f0f0f` → `#161616` → `#1f1f1f`) and adding a `#2a2a2a` hairline. Shadow is reserved for genuinely floating chrome.
- `rgba(0,0,0,0.40) 0 1px 2px 0` — ambient lift (sticky nav at scroll)
- `rgba(0,0,0,0.50) 0 8px 24px -8px` — raised card / dropdown
- `rgba(0,0,0,0.70) 0 24px 64px -16px` — modal / popover
### Semantic
- **Success** (`#4ade80` on `#14321f`) — confirmation green, brightened for dark legibility.
- **Warning** (`#fbbf24` on `#33270a`) — advisory amber.
- **Danger** (`#f87171` on `#3a1717`) — form-error red, softened for dark (a saturated `#dc2626` would vibrate on black).
- **Info** (`#a78bfa` on `#2a1a4a`) — informational accent — *intentionally* the same violet as the link colour. Obsidian treats "information" and "brand" as one voice.
## 3. Typography Rules
### Font Family
**Display & Body (one family)**: `ui-sans-serif, system-ui, -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto, sans-serif`. There is **no webfont**. Display and body share the system UI sans — they differ only by weight and size, never family. On macOS this resolves to San Francisco, on Windows to Segoe UI, on Android to Roboto. The page deliberately uses whatever native sans the reader's OS provides.
**Mono**: `ui-monospace, SFMono-Regular, "SF Mono", Menlo, Monaco, Consolas, "Liberation Mono", monospace` — used for code samples, file paths (`~/vault/notes.md`), and any moment that demonstrates Obsidian's plain-text-files-on-disk pitch.
**OpenType features**: `kern` and `liga` on, inherited from the system face. No custom stylistic sets — the brand uses the OS font exactly as the OS ships it.
The single-family decision is the brand's typographic fingerprint, and it is doing ideological work. Most note-apps load a webfont to feel "designed" (Bear ships two in-house cuts; Notion loads its own sans). Obsidian's refusal to load *any* webfont is the most on-brand move on the page: a local-first product that won't make your browser fetch a remote asset to render a marketing headline. The type looks "designed" by being calm and well-spaced, not by being bespoke.
### Hierarchy
| Role | Font | Size | Weight | Line Height | Letter Spacing | OT Features | Notes |
|------|------|------|--------|-------------|----------------|-------------|-------|
| display-hero | system sans | 60 | 600 | 1.05 | -0.02em | kern | Hero "Sharpen your thinking" — peak moment (live-probed at 60/600) |
| display-lg | system sans | 48 | 600 | 1.08 | -0.018em | — | Large section opener |
| h1 | system sans | 40 | 600 | 1.10 | -0.015em | — | Page / section heading |
| h2 | system sans | 32 | 600 | 1.20 | -0.012em | — | Sub-section opener |
| h3 | system sans | 24 | 600 | 1.25 | -0.005em | — | Feature title |
| h4 | system sans | 20 | 600 | 1.30 | 0 | — | Card title |
| title-lg | system sans | 18 | 600 | 1.40 | 0 | — | Inline emphasis title |
| body-lg | system sans | 18 | 400 | 1.60 | 0 | — | Hero deck — slightly larger body |
| body | system sans | 16 | 400 | 1.55 | 0 | — | Default running-text (live-probed at 16/400) |
| body-sm | system sans | 14 | 400 | 1.50 | 0 | — | Card meta, secondary copy |
| label | system sans | 13 | 500 | 1.40 | 0 | — | Form label, small UI label |
| button | system sans | 15 | 500 | 1.20 | 0 | — | CTA / button label |
| nav-link | system sans | 15 | 500 | 1.40 | 0 | — | Top-nav item |
| caption | system sans | 12 | 500 | 1.40 | 0.02em | — | Timestamp, fine metadata |
| overline | system sans | 11 | 600 | 1.30 | 0.08em | uppercase | Section eyebrow |
| code | mono | 14 | 400 | 1.55 | 0 | — | Code / file-path sample |
| code-micro | mono | 12 | 400 | 1.50 | 0 | — | Inline `⌘P`-style shortcut bubble |
### Principles
- **One family, no webfont.** Display and body are the same system UI sans, differing only by weight/size. Loading a webfont would betray the local-first ethos — don't.
- **Display tops out at weight 600, not 700.** The hero is confident, not loud. Weight 600 at 60px reads as "engineered" rather than "marketed". Pushing to 700/800 tips the page toward generic startup-bold.
- **Near-white ink, never pure white.** Body copy is `#eeeeee` — on a near-black canvas, pure `#ffffff` vibrates and fatigues. The slightly-off white is calmer and still hits 16.5:1 AAA.
- **Negative tracking on display only.** Hero `-0.02em`, h1 `-0.015em`, tapering to `0` by h4. Body and below stay at `0`; only the tiny caption/overline get positive tracking.
- **16px body at 1.55 line-height.** Comfortable web body, generous leading — the editor's own reading rhythm.
- **Mono for anything plain-text.** File paths, code, shortcuts render in `ui-monospace` — the page makes the product's core promise (plain `.md` files on disk) typographic.
- **Inter is the closest substitute** if a build can't use the system sans. Inter at weight 400/600 approximates SF / Segoe cleanly. Never substitute a serif or a "designer" sans — the point is system-native neutrality.
## 4. Component Stylings
### Buttons
**`cta-primary`** — The signature CTA. Electric-purple `#7c3aed` fill, white text at 15px / 500, **8px radius**, 10×16px padding, 40px height. This is the only saturated element on the page — "Get Obsidian for macOS". Everything visual on the page funnels to this one button.
**`cta-primary-hover`** — Pointer hover. Fill darkens to `#6d28d9` over 150ms standard. **No transform, no scale, no glow** — colour only. Active state goes to `#5b21b6`.
**`cta-platform-split`** — The download CTA with an OS-selector caret (macOS / Windows / Linux / iOS / Android). The caret region is divided from the label by a subtle on-brand hairline; clicking the caret opens a small dropdown of platform options.
**`button-ghost`** — Secondary action. Transparent fill, `#eeeeee` text, 1px `#2a2a2a` border, 8px radius. On hover the fill warms to `#262626` (no border change). Used for "Read the docs", "Browse plugins".
**`button-quiet`** — Tertiary / nav-adjacent text button. No border, no fill; `#b0b0b0` text that brightens to `#eeeeee` on hover. Used for utility links ("Sign in", "Sync", "Pricing").
### Cards
**`card`** — Feature panel. `#161616` fill (one tonal step off canvas), `#eeeeee` text, 1px `#2a2a2a` hairline border, **12px radius**, 24px padding. **No shadow** — the surface step plus hairline is the elevation language. Inside: h4 title in `#eeeeee`, body in `#b0b0b0`.
**`card-elev`** — Nested or hovered card. `#1f1f1f` fill, `#3a3a3a` border — a second tonal step up. Used for cards-within-cards (a plugin card inside a feature panel) or as the hover state of `card`.
**`feature-screenshot`** — App screenshot of the editor itself (showing the dark theme with purple accents — the page literally pictures itself). 16px radius, optional `rgba(0,0,0,0.50) 0 8px 24px -8px` shadow to float it off the canvas.
### Badges, Tags, Pills
**`badge-soft`** — Purple-tinted chip. `#2a1a4a` fill, `#a78bfa` text, 9999px radius, 3×10px padding, 12px caption. Used sparingly for "New", version tags, "Free". The only place soft purple appears outside the CTA.
**`badge-neutral`** — Neutral metadata chip. `#1f1f1f` fill, `#a3a3a3` text, 1px `#2a2a2a` border, pill radius. Platform tags (macOS / Windows / Linux), category labels in the plugin directory.
### Inputs / Forms
**`input`** — Text input. `#0f0f0f` fill (inset *darker* than the surrounding card — the field reads as "below" the surface), `#eeeeee` text, 1px `#2a2a2a` border, 8px radius, 40px height, 8×12px padding. Placeholder in `#737373`. On focus, the border becomes `#7c3aed` (1px) with a faint `rgba(124,58,237,0.40)` 3px ring. Newsletter / search / vault-name fields.
**`select` / `dropdown`** — Same chassis as input; chevron in `#a3a3a3`. Open panel uses `card` surface (`#161616`) with `shadow-card`.
### Navigation
**`nav-top`** — Sticky top nav, 64px height. Translucent near-black (`#0f0f0fcc`) with a backdrop blur so content blurs behind it on scroll, and a 1px `#2a2a2a` bottom hairline. **Crystal-facet logo + "Obsidian" wordmark** flush left in `#eeeeee` — the logo is the only ornament in the chrome. Centre: nav links (Features, Pricing, Plugins, Docs) in 15px / 500 `#eeeeee`. Right: a `button-quiet` ("Sign in") + the purple `cta-primary` ("Download").
**`nav-link`** — `#eeeeee` at rest, no underline. Hover brings a subtle `#a78bfa` underline / colour lift. Active page link sits at full `#ffffff`.
**`footer`** — `#0a0a0a` deep-well background, column heads in 13px / 600 `#eeeeee`, links in 14px / 400 `#a3a3a3`. The crystal mark reappears, muted. Multi-column: Product / Community / Resources / Company.
### Decorative
**`graph-ornament`** — An optional node-graph SVG (nodes + connecting edges) that nods at Obsidian's signature graph view. Edges may gently pulse / draw on viewport entry. Rendered in muted purple (`#a78bfa` at low opacity) on the canvas. Purely decorative — `aria-hidden="true"`.
## 5. Layout Principles
### Spacing System
- Base unit: **4px**
- Scale: `0 · 4 · 8 · 12 · 16 · 24 · 32 · 48 · 64 · 96 · 128`
- Section padding (vertical): 96–128px between major bands — generous, lets the dark canvas breathe
- Card internal padding: 24px on feature cards; 16px on compact list rows
- Inter-card gutters: 24px in feature grids
- The dark canvas does a lot of the spacing work — empty near-black space reads as deliberate, not unfinished
### Grid & Container
- Max content width: **1280px** — standard modern marketing width, wider than Bear's magazine-tight 1080px
- Prose / reading column: 720px for long-form (docs, blog)
- Hero: single-column, centred — H1 + deck + the purple CTA + an editor screenshot beneath
- Feature grid: 3-up at desktop → 2-up at tablet → 1-up at mobile
- 24px gutters; the grid sits inside the 1280px container with generous side margins on wide screens
### Whitespace Philosophy
On a near-black canvas, **negative space is the primary compositional tool.** Where a light site fills space with subtle tints and borders, Obsidian leaves the canvas dark and empty — the void reads as focus, not absence. Surfaces (cards) appear only where there is content to hold; between them is pure `#0f0f0f`. This is the editor's own aesthetic: a dark workspace where the only bright things are the words you wrote and the one action you can take.
### Section Cadence
A typical Obsidian page runs:
1. **Hero** — 60px / 600 H1 ("Sharpen your thinking"), 18px deck in `#b0b0b0`, purple `cta-primary` with OS-selector, editor screenshot floating beneath (optional graph-ornament behind)
2. **Feature spread** — 3-up cards on the dark canvas (Local files, Links & graph, Plugins) — each a `#161616` panel with hairline border
3. **Graph showcase** — the signature node-graph view, large, with a short caption — the product's most recognizable surface
4. **Plugins / community** — grid of plugin cards, neutral badges, a "Browse 2,000+ plugins" ghost button
5. **Sync / Publish band** — the paid tiers, presented as calm feature cards, not aggressive pricing tables
6. **Closing CTA band** — a centred restatement of the purple CTA over empty canvas
7. **Footer** — deep-well `#0a0a0a`, muted multi-column links, crystal mark
The page does not alternate light/dark — it is dark throughout. The "alternation" is canvas (`#0f0f0f`) vs. card surface (`#161616`) tonal contrast.
## 6. Shapes & Radius Scale
| Tier | Value | Use |
|------|-------|-----|
| Micro | 2px | Inline code chips, tiny indicators |
| Small | 4px | Nested elements, fine controls |
| Standard | 8px | CTA, buttons, inputs — the dominant rounding |
| Comfortable | 12px | Cards, panels |
| Large | 16px | Feature shells, app screenshots |
| Pill | 9999px | Badges, neutral chips |
Obsidian's radius hierarchy is **developer-tool crisp** — the dominant 8px on buttons and inputs is the modern-app sweet spot: rounded enough to feel finished, sharp enough to feel engineered (not the soft 12–16px of consumer apps, not the pill-everything of marketing sites). Cards step to 12px; the largest shells and screenshots to 16px. Pill radius is reserved for badges only — the page never makes a pill button, because a pill CTA would read as "consumer", and Obsidian is positioning as a serious tool.
## 7. Depth & Elevation
| Level | Treatment | Use |
|-------|-----------|-----|
| 0 — Canvas | no shadow, `#0f0f0f` | The page floor, hero, empty space (~70% of surface) |
| 1 — Surface | tonal step to `#161616` + 1px `#2a2a2a` hairline, no shadow | Feature cards, panels |
| 2 — Elevated surface | tonal step to `#1f1f1f` + `#3a3a3a` border | Nested / hovered cards |
| 3 — Floating | `rgba(0,0,0,0.40) 0 1px 2px 0` | Sticky nav at scroll, subtle inputs |
| 4 — Raised | `rgba(0,0,0,0.50) 0 8px 24px -8px` | Dropdowns, popovers, screenshots |
| 5 — Modal | scrim `rgba(0,0,0,0.65)` + `rgba(0,0,0,0.70) 0 24px 64px -16px` | Sign-in / vault dialog |
### Shadow Philosophy
On a near-black canvas, **shadow is a weak signal** — a `rgba(0,0,0,…)` shadow against `#0f0f0f` is barely darker than the floor it sits on. So Obsidian inverts the usual elevation strategy: **depth is communicated by stepping the surface *lighter*, not by casting a shadow darker.** A raised card is `#161616` (lighter than canvas) with a hairline border; a more-raised card is `#1f1f1f`. Shadow is reserved for chrome that genuinely floats over content (dropdowns, modals, the sticky nav), and even then it is used at high opacity (0.50–0.70) purely so it registers at all. The hairline `#2a2a2a` border, not the shadow, is what draws the eye to a surface edge. This is the dark-mode elevation discipline that Linear, Vercel, and well-built developer dashboards all share.
## 8. Interaction & Motion
### Easing
- **Standard**: `cubic-bezier(0.4, 0, 0.2, 1)` — default for hover colour swaps, border transitions
- **Out**: `cubic-bezier(0.0, 0, 0.2, 1)` — scroll-reveal entrances
- **Emphasized**: `cubic-bezier(0.2, 0, 0, 1)` — modal entry, dropdown open
### Durations
| Bucket | Value | Use |
|--------|-------|-----|
| Fast | 150ms | Button hover, link underline, focus-ring fade |
| Standard | 240ms | Card hover, dropdown open, border transitions |
| Slow | 320ms | Scroll-reveal, modal entry, graph-line draw |
### Per-Component Recipes
- **CTA hover**: fill `#7c3aed` → `#6d28d9` over 150ms standard. **No transform, no scale.** Active → `#5b21b6`.
- **Ghost button hover**: transparent → `#262626` fill over 150ms; border unchanged.
- **Card hover**: surface lifts a tonal step (`#161616` → `#1f1f1f`) and border brightens (`#2a2a2a` → `#3a3a3a`) over 240ms. No translate.
- **Link hover**: colour `#a78bfa` → `#c4b5fd`; underline fades in over 150ms.
- **Focus**: 3px `rgba(124,58,237,0.40)` ring + 1px purple border appears over 150ms on keyboard focus.
- **Scroll-reveal**: sections fade in + rise 8px over 320ms ease-out on first viewport entry. One-shot.
- **Graph ornament**: connection edges gently draw / pulse — decorative, low-amplitude, never demands attention.
### Page Transitions
Navigation is a quiet 240ms cross-fade; the sticky nav stays fixed. Anchored links smooth-scroll over 320ms emphasized. Nothing is showy — motion exists to soften state changes, not to perform.
### Reduced Motion
Respects `prefers-reduced-motion: reduce`. Scroll-reveal becomes static render-on-mount (no fade, no rise). The graph-ornament animation pauses to a static frame. Hover transforms (none exist) and all translate/scale are suppressed. Colour-only transitions (button hover, link colour) may remain since they don't induce motion.
## 9. Accessibility & A11y
### Contrast Pairs
| Pair | Ratio | Level |
|------|-------|-------|
| #eeeeee ink on #0f0f0f canvas | 16.5 | AAA |
| #eeeeee ink on #161616 surface | 14.6 | AAA |
| #ffffff label on #7c3aed CTA | 5.7 | AA (passes for the 15px/500 button label) |
| #7c3aed brand on #0f0f0f | 3.4 | **AA large only — never use as body text** |
| #a78bfa brand-text on #0f0f0f | 7.0 | AAA — the safe purple for links / small text |
| #b0b0b0 secondary on #0f0f0f | 8.8 | AAA |
| #a3a3a3 muted on #0f0f0f | 7.6 | AAA |
The critical accessibility nuance: **the brand purple `#7c3aed` only reaches 3.4:1 on the canvas** — it passes for large UI and as a button fill (with white text), but it *fails* as small purple text on dark. The page therefore uses the lightened `#a78bfa` (7.0:1, AAA) for every inline link and purple text run. Treating `brand` and `brand-text` as two distinct tokens is not optional polish — it is what keeps the dark theme readable.
### Focus Indicators
Focus is a 3px `rgba(124,58,237,0.40)` ring plus a 1px solid `#7c3aed` border on the focused control. On the dark canvas the semi-transparent purple ring is clearly visible against `#0f0f0f` without being garish. Focus is never removed; keyboard and pointer users get the same target.
### ARIA Patterns
- **Top nav**: `<nav>` landmark with `aria-label="Primary"`. The crystal logo is an `<img alt="Obsidian">` linking home.
- **Platform-split CTA**: the OS-selector caret is a `<button aria-haspopup="menu" aria-expanded>`; the dropdown is `role="menu"` with `role="menuitem"` per platform.
- **Plugin grid**: each card is a link with an accessible name; neutral badges are decorative text, not separate controls.
- **Graph ornament**: `aria-hidden="true"` — purely visual.
- **Modal** (sign-in / vault): focus trap, Esc closes, click-outside closes, focus returns to trigger.
### Keyboard Navigation
- Top nav: Tab logo → Features → Pricing → Plugins → Docs → Sign in → Download
- Platform-split CTA: Tab to the button; Enter downloads default OS; the caret button opens the menu, arrow keys navigate platforms
- Cards: Tab moves card → card; Enter activates the link
- Modal: Tab cycles within the dialog only
### Screen Reader Hints
The crystal logo carries `alt="Obsidian"`. App screenshots carry descriptive alt text ("Obsidian editor in dark theme, a note open with a backlinks panel and the graph view in the sidebar"). The graph ornament is `aria-hidden`. The CTA's accessible name includes the platform ("Download Obsidian for macOS").
### Reduced Motion
All entrance animations degrade to static render. The graph ornament freezes. Colour-only hover transitions may remain. No essential information is conveyed by motion alone.
## 10. Responsive Behavior
### Breakpoints
| Name | Width | Key Changes |
|------|-------|-------------|
| Mobile | <640px | Nav collapses to logo + hamburger; hero h1 drops 60 → 36px; CTA goes full-width; feature cards 1-up; graph ornament hidden |
| Tablet | 640–1024px | Inline nav links may persist; hero h1 at ~44px; feature cards 2-up; screenshot at 90% width |
| Desktop | 1024–1280px | Full nav; hero h1 at 60px; feature cards 3-up; screenshot up to 1100px |
| Wide | >1280px | Content caps at 1280px; canvas absorbs the extra width as empty near-black margin |
### Touch Targets
- Purple CTA: 40px height; on mobile it goes full-width for an easy thumb target (44px+ effective row)
- Nav links: minimum 44×44px hit area in the mobile sheet
- Plugin / feature cards: the whole card is the tap target
- Inputs: 40px height, 44px+ effective with padding
### Collapsing Strategy
- Top nav links collapse into a hamburger sheet below 640px; the purple CTA stays visible in the collapsed bar
- Feature grids: 3 → 2 → 1 columns
- The graph-view showcase scales down; on mobile it may switch to a simpler static node image to keep payload light (the no-webfont/perf ethos carries into imagery)
- App screenshots scale by viewport, never crop; 16px radius scales proportionally
### Image Behavior
Editor screenshots render at 2x as PNG/WebP with 16px radius and optional `rgba(0,0,0,0.50)` shadow. They scale `width: 100%; height: auto`. Because the canvas is dark and the screenshots *are* of the dark editor, screenshots blend seamlessly into the page — there is no light-on-dark seam to manage.
### Container Queries
Used on the platform-split CTA: when the available width is too narrow for "Get Obsidian for macOS" + caret, the label shortens to "Download" and the OS name moves into the dropdown.
## 11. Content & Voice
### Tone
Plainspoken, technical, quietly confident. Obsidian's voice trusts the reader to be the kind of person who wants their notes as plain files — it doesn't over-explain, doesn't hype, doesn't use exclamation marks. Headlines are short imperatives or claims ("Sharpen your thinking", "Your thoughts are yours", "A second brain, for you, forever"). The copy assumes competence and rewards it.
### Microcopy Patterns
- **Button verbs**: "Get Obsidian", "Download", "Read the docs", "Browse plugins" — direct, outcome-named
- **Error message recipe**: `[What went wrong] + [What to try]` — e.g., "Couldn't open that vault. Check the folder still exists, then try again."
- **Success confirmations**: short, factual — "Synced." / "Vault created."
- **Field labels**: minimal — "Email", "Vault name" — no friendly framing
### Empty States
The empty-vault state in screenshots: "Create your first note." — single declarative line. The paid-feature gate (Sync / Publish): "Obsidian Sync keeps your vault in sync across devices. Try it free." — names the value, offers the path, no pressure.
### CTA Verb Conventions
- Primary action: **"Get Obsidian"** / **"Download"** (with OS selector)
- Secondary action: **"Read the docs"**, **"Browse plugins"**, **"Learn more"**
- Tertiary text: **"Sign in"**, **"See pricing"**, **"Join the community"**
- Avoided: "Get started free!", "Sign up now", "Click here", "Buy" — Obsidian uses calm outcome verbs, never funnel-urgency
## 12. Dark Mode & Theming
**Dark-only marketing surface.** The public site renders exclusively on the near-black `#0f0f0f` canvas — it mirrors Obsidian's default dark editor theme as a deliberate brand-identity choice. This is the inverse of most sites (which are light-only and ship a dark *app*): here the *site* is dark because the *brand* is dark, and the dark editor is the product's most recognizable face.
The app itself, by contrast, ships a full theming system — light and dark base themes plus a large community-theme ecosystem and per-vault CSS snippets (theming your own vault is a core feature). The marketing site does not expose a light toggle; it commits to dark to *show* the default experience.
If a light variant were ever shipped, the token swap would be: canvas `#ffffff`, surface `#f6f6f6`, ink `#1a1a1a`, border `#e5e5e5`, brand purple **unchanged** at `#7c3aed` (it passes AA as a CTA fill on white and is legible as text on light, so the `brand-text` lightening would no longer be needed). The greyscale stack would simply invert; the single purple accent would carry over intact.
## 13. Lineage & Influences
Obsidian's design sits at the intersection of three traditions. First, the **developer-tool dark aesthetic** — the near-black canvas, hairline-bordered surfaces, single-accent restraint, and system-font neutrality that Linear, Vercel, and well-built dashboards share. Second, the **local-first / plain-text software movement** — the lineage of iA Writer, Roam Research, TiddlyWiki, and the broader "your data in open formats on your own disk" ethos, where the refusal to load a webfont or a tracker is itself a design statement. Third, the **personal-knowledge-management (PKM) tradition** — the Zettelkasten method, wikis, and the graph-of-linked-notes idea that Obsidian's signature graph view makes visible.
The most distinctive — and most ideological — design decision is the absence of a webfont. Where Bear ships two in-house typefaces and Notion loads a custom sans, Obsidian renders entirely in the reader's own system UI font. For a product whose entire pitch is "your notes are plain Markdown files on your own machine, no cloud required, no lock-in", a marketing page that makes your browser phone home for a font would be a contradiction. The system-font choice, the instant load, and the zero tracking are the same value expressed three ways: *your machine, your data, your attention — ours to respect, not to harvest.*
What Obsidian rejects: gradient washes, hero video, animated illustrations, a second accent colour, pill CTAs, urgency microcopy, and webfonts. The page is dark, near-monochrome, system-set, and funnels to a single purple button — the visual equivalent of a clean plain-text file.
**Influences:**
- Linear — dark-canvas developer-tool aesthetic; hairline surfaces, single-accent restraint, [linear.app](https://linear.app)
- Vercel — near-black canvas, system-font neutrality, crisp 8px-radius developer chrome, [vercel.com](https://vercel.com)
- iA Writer — plain-text-as-craft, local files, typographic restraint as positioning, [ia.net/writer](https://ia.net/writer)
- Roam Research — networked-thought / linked-notes lineage and the graph-of-ideas paradigm, [roamresearch.com](https://roamresearch.com)
- TiddlyWiki — single-file, local-first, own-your-data personal-wiki heritage, [tiddlywiki.com](https://tiddlywiki.com)
## 14. Do's and Don'ts
**Do**
- Keep the canvas near-black at `#0f0f0f` — it is the editor metaphor and the brand floor
- Use `#eeeeee` for body text, never pure `#ffffff` — the off-white is calmer on dark and still AAA
- Let the single purple `#7c3aed` CTA carry the entire chromatic load — everything funnels to it
- Render in the system UI sans (`ui-sans-serif`) with no webfont — it is the local-first ethos made visible
- Set the hero at weight 600, not 700 — confident, not bold-marketing-loud
- Lighten purple to `#a78bfa` for any text/links on dark — the saturated brand fails AA as small text
- Step surfaces lighter (`#0f0f0f` → `#161616` → `#1f1f1f`) for elevation, not darker shadows
- Define structure with `#2a2a2a` hairline borders, not drop shadows
- Use 8px radius on buttons and inputs — developer-tool crisp
- Keep the crystal mark as the only ornament; if you add a graph-view nod, keep it muted and decorative
- Ration negative space generously — empty near-black canvas reads as focus, not absence
**Don't**
- Don't introduce a second accent colour — purple is the entire chromatic system
- Don't load a webfont — it contradicts the local-first / privacy ethos the brand sells
- Don't use the saturated `#7c3aed` as small purple text on dark — it fails AA; use `#a78bfa`
- Don't use pure white `#ffffff` for body copy — it vibrates against the near-black canvas
- Don't make the hero weight 700/800 — keep it 600, engineered not loud
- Don't pile up drop shadows for depth — on dark, lighter surface tone is the elevation signal
- Don't make a pill-shaped CTA — pill reads "consumer"; Obsidian is positioning as a serious tool
- Don't add gradient washes, hero video, or animated illustration beyond the muted graph nod
- Don't use urgency microcopy ("Sign up now!", "Limited time") — the voice is calm and trusting
- Don't add tracking pixels or analytics theatre — the page's restraint is the message
- Don't tint the canvas blue or warm — near-neutral near-black is the brand floor
## 15. Agent Prompt Guide
### Quick Color Reference
```
Canvas: #0f0f0f (near-black page floor)
Deep well: #0a0a0a (footer, behind elevated panels)
Surface: #161616 (raised card, one step off canvas)
Surface-elev: #1f1f1f (nested / hovered card)
Ink: #eeeeee (body + display, never pure white)
Secondary: #b0b0b0 (deck copy, secondary text)
Muted: #a3a3a3 (captions, footer links)
Brand: #7c3aed (the one accent — CTA fill only)
Brand-text: #a78bfa (purple text/links on dark — AA-safe)
Border: #2a2a2a (hairline divider)
On-brand: #ffffff (white label on the purple CTA)
```
### Example Component Prompts
- "Create an Obsidian-style hero: near-black canvas (#0f0f0f), a 60px / weight-600 headline 'Sharpen your thinking' in the system UI sans (ui-sans-serif, NO webfont) in #eeeeee with -0.02em tracking and 1.05 line-height. Below: an 18px / 400 deck in #b0b0b0 at 1.6 line-height. Below that: a single electric-purple (#7c3aed) CTA button 'Get Obsidian for macOS', white text at 15px/500, 8px radius, 10×16px padding, with a small OS-selector caret on the right edge. No second accent, no gradient, no webfont. Optionally a muted purple (#a78bfa low-opacity) node-graph SVG floating behind."
- "Design an Obsidian feature card: #161616 fill (one tonal step off the #0f0f0f canvas), 1px #2a2a2a hairline border, 12px radius, 24px padding, NO shadow. Inside: a 20px/600 title in #eeeeee, then 16px/400 body in #b0b0b0 at 1.55 line-height. On hover, lift the surface a tonal step to #1f1f1f and brighten the border to #3a3a3a over 240ms — no translate."
- "Build the Obsidian top nav: 64px tall, translucent near-black (#0f0f0fcc) with backdrop-blur and a 1px #2a2a2a bottom hairline. Left: a crystal-facet logo + 'Obsidian' wordmark in #eeeeee. Centre: nav links (Features, Pricing, Plugins, Docs) in 15px/500 #eeeeee with a subtle #a78bfa underline on hover. Right: a quiet text 'Sign in' link in #b0b0b0, then the purple (#7c3aed) 'Download' CTA at 8px radius."
- "Create an Obsidian text input: #0f0f0f fill (inset DARKER than the surrounding #161616 card), #eeeeee text, 1px #2a2a2a border, 8px radius, 40px height, placeholder in #737373. On focus, set the border to #7c3aed (1px) plus a 3px rgba(124,58,237,0.40) ring."
- "Design an Obsidian inline link + soft badge: links in lightened purple #a78bfa (NOT the saturated #7c3aed — it fails AA on dark) with an underline that fades in on hover toward #c4b5fd. A soft badge: #2a1a4a fill, #a78bfa text, pill radius (9999px), 3×10px padding, 12px caption — used sparingly for 'New' or a version tag."
- "Build an Obsidian closing CTA band: centred on the bare #0f0f0f canvas with generous vertical padding (96–128px), a 32px/600 #eeeeee restatement headline, and the single purple (#7c3aed) 'Get Obsidian' CTA at 8px radius. Nothing else — the empty near-black space is the design."
### Iteration Guide
1. **One accent, always.** Purple is the entire chromatic system. If you find yourself reaching for a second colour, you've left the brand — express the variation in greyscale tone instead.
2. **No webfont, ever.** Render in `ui-sans-serif` / `system-ui`. Loading a font betrays the local-first ethos and is the single fastest way to make the page "not Obsidian".
3. **Two purples, two jobs.** `#7c3aed` is for fills (the CTA); `#a78bfa` is for purple *text* on dark. Swapping them breaks contrast — the saturated purple as small text fails AA.
4. **Off-white, not white.** Body is `#eeeeee`. Pure `#ffffff` vibrates on the near-black canvas and reads as a beginner mistake.
5. **Elevation goes lighter, not darker.** Lift a surface by stepping its tone up (`#0f0f0f` → `#161616` → `#1f1f1f`) and adding a hairline — not by casting a shadow that barely registers on black.
6. **Hero weight 600, not 700.** Keep display confident and engineered. The moment it goes bold-marketing, it stops being Obsidian and starts being a generic startup.
7. **Let the dark breathe.** Negative near-black space is the primary compositional tool. Resist the urge to fill it with tints, gradients, or decoration — the void is the focus.
8. **Calm voice, no urgency.** Microcopy is plainspoken and trusting ("Get Obsidian", "Read the docs"). Never "Sign up now!", never exclamation marks, never a pill CTA.
---
*Theme-toggle audit: score=0, signals=[none]*
1. Visual Theme & Atmosphere
Obsidian’s site is the editor it sells, rendered as a marketing page. The canvas is a near-black #0f0f0f — the exact mood of the app’s default dark theme — and the body copy sits in a near-white #eeeeee that never tips to pure white. The hero, “Sharpen your thinking”, sets at 60px in the platform’s own UI sans (ui-sans-serif) at weight 600 — not 700, not bold-marketing impact, just confident. The single saturated element on the entire page is the electric-purple #7c3aed “Get Obsidian for macOS” button at 8px radius. Everything else is dark surface, hairline borders, and the crystal-facet logo. The page does not so much sell you a tool as show you the room the tool lives in.
The atmosphere is developer-tool restraint: a page built by people who treat your attention as something to be respected rather than harvested. There are no gradient washes to download, no hero video, no animated illustrations beyond an optional gently-pulsing node-graph ornament that nods at Obsidian’s signature graph view. The whole composition reads as quiet competence — closer to a well-configured terminal or a Linear/Vercel dashboard than to a consumer-SaaS funnel. The single purple CTA does all the chromatic work; remove it and the page would be a pure greyscale study.
The most telling decision is the typography: no webfont is loaded. The page renders entirely in ui-sans-serif / system-ui — San Francisco on Mac, Segoe on Windows, Roboto on Android. This is not laziness; it is the brand’s local-first ethos made visible. A product whose entire pitch is “your notes are plain files on your own disk, no cloud required” refuses to make your browser phone home for a font. The page loads instantly, works offline-ish, and tracks nothing — the medium is the message.
Colour is rationed with monastic discipline. The palette is a near-black canvas, a near-white ink, a stepped greyscale of surfaces (#0f0f0f → #161616 → #1f1f1f → #262626), hairline borders in #2a2a2a, and exactly one accent: purple. Purple is the brand voltage and the CTA fill; on dark backgrounds where the saturated #7c3aed fails contrast as text, it is lightened to a violet #a78bfa for links. The page never introduces a second accent. There is no teal, no amber-for-warmth, no blue-for-trust — just purple-on-near-black, the way the crystal logo glints against the editor.
The result is a page that signals its values before you read a word: dark because that is where focused work happens; system-font because your machine is yours; purple-and-crystal because that is the mark; nothing else, because everything else is noise. Obsidian is the rare site where “your notes are yours” is a design philosophy you can actually see.
Key Characteristics:
- Near-black canvas (
#0f0f0f) — the app’s default dark editor theme, lifted to marketing - Near-white ink (
#eeeeee) — never pure white; calmer on dark, hits 16.5:1 AAA contrast - A single accent — electric purple (
#7c3aed) — carrying the entire chromatic load - System UI sans (
ui-sans-serif), no webfont — the local-first / privacy ethos made literal - Hero at 60px / weight 600 — confident, not bold-marketing-loud
- Crystal-facet logo as the only ornament; optional pulsing node-graph nod to graph view
- Stepped greyscale surfaces (
#0f0f0f→#161616→#1f1f1f→#262626) for elevation, not shadow stacks - Hairline
#2a2a2aborders define structure; depth comes from tone, not drop shadow - 8px radius on the CTA / buttons / inputs — crisp, developer-tool corners (not pill, not sharp)
- Purple lightens to
#a78bfafor text/links on dark (the saturated brand fails AA as small text) - Page loads instantly and tracks nothing — performance and privacy are aesthetic choices
2. Color Palette & Roles
Primary
- Canvas (
#0f0f0f) [→bg]: near-black page floor — the editor metaphor; the default of everything. - Deep Well (
#0a0a0a) [→bg-deep]: the darkest tone — behind elevated panels and in the footer. - Ink (
#eeeeee) [→text]: primary body and display copy — near-white, never pure#ffffff. - Ink Strong (
#ffffff) [→text-strong]: rare; the single heaviest display moment per page.
Brand
- Brand Purple (
#7c3aed) [→brand]: the one accent — CTA fill, focus edge, the crystal-logo voltage. - Brand Hover (
#6d28d9) [→brand-hover]: CTA hover — one stop darker. - Brand Active (
#5b21b6) [→brand-active]: pressed CTA — two stops darker. - Brand Soft (
#2a1a4a) [→brand-soft]: purple-tinted soft fill for badges and inline highlights.
Accent
There is no decorative accent beyond purple. The page is greyscale + a single purple voltage. Any “second accent” is a violation of the system.
Interactive
- Brand Text (
#a78bfa) [→brand-text]: inline links and purple text on dark — lightened so it passes AAA where#7c3aedwould fail. Use this, notbrand, for any purple text. - Brand Text Hover (
#c4b5fd) [→brand-text-hover]: link hover — lighter still; underline fades in. - On-Brand (
#ffffff) [→on-brand]: white label on the purple CTA fill. - Focus Ring (
rgba(124,58,237,0.40)) [→border-brand]: 3px purple ring + 1px purple border on focused controls. - Disabled (
#737373text on#161616fill): drained grey, no purple.
Neutral Scale
- Ink Strong (
#ffffff) — peak display, single moment per page - Ink (
#eeeeee) — body, primary display, the dominant text colour - Secondary (
#b0b0b0) — deck copy, secondary running-text (8.8:1 AAA) - Muted (
#a3a3a3) — captions, metadata, footer links (7.6:1 AAA) - Faint (
#737373) — disabled, placeholder, fine print
Surface & Borders
- Canvas (
#0f0f0f) — page floor - Surface (
#161616) — raised card / panel, one step off canvas - Surface Elev (
#1f1f1f) — nested / hovered card, second step - Surface Hover (
#262626) — interactive hover fill (ghost button, list row) - Border (
#2a2a2a) — default hairline divider - Border Soft (
#1f1f1f) — near-invisible structural divider - Border Strong (
#3a3a3a) — focused input / emphasized edge
Shadow Colors
Obsidian uses pure-black shadows (rgba(0,0,0,…)) at higher opacities than a light site would — on a near-black canvas, shadow must be deeper than the surface to register at all. Most surfaces, however, use no shadow; elevation is communicated by stepping the surface tone up (#0f0f0f → #161616 → #1f1f1f) and adding a #2a2a2a hairline. Shadow is reserved for genuinely floating chrome.
rgba(0,0,0,0.40) 0 1px 2px 0— ambient lift (sticky nav at scroll)rgba(0,0,0,0.50) 0 8px 24px -8px— raised card / dropdownrgba(0,0,0,0.70) 0 24px 64px -16px— modal / popover
Semantic
- Success (
#4ade80on#14321f) — confirmation green, brightened for dark legibility. - Warning (
#fbbf24on#33270a) — advisory amber. - Danger (
#f87171on#3a1717) — form-error red, softened for dark (a saturated#dc2626would vibrate on black). - Info (
#a78bfaon#2a1a4a) — informational accent — intentionally the same violet as the link colour. Obsidian treats “information” and “brand” as one voice.
3. Typography Rules
Font Family
Display & Body (one family): ui-sans-serif, system-ui, -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto, sans-serif. There is no webfont. Display and body share the system UI sans — they differ only by weight and size, never family. On macOS this resolves to San Francisco, on Windows to Segoe UI, on Android to Roboto. The page deliberately uses whatever native sans the reader’s OS provides.
Mono: ui-monospace, SFMono-Regular, "SF Mono", Menlo, Monaco, Consolas, "Liberation Mono", monospace — used for code samples, file paths (~/vault/notes.md), and any moment that demonstrates Obsidian’s plain-text-files-on-disk pitch.
OpenType features: kern and liga on, inherited from the system face. No custom stylistic sets — the brand uses the OS font exactly as the OS ships it.
The single-family decision is the brand’s typographic fingerprint, and it is doing ideological work. Most note-apps load a webfont to feel “designed” (Bear ships two in-house cuts; Notion loads its own sans). Obsidian’s refusal to load any webfont is the most on-brand move on the page: a local-first product that won’t make your browser fetch a remote asset to render a marketing headline. The type looks “designed” by being calm and well-spaced, not by being bespoke.
Hierarchy
| Role | Font | Size | Weight | Line Height | Letter Spacing | OT Features | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| display-hero | system sans | 60 | 600 | 1.05 | -0.02em | kern | Hero “Sharpen your thinking” — peak moment (live-probed at 60/600) |
| display-lg | system sans | 48 | 600 | 1.08 | -0.018em | — | Large section opener |
| h1 | system sans | 40 | 600 | 1.10 | -0.015em | — | Page / section heading |
| h2 | system sans | 32 | 600 | 1.20 | -0.012em | — | Sub-section opener |
| h3 | system sans | 24 | 600 | 1.25 | -0.005em | — | Feature title |
| h4 | system sans | 20 | 600 | 1.30 | 0 | — | Card title |
| title-lg | system sans | 18 | 600 | 1.40 | 0 | — | Inline emphasis title |
| body-lg | system sans | 18 | 400 | 1.60 | 0 | — | Hero deck — slightly larger body |
| body | system sans | 16 | 400 | 1.55 | 0 | — | Default running-text (live-probed at 16/400) |
| body-sm | system sans | 14 | 400 | 1.50 | 0 | — | Card meta, secondary copy |
| label | system sans | 13 | 500 | 1.40 | 0 | — | Form label, small UI label |
| button | system sans | 15 | 500 | 1.20 | 0 | — | CTA / button label |
| nav-link | system sans | 15 | 500 | 1.40 | 0 | — | Top-nav item |
| caption | system sans | 12 | 500 | 1.40 | 0.02em | — | Timestamp, fine metadata |
| overline | system sans | 11 | 600 | 1.30 | 0.08em | uppercase | Section eyebrow |
| code | mono | 14 | 400 | 1.55 | 0 | — | Code / file-path sample |
| code-micro | mono | 12 | 400 | 1.50 | 0 | — | Inline ⌘P-style shortcut bubble |
Principles
- One family, no webfont. Display and body are the same system UI sans, differing only by weight/size. Loading a webfont would betray the local-first ethos — don’t.
- Display tops out at weight 600, not 700. The hero is confident, not loud. Weight 600 at 60px reads as “engineered” rather than “marketed”. Pushing to 700/800 tips the page toward generic startup-bold.
- Near-white ink, never pure white. Body copy is
#eeeeee— on a near-black canvas, pure#ffffffvibrates and fatigues. The slightly-off white is calmer and still hits 16.5:1 AAA. - Negative tracking on display only. Hero
-0.02em, h1-0.015em, tapering to0by h4. Body and below stay at0; only the tiny caption/overline get positive tracking. - 16px body at 1.55 line-height. Comfortable web body, generous leading — the editor’s own reading rhythm.
- Mono for anything plain-text. File paths, code, shortcuts render in
ui-monospace— the page makes the product’s core promise (plain.mdfiles on disk) typographic. - Inter is the closest substitute if a build can’t use the system sans. Inter at weight 400/600 approximates SF / Segoe cleanly. Never substitute a serif or a “designer” sans — the point is system-native neutrality.
4. Component Stylings
Buttons
cta-primary — The signature CTA. Electric-purple #7c3aed fill, white text at 15px / 500, 8px radius, 10×16px padding, 40px height. This is the only saturated element on the page — “Get Obsidian for macOS”. Everything visual on the page funnels to this one button.
cta-primary-hover — Pointer hover. Fill darkens to #6d28d9 over 150ms standard. No transform, no scale, no glow — colour only. Active state goes to #5b21b6.
cta-platform-split — The download CTA with an OS-selector caret (macOS / Windows / Linux / iOS / Android). The caret region is divided from the label by a subtle on-brand hairline; clicking the caret opens a small dropdown of platform options.
button-ghost — Secondary action. Transparent fill, #eeeeee text, 1px #2a2a2a border, 8px radius. On hover the fill warms to #262626 (no border change). Used for “Read the docs”, “Browse plugins”.
button-quiet — Tertiary / nav-adjacent text button. No border, no fill; #b0b0b0 text that brightens to #eeeeee on hover. Used for utility links (“Sign in”, “Sync”, “Pricing”).
Cards
card — Feature panel. #161616 fill (one tonal step off canvas), #eeeeee text, 1px #2a2a2a hairline border, 12px radius, 24px padding. No shadow — the surface step plus hairline is the elevation language. Inside: h4 title in #eeeeee, body in #b0b0b0.
card-elev — Nested or hovered card. #1f1f1f fill, #3a3a3a border — a second tonal step up. Used for cards-within-cards (a plugin card inside a feature panel) or as the hover state of card.
feature-screenshot — App screenshot of the editor itself (showing the dark theme with purple accents — the page literally pictures itself). 16px radius, optional rgba(0,0,0,0.50) 0 8px 24px -8px shadow to float it off the canvas.
Badges, Tags, Pills
badge-soft — Purple-tinted chip. #2a1a4a fill, #a78bfa text, 9999px radius, 3×10px padding, 12px caption. Used sparingly for “New”, version tags, “Free”. The only place soft purple appears outside the CTA.
badge-neutral — Neutral metadata chip. #1f1f1f fill, #a3a3a3 text, 1px #2a2a2a border, pill radius. Platform tags (macOS / Windows / Linux), category labels in the plugin directory.
Inputs / Forms
input — Text input. #0f0f0f fill (inset darker than the surrounding card — the field reads as “below” the surface), #eeeeee text, 1px #2a2a2a border, 8px radius, 40px height, 8×12px padding. Placeholder in #737373. On focus, the border becomes #7c3aed (1px) with a faint rgba(124,58,237,0.40) 3px ring. Newsletter / search / vault-name fields.
select / dropdown — Same chassis as input; chevron in #a3a3a3. Open panel uses card surface (#161616) with shadow-card.
Navigation
nav-top — Sticky top nav, 64px height. Translucent near-black (#0f0f0fcc) with a backdrop blur so content blurs behind it on scroll, and a 1px #2a2a2a bottom hairline. Crystal-facet logo + “Obsidian” wordmark flush left in #eeeeee — the logo is the only ornament in the chrome. Centre: nav links (Features, Pricing, Plugins, Docs) in 15px / 500 #eeeeee. Right: a button-quiet (“Sign in”) + the purple cta-primary (“Download”).
nav-link — #eeeeee at rest, no underline. Hover brings a subtle #a78bfa underline / colour lift. Active page link sits at full #ffffff.
footer — #0a0a0a deep-well background, column heads in 13px / 600 #eeeeee, links in 14px / 400 #a3a3a3. The crystal mark reappears, muted. Multi-column: Product / Community / Resources / Company.
Decorative
graph-ornament — An optional node-graph SVG (nodes + connecting edges) that nods at Obsidian’s signature graph view. Edges may gently pulse / draw on viewport entry. Rendered in muted purple (#a78bfa at low opacity) on the canvas. Purely decorative — aria-hidden="true".
5. Layout Principles
Spacing System
- Base unit: 4px
- Scale:
0 · 4 · 8 · 12 · 16 · 24 · 32 · 48 · 64 · 96 · 128 - Section padding (vertical): 96–128px between major bands — generous, lets the dark canvas breathe
- Card internal padding: 24px on feature cards; 16px on compact list rows
- Inter-card gutters: 24px in feature grids
- The dark canvas does a lot of the spacing work — empty near-black space reads as deliberate, not unfinished
Grid & Container
- Max content width: 1280px — standard modern marketing width, wider than Bear’s magazine-tight 1080px
- Prose / reading column: 720px for long-form (docs, blog)
- Hero: single-column, centred — H1 + deck + the purple CTA + an editor screenshot beneath
- Feature grid: 3-up at desktop → 2-up at tablet → 1-up at mobile
- 24px gutters; the grid sits inside the 1280px container with generous side margins on wide screens
Whitespace Philosophy
On a near-black canvas, negative space is the primary compositional tool. Where a light site fills space with subtle tints and borders, Obsidian leaves the canvas dark and empty — the void reads as focus, not absence. Surfaces (cards) appear only where there is content to hold; between them is pure #0f0f0f. This is the editor’s own aesthetic: a dark workspace where the only bright things are the words you wrote and the one action you can take.
Section Cadence
A typical Obsidian page runs:
- Hero — 60px / 600 H1 (“Sharpen your thinking”), 18px deck in
#b0b0b0, purplecta-primarywith OS-selector, editor screenshot floating beneath (optional graph-ornament behind) - Feature spread — 3-up cards on the dark canvas (Local files, Links & graph, Plugins) — each a
#161616panel with hairline border - Graph showcase — the signature node-graph view, large, with a short caption — the product’s most recognizable surface
- Plugins / community — grid of plugin cards, neutral badges, a “Browse 2,000+ plugins” ghost button
- Sync / Publish band — the paid tiers, presented as calm feature cards, not aggressive pricing tables
- Closing CTA band — a centred restatement of the purple CTA over empty canvas
- Footer — deep-well
#0a0a0a, muted multi-column links, crystal mark
The page does not alternate light/dark — it is dark throughout. The “alternation” is canvas (#0f0f0f) vs. card surface (#161616) tonal contrast.
6. Shapes & Radius Scale
| Tier | Value | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Micro | 2px | Inline code chips, tiny indicators |
| Small | 4px | Nested elements, fine controls |
| Standard | 8px | CTA, buttons, inputs — the dominant rounding |
| Comfortable | 12px | Cards, panels |
| Large | 16px | Feature shells, app screenshots |
| Pill | 9999px | Badges, neutral chips |
Obsidian’s radius hierarchy is developer-tool crisp — the dominant 8px on buttons and inputs is the modern-app sweet spot: rounded enough to feel finished, sharp enough to feel engineered (not the soft 12–16px of consumer apps, not the pill-everything of marketing sites). Cards step to 12px; the largest shells and screenshots to 16px. Pill radius is reserved for badges only — the page never makes a pill button, because a pill CTA would read as “consumer”, and Obsidian is positioning as a serious tool.
7. Depth & Elevation
| Level | Treatment | Use |
|---|---|---|
| 0 — Canvas | no shadow, #0f0f0f | The page floor, hero, empty space (~70% of surface) |
| 1 — Surface | tonal step to #161616 + 1px #2a2a2a hairline, no shadow | Feature cards, panels |
| 2 — Elevated surface | tonal step to #1f1f1f + #3a3a3a border | Nested / hovered cards |
| 3 — Floating | rgba(0,0,0,0.40) 0 1px 2px 0 | Sticky nav at scroll, subtle inputs |
| 4 — Raised | rgba(0,0,0,0.50) 0 8px 24px -8px | Dropdowns, popovers, screenshots |
| 5 — Modal | scrim rgba(0,0,0,0.65) + rgba(0,0,0,0.70) 0 24px 64px -16px | Sign-in / vault dialog |
Shadow Philosophy
On a near-black canvas, shadow is a weak signal — a rgba(0,0,0,…) shadow against #0f0f0f is barely darker than the floor it sits on. So Obsidian inverts the usual elevation strategy: depth is communicated by stepping the surface lighter, not by casting a shadow darker. A raised card is #161616 (lighter than canvas) with a hairline border; a more-raised card is #1f1f1f. Shadow is reserved for chrome that genuinely floats over content (dropdowns, modals, the sticky nav), and even then it is used at high opacity (0.50–0.70) purely so it registers at all. The hairline #2a2a2a border, not the shadow, is what draws the eye to a surface edge. This is the dark-mode elevation discipline that Linear, Vercel, and well-built developer dashboards all share.
8. Interaction & Motion
Easing
- Standard:
cubic-bezier(0.4, 0, 0.2, 1)— default for hover colour swaps, border transitions - Out:
cubic-bezier(0.0, 0, 0.2, 1)— scroll-reveal entrances - Emphasized:
cubic-bezier(0.2, 0, 0, 1)— modal entry, dropdown open
Durations
| Bucket | Value | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Fast | 150ms | Button hover, link underline, focus-ring fade |
| Standard | 240ms | Card hover, dropdown open, border transitions |
| Slow | 320ms | Scroll-reveal, modal entry, graph-line draw |
Per-Component Recipes
- CTA hover: fill
#7c3aed→#6d28d9over 150ms standard. No transform, no scale. Active →#5b21b6. - Ghost button hover: transparent →
#262626fill over 150ms; border unchanged. - Card hover: surface lifts a tonal step (
#161616→#1f1f1f) and border brightens (#2a2a2a→#3a3a3a) over 240ms. No translate. - Link hover: colour
#a78bfa→#c4b5fd; underline fades in over 150ms. - Focus: 3px
rgba(124,58,237,0.40)ring + 1px purple border appears over 150ms on keyboard focus. - Scroll-reveal: sections fade in + rise 8px over 320ms ease-out on first viewport entry. One-shot.
- Graph ornament: connection edges gently draw / pulse — decorative, low-amplitude, never demands attention.
Page Transitions
Navigation is a quiet 240ms cross-fade; the sticky nav stays fixed. Anchored links smooth-scroll over 320ms emphasized. Nothing is showy — motion exists to soften state changes, not to perform.
Reduced Motion
Respects prefers-reduced-motion: reduce. Scroll-reveal becomes static render-on-mount (no fade, no rise). The graph-ornament animation pauses to a static frame. Hover transforms (none exist) and all translate/scale are suppressed. Colour-only transitions (button hover, link colour) may remain since they don’t induce motion.
9. Accessibility & A11y
Contrast Pairs
| Pair | Ratio | Level |
|---|---|---|
| #eeeeee ink on #0f0f0f canvas | 16.5 | AAA |
| #eeeeee ink on #161616 surface | 14.6 | AAA |
| #ffffff label on #7c3aed CTA | 5.7 | AA (passes for the 15px/500 button label) |
| #7c3aed brand on #0f0f0f | 3.4 | AA large only — never use as body text |
| #a78bfa brand-text on #0f0f0f | 7.0 | AAA — the safe purple for links / small text |
| #b0b0b0 secondary on #0f0f0f | 8.8 | AAA |
| #a3a3a3 muted on #0f0f0f | 7.6 | AAA |
The critical accessibility nuance: the brand purple #7c3aed only reaches 3.4:1 on the canvas — it passes for large UI and as a button fill (with white text), but it fails as small purple text on dark. The page therefore uses the lightened #a78bfa (7.0:1, AAA) for every inline link and purple text run. Treating brand and brand-text as two distinct tokens is not optional polish — it is what keeps the dark theme readable.
Focus Indicators
Focus is a 3px rgba(124,58,237,0.40) ring plus a 1px solid #7c3aed border on the focused control. On the dark canvas the semi-transparent purple ring is clearly visible against #0f0f0f without being garish. Focus is never removed; keyboard and pointer users get the same target.
ARIA Patterns
- Top nav:
<nav>landmark witharia-label="Primary". The crystal logo is an<img alt="Obsidian">linking home. - Platform-split CTA: the OS-selector caret is a
<button aria-haspopup="menu" aria-expanded>; the dropdown isrole="menu"withrole="menuitem"per platform. - Plugin grid: each card is a link with an accessible name; neutral badges are decorative text, not separate controls.
- Graph ornament:
aria-hidden="true"— purely visual. - Modal (sign-in / vault): focus trap, Esc closes, click-outside closes, focus returns to trigger.
Keyboard Navigation
- Top nav: Tab logo → Features → Pricing → Plugins → Docs → Sign in → Download
- Platform-split CTA: Tab to the button; Enter downloads default OS; the caret button opens the menu, arrow keys navigate platforms
- Cards: Tab moves card → card; Enter activates the link
- Modal: Tab cycles within the dialog only
Screen Reader Hints
The crystal logo carries alt="Obsidian". App screenshots carry descriptive alt text (“Obsidian editor in dark theme, a note open with a backlinks panel and the graph view in the sidebar”). The graph ornament is aria-hidden. The CTA’s accessible name includes the platform (“Download Obsidian for macOS”).
Reduced Motion
All entrance animations degrade to static render. The graph ornament freezes. Colour-only hover transitions may remain. No essential information is conveyed by motion alone.
10. Responsive Behavior
Breakpoints
| Name | Width | Key Changes |
|---|---|---|
| Mobile | <640px | Nav collapses to logo + hamburger; hero h1 drops 60 → 36px; CTA goes full-width; feature cards 1-up; graph ornament hidden |
| Tablet | 640–1024px | Inline nav links may persist; hero h1 at ~44px; feature cards 2-up; screenshot at 90% width |
| Desktop | 1024–1280px | Full nav; hero h1 at 60px; feature cards 3-up; screenshot up to 1100px |
| Wide | >1280px | Content caps at 1280px; canvas absorbs the extra width as empty near-black margin |
Touch Targets
- Purple CTA: 40px height; on mobile it goes full-width for an easy thumb target (44px+ effective row)
- Nav links: minimum 44×44px hit area in the mobile sheet
- Plugin / feature cards: the whole card is the tap target
- Inputs: 40px height, 44px+ effective with padding
Collapsing Strategy
- Top nav links collapse into a hamburger sheet below 640px; the purple CTA stays visible in the collapsed bar
- Feature grids: 3 → 2 → 1 columns
- The graph-view showcase scales down; on mobile it may switch to a simpler static node image to keep payload light (the no-webfont/perf ethos carries into imagery)
- App screenshots scale by viewport, never crop; 16px radius scales proportionally
Image Behavior
Editor screenshots render at 2x as PNG/WebP with 16px radius and optional rgba(0,0,0,0.50) shadow. They scale width: 100%; height: auto. Because the canvas is dark and the screenshots are of the dark editor, screenshots blend seamlessly into the page — there is no light-on-dark seam to manage.
Container Queries
Used on the platform-split CTA: when the available width is too narrow for “Get Obsidian for macOS” + caret, the label shortens to “Download” and the OS name moves into the dropdown.
11. Content & Voice
Tone
Plainspoken, technical, quietly confident. Obsidian’s voice trusts the reader to be the kind of person who wants their notes as plain files — it doesn’t over-explain, doesn’t hype, doesn’t use exclamation marks. Headlines are short imperatives or claims (“Sharpen your thinking”, “Your thoughts are yours”, “A second brain, for you, forever”). The copy assumes competence and rewards it.
Microcopy Patterns
- Button verbs: “Get Obsidian”, “Download”, “Read the docs”, “Browse plugins” — direct, outcome-named
- Error message recipe:
[What went wrong] + [What to try]— e.g., “Couldn’t open that vault. Check the folder still exists, then try again.” - Success confirmations: short, factual — “Synced.” / “Vault created.”
- Field labels: minimal — “Email”, “Vault name” — no friendly framing
Empty States
The empty-vault state in screenshots: “Create your first note.” — single declarative line. The paid-feature gate (Sync / Publish): “Obsidian Sync keeps your vault in sync across devices. Try it free.” — names the value, offers the path, no pressure.
CTA Verb Conventions
- Primary action: “Get Obsidian” / “Download” (with OS selector)
- Secondary action: “Read the docs”, “Browse plugins”, “Learn more”
- Tertiary text: “Sign in”, “See pricing”, “Join the community”
- Avoided: “Get started free!”, “Sign up now”, “Click here”, “Buy” — Obsidian uses calm outcome verbs, never funnel-urgency
12. Dark Mode & Theming
Dark-only marketing surface. The public site renders exclusively on the near-black #0f0f0f canvas — it mirrors Obsidian’s default dark editor theme as a deliberate brand-identity choice. This is the inverse of most sites (which are light-only and ship a dark app): here the site is dark because the brand is dark, and the dark editor is the product’s most recognizable face.
The app itself, by contrast, ships a full theming system — light and dark base themes plus a large community-theme ecosystem and per-vault CSS snippets (theming your own vault is a core feature). The marketing site does not expose a light toggle; it commits to dark to show the default experience.
If a light variant were ever shipped, the token swap would be: canvas #ffffff, surface #f6f6f6, ink #1a1a1a, border #e5e5e5, brand purple unchanged at #7c3aed (it passes AA as a CTA fill on white and is legible as text on light, so the brand-text lightening would no longer be needed). The greyscale stack would simply invert; the single purple accent would carry over intact.
13. Lineage & Influences
Obsidian’s design sits at the intersection of three traditions. First, the developer-tool dark aesthetic — the near-black canvas, hairline-bordered surfaces, single-accent restraint, and system-font neutrality that Linear, Vercel, and well-built dashboards share. Second, the local-first / plain-text software movement — the lineage of iA Writer, Roam Research, TiddlyWiki, and the broader “your data in open formats on your own disk” ethos, where the refusal to load a webfont or a tracker is itself a design statement. Third, the personal-knowledge-management (PKM) tradition — the Zettelkasten method, wikis, and the graph-of-linked-notes idea that Obsidian’s signature graph view makes visible.
The most distinctive — and most ideological — design decision is the absence of a webfont. Where Bear ships two in-house typefaces and Notion loads a custom sans, Obsidian renders entirely in the reader’s own system UI font. For a product whose entire pitch is “your notes are plain Markdown files on your own machine, no cloud required, no lock-in”, a marketing page that makes your browser phone home for a font would be a contradiction. The system-font choice, the instant load, and the zero tracking are the same value expressed three ways: your machine, your data, your attention — ours to respect, not to harvest.
What Obsidian rejects: gradient washes, hero video, animated illustrations, a second accent colour, pill CTAs, urgency microcopy, and webfonts. The page is dark, near-monochrome, system-set, and funnels to a single purple button — the visual equivalent of a clean plain-text file.
Influences:
- Linear — dark-canvas developer-tool aesthetic; hairline surfaces, single-accent restraint, linear.app
- Vercel — near-black canvas, system-font neutrality, crisp 8px-radius developer chrome, vercel.com
- iA Writer — plain-text-as-craft, local files, typographic restraint as positioning, ia.net/writer
- Roam Research — networked-thought / linked-notes lineage and the graph-of-ideas paradigm, roamresearch.com
- TiddlyWiki — single-file, local-first, own-your-data personal-wiki heritage, tiddlywiki.com
14. Do’s and Don’ts
Do
- Keep the canvas near-black at
#0f0f0f— it is the editor metaphor and the brand floor - Use
#eeeeeefor body text, never pure#ffffff— the off-white is calmer on dark and still AAA - Let the single purple
#7c3aedCTA carry the entire chromatic load — everything funnels to it - Render in the system UI sans (
ui-sans-serif) with no webfont — it is the local-first ethos made visible - Set the hero at weight 600, not 700 — confident, not bold-marketing-loud
- Lighten purple to
#a78bfafor any text/links on dark — the saturated brand fails AA as small text - Step surfaces lighter (
#0f0f0f→#161616→#1f1f1f) for elevation, not darker shadows - Define structure with
#2a2a2ahairline borders, not drop shadows - Use 8px radius on buttons and inputs — developer-tool crisp
- Keep the crystal mark as the only ornament; if you add a graph-view nod, keep it muted and decorative
- Ration negative space generously — empty near-black canvas reads as focus, not absence
Don’t
- Don’t introduce a second accent colour — purple is the entire chromatic system
- Don’t load a webfont — it contradicts the local-first / privacy ethos the brand sells
- Don’t use the saturated
#7c3aedas small purple text on dark — it fails AA; use#a78bfa - Don’t use pure white
#fffffffor body copy — it vibrates against the near-black canvas - Don’t make the hero weight 700/800 — keep it 600, engineered not loud
- Don’t pile up drop shadows for depth — on dark, lighter surface tone is the elevation signal
- Don’t make a pill-shaped CTA — pill reads “consumer”; Obsidian is positioning as a serious tool
- Don’t add gradient washes, hero video, or animated illustration beyond the muted graph nod
- Don’t use urgency microcopy (“Sign up now!”, “Limited time”) — the voice is calm and trusting
- Don’t add tracking pixels or analytics theatre — the page’s restraint is the message
- Don’t tint the canvas blue or warm — near-neutral near-black is the brand floor
15. Agent Prompt Guide
Quick Color Reference
Canvas: #0f0f0f (near-black page floor)
Deep well: #0a0a0a (footer, behind elevated panels)
Surface: #161616 (raised card, one step off canvas)
Surface-elev: #1f1f1f (nested / hovered card)
Ink: #eeeeee (body + display, never pure white)
Secondary: #b0b0b0 (deck copy, secondary text)
Muted: #a3a3a3 (captions, footer links)
Brand: #7c3aed (the one accent — CTA fill only)
Brand-text: #a78bfa (purple text/links on dark — AA-safe)
Border: #2a2a2a (hairline divider)
On-brand: #ffffff (white label on the purple CTA)Example Component Prompts
- “Create an Obsidian-style hero: near-black canvas (#0f0f0f), a 60px / weight-600 headline ‘Sharpen your thinking’ in the system UI sans (ui-sans-serif, NO webfont) in #eeeeee with -0.02em tracking and 1.05 line-height. Below: an 18px / 400 deck in #b0b0b0 at 1.6 line-height. Below that: a single electric-purple (#7c3aed) CTA button ‘Get Obsidian for macOS’, white text at 15px/500, 8px radius, 10×16px padding, with a small OS-selector caret on the right edge. No second accent, no gradient, no webfont. Optionally a muted purple (#a78bfa low-opacity) node-graph SVG floating behind.”
- “Design an Obsidian feature card: #161616 fill (one tonal step off the #0f0f0f canvas), 1px #2a2a2a hairline border, 12px radius, 24px padding, NO shadow. Inside: a 20px/600 title in #eeeeee, then 16px/400 body in #b0b0b0 at 1.55 line-height. On hover, lift the surface a tonal step to #1f1f1f and brighten the border to #3a3a3a over 240ms — no translate.”
- “Build the Obsidian top nav: 64px tall, translucent near-black (#0f0f0fcc) with backdrop-blur and a 1px #2a2a2a bottom hairline. Left: a crystal-facet logo + ‘Obsidian’ wordmark in #eeeeee. Centre: nav links (Features, Pricing, Plugins, Docs) in 15px/500 #eeeeee with a subtle #a78bfa underline on hover. Right: a quiet text ‘Sign in’ link in #b0b0b0, then the purple (#7c3aed) ‘Download’ CTA at 8px radius.”
- “Create an Obsidian text input: #0f0f0f fill (inset DARKER than the surrounding #161616 card), #eeeeee text, 1px #2a2a2a border, 8px radius, 40px height, placeholder in #737373. On focus, set the border to #7c3aed (1px) plus a 3px rgba(124,58,237,0.40) ring.”
- “Design an Obsidian inline link + soft badge: links in lightened purple #a78bfa (NOT the saturated #7c3aed — it fails AA on dark) with an underline that fades in on hover toward #c4b5fd. A soft badge: #2a1a4a fill, #a78bfa text, pill radius (9999px), 3×10px padding, 12px caption — used sparingly for ‘New’ or a version tag.”
- “Build an Obsidian closing CTA band: centred on the bare #0f0f0f canvas with generous vertical padding (96–128px), a 32px/600 #eeeeee restatement headline, and the single purple (#7c3aed) ‘Get Obsidian’ CTA at 8px radius. Nothing else — the empty near-black space is the design.”
Iteration Guide
- One accent, always. Purple is the entire chromatic system. If you find yourself reaching for a second colour, you’ve left the brand — express the variation in greyscale tone instead.
- No webfont, ever. Render in
ui-sans-serif/system-ui. Loading a font betrays the local-first ethos and is the single fastest way to make the page “not Obsidian”. - Two purples, two jobs.
#7c3aedis for fills (the CTA);#a78bfais for purple text on dark. Swapping them breaks contrast — the saturated purple as small text fails AA. - Off-white, not white. Body is
#eeeeee. Pure#ffffffvibrates on the near-black canvas and reads as a beginner mistake. - Elevation goes lighter, not darker. Lift a surface by stepping its tone up (
#0f0f0f→#161616→#1f1f1f) and adding a hairline — not by casting a shadow that barely registers on black. - Hero weight 600, not 700. Keep display confident and engineered. The moment it goes bold-marketing, it stops being Obsidian and starts being a generic startup.
- Let the dark breathe. Negative near-black space is the primary compositional tool. Resist the urge to fill it with tints, gradients, or decoration — the void is the focus.
- Calm voice, no urgency. Microcopy is plainspoken and trusting (“Get Obsidian”, “Read the docs”). Never “Sign up now!”, never exclamation marks, never a pill CTA.
Theme-toggle audit: score=0, signals=[none]
Drop obsidian into your project, then ship the actual sections in an afternoon.
1 · install design
npx @webdesignhot/design-md add obsidian 2 · ship landing page
npx agentkit init --design obsidian