Now it’s easy for me to post screenshots through blank.page, let’s have some fun
Dark is defined as the absence of light. Mode is a way or manner in which something occurs or is experienced, expressed, or done, according to Google’s choice of authority on the matter of definitions. If we put these two together and land it on interface design, darkmode is experiencing the absence of light in the user interface. Let’s look at some visual examples:
“Blue: as yellow is always accompanied with light, so it may be said that blue still brings a principle of darkness with it. This color has a peculiar and almost indescribable effect on the eye. As a hue it is powerful - but it is on the negative side, and in its highest purity is, as it were, a stimulating negation. Its appearance, then, is a kind of contradiction between excitement and repose.”
“Light and darkness, brightness and obscurity, or if a more general expression is preferred, light and its absence, are necessary to the production of color… Color itself is a degree of darkness.”
Principle: in darkmode as in lightmode, what is closer to you is lighter.
Principle: devices that emit light ought to default to darkmode, devices that reflect light ought to default to lightmode.
Why? Because excess light from the screen is not sunlight to bathe in it, and a reflected light on a “printed” black will not be as good as it will be in the surface of the device.