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ds_noir

A film-noir theme for VS Code. Silver greys, one red, one lamp-gold. Free to use, with no account required.

Silver and shadow, one red, one lamp — a film-noir theme for VS Code.

Almost everything on this screen is a step of grey, which is the point: structure reads by value, the way it does on a black and white print. Calls are the brightest white on the page, and plain text sits a full step beneath them.

Colour is rationed to what a noir frame would allow: a red for keywords, a lamp-gold for types, a faded rose for numbers, and a cold moonlight grey-blue for strings so they never blur into the comments. For people who find every other theme too loud.

Palette

rolecolourcontrast
keyword, storage, this#E8574F5.4:1 · italic
function, method#FFFFFF19.2:1
type, class, interface#E2C68811.6:1
string#A9BCCD9.8:1
number, constant#D9958C7.9:1
property#B8B2A79.1:1
annotation, decorator#B8A1C98.2:1 · italic
variable#C9C5BE11.1:1
parameter#A8A49D7.7:1 · italic
comment#8C89835.5:1 · italic

Italics are structural

Comments, keywords, storage, this, parameters, annotations and attributes are the things you skim past or read as scaffolding. Slanting them separates them without spending another colour — which matters more than usual in a theme that has almost none to spend.

Contrast is measured, not judged

tool/build_themes.py refuses to write the theme if any syntax colour, UI label or terminal colour falls below 4.5:1 on its own background, or if two roles a reader must tell apart sit too close together. The lowest here is the escape colour at 5.39:1.

Font

A theme cannot set your font — editor.fontFamily is a user setting. The italics are designed around Victor Mono, whose italic is cursive, but any monospace face with a real italic works:

"editor.fontFamily": "Victor Mono, JetBrains Mono, monospace",
"editor.fontSize": 15,
"editor.lineHeight": 1.7

The family

Six themes, each a different screen or medium, built the same way: one palette, contrast measured at build time, nothing below 4.5:1.

theme
ds_retrogreen CRT with colour sparks
ds_amberamber phosphor, warm and blue-free
ds_synthwaveneon on deep indigo
ds_paperink on warm paper — the light one
ds_blueprintchalk lines on a navy drawing sheet
ds_noirsilver greys, one red, one gold — this one

MIT licensed, source on GitHub, free like everything else here.