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A synthwave theme for VS Code. Neon on deep indigo, without the shimmer.
Neon on indigo, without the shimmer — a synthwave theme for VS Code.
Neon is easy to get wrong. Put saturated complements next to each other on a mid-tone ground and they vibrate, which looks great in a screenshot and tiring after an hour.
So the ground is a deep indigo, dark enough to hold light, and the tokens that appear most often — variables, properties, parameters — are pale lavender and ice. The neon is spent only where it means something: pink keywords, cyan calls, sun-yellow types, sunset-orange strings. They read as light sources, not noise.
| role | colour | contrast |
|---|---|---|
keyword, storage, this | #FF5CC6 | 6.8:1 · italic |
| function, method | #3DF2EE | 13.6:1 |
| type, class, interface | #FEDE5D | 14.2:1 |
| string | #FF9966 | 9.0:1 |
| number, constant | #C69CFF | 8.6:1 |
| property | #A5EDFF | 14.5:1 |
| annotation, decorator | #72F1B8 | 13.4:1 · italic |
| variable | #F4ECFF | 16.4:1 |
| parameter | #D2C2F2 | 11.4:1 · italic |
| comment | #9885C4 | 5.8:1 · italic |
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.
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 comment colour at 5.82:1.
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
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_retro | green CRT with colour sparks |
| ds_amber | amber phosphor, warm and blue-free |
| ds_synthwave | neon on deep indigo — this one |
| ds_paper | ink on warm paper — the light one |
| ds_blueprint | chalk lines on a navy drawing sheet |
| ds_noir | silver greys, one red, one gold |
MIT licensed, source on GitHub, free like everything else here.