The introduction of dark mode on Android and Apple phones a few years ago and now more recently on email interfaces has increased in popularity exponentially. Dark mode reverses the colour scheme of the user interface from light to dark, making it easier to stay focused, reducing eye strain, and improving visibility. Apart from this, it also reduces screen brightness, which can help save battery life. The introduction of Dark Mode has opened up opportunities for businesses to offer a unique interface that might give people more incentive to check them out. As professionals in the field of design and web development, we know that there are differing opinions on the concept of dark mode. Our goal is to provide you with information on its impact on your business and offer solutions to address any challenges it may present.
Shedding some light: what is dark mode?
Dark mode is not just a black background with white text; it is designed to make the most important content stand out. The focus is on helping reduce strain with muted colour palettes and darker colours and making sure that only the most relevant text stands out. Incorporating a dark theme in an email app or website can make the interface more attractive and make consumers more likely to read marketing emails.
However, the primary impact of dark mode is on mailers, forcing a shift in thinking. Developers and designers have much less control over the aesthetic outcome of mailers than they used to. When dark mode is switched on, the application checks for instances of background or bgcolour styles in the code of the email and changes them to a dark grey or seemingly any random colour. Font colour is also targeted and changed from a darker hex colour to white.
Designing for dark mode: what can you do?
What you can do to cover your bases when designing is to ensure that each image section in your email build stands the full width of the space and fills in any potential gaps that could have additional white-spaced backgrounds. This will keep the email’s visual consistency across both light and dark colour schemes. Designing your mailers to be as simple and minimal as possible is also key here. You can also ‘hack the system’ and design specifically for dark mode but this can cause some issues as some brand identities don’t work in dark mode and the outcome you want is not guaranteed.
Therefore, the solution is to shift from design focus to content focus and design mailers to be as simple and minimal as possible, with less use of columns and more well-thought-out copy content. It is always important to get a web developer’s help with this sort of thing if you aren’t 100% sure. They’ll know how to make sure your logo, copy, and images work with both interfaces.
To sum up, it’s advisable to consider dark mode during the design and development process, even though it may not be possible to have full control over it. You want to make your brand’s interface attractive and less stressful to the eyes, so making sure you cover for both light and dark mode is very important, as it will enhance your email subscribers and website visitors’ user experience.
