Dark mode is coming to your customers' screens. Does your logo survive it?

macOS Mojave came out last week with a proper, system-wide dark mode. Windows has had one for a while. It is a safe bet the phones follow within a year or so, and when they do, a large share of your customers will read their email, browse the web and open your app on a dark background — by default, without ever thinking about it.

Most brands are not ready for that. The ten-second test: put your logo on a black rectangle. Can you still see it?

What breaks

• Logos with dark text and no background. A black wordmark on a transparent background disappears. It is the most common logo file we receive, and it is fine — right up until the screen turns black.
• Emails. Mail apps will invert or darken your carefully designed newsletter. Dark text on a white image inside a dark email looks like a mistake. Light backgrounds that get flipped make your brand colour look like something else.
• Photos with white edges. A product cut out on white looks fine on white. On dark it looks like a sticker.
• Colours that only work one way. A pale yellow accent on white is elegant. On black it is invisible. Brand colours need to be checked against both.

What to do

1. Get a reversed version of the logo. Light mark for dark backgrounds, dark mark for light. Same shape, same proportions. Every brand should have both files; most only have one.
2. Give the logo a safe area. A subtle badge, a background shape, or simply enough contrast that it works on either side.
3. Check the brand colours in both. Two or three colours that work on white and on near-black. This is a small design job with a long shelf life.
4. For the website, decide. Either design a dark version properly, or make sure your light site does not get partially inverted by helpful browsers. Half-dark is worse than either.

Why we like it

Dark interfaces are easier on the eyes at night, kinder to batteries on newer screens, and honestly, a lot of things look better with the lights off. But the real reason to care is not taste. It is that your customer will not switch back to light mode to read your email. They will delete it.

If you want to know how your brand looks with the lights off, send us the logo file. We will send back both versions on both backgrounds — and you will know in a minute whether you have a problem.