README.org

May 30, 2026 ยท View on GitHub

NOTE: I am no longer actively developing this theme, though its design is now part of [[https://github.com/Lambda-Emacs/lambda-themes][Lambda-themes]].

Bespoke-themes is a set of custom, medium contrast, light and dark themes for Emacs (intended for GUI, though basic support in terminal has been added). There is also a related, and optional, [[https://github.com/mclear-tools/bespoke-modeline][custom modeline]]. This started as a fork of [[https://github.com/rougier][Nicolas Rougier's]] work on [[https://github.com/rougier/elegant-emacs][elegant-emacs]] and [[https://github.com/rougier/nano-emacs][nano-emacs]], but has evolved with some ideas and colors borrowed from [[https://material.io/design/color/the-color-system.html#color-theme-creation][material colors]], [[https://github.com/bbatsov/solarized-emacs][solarized]] and [[https://github.com/arcticicestudio/nord-emacs][nord]], as well as color design aided by [[https://coolors.co][coolers.co]] and the classic [[https://www.c82.net/werner/][Werner's Nomenclature]].

The theme is notably less conservative/minimal than nano- or elegant-emacs, in the sense that it has a broader color palette and sets fewer configuration conditions on fonts and ui elements, but bespoke-themes otherwise shares many of its basic themeing ideas with the good work done by Rougier (see also his work on [[https://arxiv.org/abs/2008.06030][on the design of text editors]]).

The theme sets six core colors, plus five highlight/accent colors, and colors for foreground, background, modeline, and highlight. The light and dark variants aim to be as consistent as possible in their use of colors, and to set a decent compromise between aesthetics and readability:

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Faces are fairly comprehensive, including (optional) evil cursor colors. I'm trying to add faces on a regular basis. If there is a face you'd like to see added please open an issue.

NOTE: It is still early days for this theme, so there may be significant and/or breaking changes made from one commit to the next. I also may continue to tweak colors slightly to find the best balance between aesthetics and readability. Suggestions and pull requests are welcome!

**** Breaking Changes:

I'll try and log all breaking changes, including renaming functions and variables here:

  • 10/19: Moved modeline to its [[https://github.com/mclear-tools/bespoke-modeline][own repo]]
  • 6/13: Normalized all modeline variable names from =bespoke...modeline= to =bespoke...mode-line= for consistency (commit: e119c0a)
  • 6/12: Renamed =bespoke-set-mode-line-height= to =bespoke-set-mode-line-size= (commit: a46b7b5)

*** Options

  • You can set italics for keywords or comments (or both).
  • You can set variable-pitch for headlines using =(bespoke-set-variable-pitch)=.
  • There is a toggle function for toggling between light and dark theme variants: =(bespoke/toggle-theme)=. You can also call each theme variant directly with =(bespoke/light-theme)= or =(bespoke/dark-theme)=.
  • All options are available via =customize-group=, and can also be found in the =bespoke-themes.el= file.

*** Settings Here's one possible way of setting up the theme. Note that since this theme is currently not on Melpa the [[https://github.com/jwiegley/use-package][use-package]] setup below utilizes [[https://github.com/raxod502/straight.el][straight]] to install packages, but you can of course install it from this repo however you wish.

#+begin_src emacs-lisp (use-package bespoke-themes :straight (:host github :repo "mclear-tools/bespoke-themes" :branch "main") :config ;; Set evil cursor colors (setq bespoke-set-evil-cursors t) ;; Set use of italics (setq bespoke-set-italic-comments t bespoke-set-italic-keywords t) ;; Set variable pitch (setq bespoke-set-variable-pitch t) ;; Set initial theme variant (setq bespoke-set-theme 'dark) ;; Load theme (load-theme 'bespoke t)) #+end_src

To get windows to divide in a more attractive manner use the following setting:

#+begin_src emacs-lisp ;; Vertical window divider (use-package frame :straight (:type built-in) :custom (window-divider-default-right-width 12) (window-divider-default-bottom-width 1) (window-divider-default-places 'right-only) (window-divider-mode t)) ;; Make sure new frames use window-divider (add-hook 'before-make-frame-hook 'window-divider-mode)

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For the padding in frame used in the screenshots try the following settings: #+begin_src emacs-lisp ;; Make a clean & minimalist frame (use-package frame :straight (:type built-in) :config (setq-default default-frame-alist (append (list '(font . "SF Mono:style=medium:size=15") ;; NOTE: substitute whatever font you prefer here '(internal-border-width . 20) '(left-fringe . 0) '(right-fringe . 0) '(tool-bar-lines . 0) '(menu-bar-lines . 0) '(vertical-scroll-bars . nil)))) (setq-default window-resize-pixelwise t) (setq-default frame-resize-pixelwise t) #+end_src

To get a splash screen see Rougier's [[https://github.com/rougier/emacs-splash][splash.el]]. You can see my customization of it [[https://github.com/mclear-tools/dotemacs/blob/master/setup-config/setup-splash.el][here]].

For dimming non-active windows try [[https://github.com/gonewest818/dimmer.el][dimmer.el]]

#+begin_src emacs-lisp ;; Dim inactive windows (use-package dimmer :straight (:host github :repo "gonewest818/dimmer.el") :hook (after-init . dimmer-mode) :config (setq dimmer-fraction 0.5) (setq dimmer-adjustment-mode :foreground) (setq dimmer-use-colorspace :rgb) (setq dimmer-watch-frame-focus-events nil) (dimmer-configure-which-key) (dimmer-configure-magit) (dimmer-configure-posframe)) #+end_src

*** Screenshots:

Note that these all use [[https://github.com/mclear-tools/bespoke-modeline][bespoke-modeline]] and settings from my [[https://github.com/mclear-tools/dotemacs][dotemacs]].

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Splash

Colors

Code

Magit

Agenda

Org

Dired

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