Two color palettes designed for calm reading. Named for kasane no irome (重ねの色目), the traditional Japanese practice of pairing kimono layers so that carefully chosen colors show at the sleeves and collar. Each layer is individually restrained, and the combination creates quiet depth without noise.
These themes were made by someone who is color-blind and has dyslexia. The problem with most beautiful themes is that one or two accents read identically for color-deficient eyes, or the palette is harmonious enough that the eyes lock in to it, worsening reading difficulty and forcing a rotation to something new. Ferra, gruvbox, meliora, kanagawa, and ayu are all in regular rotation for this reason. Each is nearly right. Each eventually tires in a specific way.
kasane tries to thread that needle. Every accent sits in the middle ground: nothing bright enough to demand attention or cause eye strain, nothing pale enough to vanish, and no two adjacent tones close enough to collapse into each other. The foreground is warm parchment against a near-black ground. Strong contrast, without the harshness of white on black.
The goal is a terminal environment as calm as sitting on tatami in a kimono with a cup of tea, where the tools stay quiet and the text stays readable.
Named for the Japanese aesthetic concept of subdued, unobtrusive beauty. A cool dark blue-black ground with all six accents desaturated and held at the edge of legibility. Nothing announces itself.
include /path/to/kasane/themes/shibui.confNamed for the sash of a kimono: darker and plainer than the cloth, the thing that holds everything together without drawing the eye. Near-black ground with only a trace of cool. The six accents cover the full hue spread, from coral to cherry blossom to sage and water, each held at the same restraint.
include /path/to/kasane/themes/kitty/obi.confEach theme ships in three forms:
| File | Use |
|---|---|
shibui.conf / obi.conf |
Main dark background |
shibui-raised.conf / obi-raised.conf |
Lighter background for elevated panels |
shibui-gamma.conf / obi-gamma.conf |
Pre-shifted for wide-gamut displays so the perceived values match an ICC-managed browser |
The palette ships as .conf files in kitty's theme format. Port the hex values to whatever environment you're theming.
# kitty — preview live
kitty --config "$HOME/.config/kitty/kitty.conf" --config themes/kitty/obi.conf
# kitty — permanent, add to kitty.conf
include /path/to/kasane/themes/kitty/obi.confthemes/— the eight.conffilesdocs/— palette study site, generated byscripts/build_palette_docs.pyscripts/—gen_gamma.pyregenerates gamma files after editing a raw theme,build_palette_docs.pyregenerates the docs site
The palette was shaped by years of rotating between ferra, gruvbox, meliora, kanagawa, and ayu. kasane is not a replacement for any of them. It occupies a specific, narrow niche shaped by accessibility constraints and a particular aesthetic preference.
The visual references are a calligraphy scroll (sumi ink, seal red, gilt), a kimono (cool dark cloth and its sash), and a tatami mat (sage-olive weave). Colors are not literal pixel samples from those sources. They represent the intent: dark, muted, and considered.