This was a great overview. I had not thought about the dominance of black until you pointed it out. Personally, I think we're at a point where black and white alone is not enough to create any brand recall.
Definitely, the accent colors and illustration style will be a really important part. But it seems like the black background is becoming a norm for AI-first instead of the white background. Always hard to differentiate and fit in
Dark mode has moved to the physical world. A former colleague just posted a photo today of side-by-side billboards in SF. Black background, white type, small white logo. Both for AI companies. Dark mode might already be “invisible mode” in your marketing.
You probably aren’t seeing the websites next to each other. If you’ve gotten to the site already, you have some idea of the company and the product or the solution you are looking at. Out in the world your marketing appears “next to” your competitors all the time. Sometimes quite literally.
Ah, it looks like the "sea of sameness" has entered its goth era.
I hadn't actually noticed, I have seen still quite a mix of dark and light themes, but it doesn't surprise me. Brands seeing that developer forward dark mode design as overall tech forward.
I agree with Amrita below though - this give absolutely no brand recall. History repeating itself, we saw the sea of sameness in SaaS sort of start with the Salesforce blue look before. Here we are again. I applaud those that differentiate more and they should see the benefits in the long run.
I agree that breaking out of the sameness is tricky. Additionally, the dark mode evokes an instant association with some of the more AI-forward and tech companies. It's always helpful to consider the context - then to infuse some personality into it.
This is fascinating and something I hadn’t been thinking about…so thank you for the insights. I’m sure this will generate meaningful discussions with my team.
At elvex we did a study while re-doing our brand at the end of last year. Our findings were that 2024 was the year of "SaaS Purple."
They've since adjusted a bit, but at the end of 2024 there were at least 20-30 fairly prominent brands all heavily purpled out ... Writer, Jasper, Moveworks, Vanta, Gong, Braze. And then a bunch of blue-ish/purplish along the lines of Glean, Primer, Langdock. And then obviously a ton of dark mode all over the place with the dev-oriented tools.
We figured as long as we weren't 1) dark mode, 2) purple, 3) "Anthropic Sienna" -- we'd probably stick out a little in the world of AI.
Special shout out goes to Sanalabs, who had really unique branding for a while. They've since dialed it way way back (probably for legit business reasons) but it was basically leaning really hard into the "person staring at you" videos you see towards the bottom of this page: https://sanalabs.com/agent-platform-overview
This was a great overview. I had not thought about the dominance of black until you pointed it out. Personally, I think we're at a point where black and white alone is not enough to create any brand recall.
Definitely, the accent colors and illustration style will be a really important part. But it seems like the black background is becoming a norm for AI-first instead of the white background. Always hard to differentiate and fit in
Dark mode has moved to the physical world. A former colleague just posted a photo today of side-by-side billboards in SF. Black background, white type, small white logo. Both for AI companies. Dark mode might already be “invisible mode” in your marketing.
Yes! I should have included billboards - I've taken a lot of pictures of dark-mode branded billboards lately as well.
You probably aren’t seeing the websites next to each other. If you’ve gotten to the site already, you have some idea of the company and the product or the solution you are looking at. Out in the world your marketing appears “next to” your competitors all the time. Sometimes quite literally.
Ah, it looks like the "sea of sameness" has entered its goth era.
I hadn't actually noticed, I have seen still quite a mix of dark and light themes, but it doesn't surprise me. Brands seeing that developer forward dark mode design as overall tech forward.
I agree with Amrita below though - this give absolutely no brand recall. History repeating itself, we saw the sea of sameness in SaaS sort of start with the Salesforce blue look before. Here we are again. I applaud those that differentiate more and they should see the benefits in the long run.
I agree that breaking out of the sameness is tricky. Additionally, the dark mode evokes an instant association with some of the more AI-forward and tech companies. It's always helpful to consider the context - then to infuse some personality into it.
This is fascinating and something I hadn’t been thinking about…so thank you for the insights. I’m sure this will generate meaningful discussions with my team.
Somehow I was on trend since November 2024 🤩
At elvex we did a study while re-doing our brand at the end of last year. Our findings were that 2024 was the year of "SaaS Purple."
They've since adjusted a bit, but at the end of 2024 there were at least 20-30 fairly prominent brands all heavily purpled out ... Writer, Jasper, Moveworks, Vanta, Gong, Braze. And then a bunch of blue-ish/purplish along the lines of Glean, Primer, Langdock. And then obviously a ton of dark mode all over the place with the dev-oriented tools.
We figured as long as we weren't 1) dark mode, 2) purple, 3) "Anthropic Sienna" -- we'd probably stick out a little in the world of AI.
Special shout out goes to Sanalabs, who had really unique branding for a while. They've since dialed it way way back (probably for legit business reasons) but it was basically leaning really hard into the "person staring at you" videos you see towards the bottom of this page: https://sanalabs.com/agent-platform-overview
Interesting. It contrasts with the high saturated AI-generated images. Maybe they are trying to distance themselves from that perception.