Holo

Live preview base style — press Wear

This month

$2,100

Revenue, up 12% from last month.

Customer	Plan	Status	MRR
Northwind	Studio	Active	$1,240
Acme Labs	Team	Trial	$0
Kaldi Coffee	Studio	Active	$860

Use this style 16 tokens

--bg oklch(13% 0.007 218)
--fg oklch(94% 0.004 215)
--muted oklch(60% 0.01 215)
--surface oklch(17% 0.009 218)
--surface-2 oklch(21% 0.009 218)
--border oklch(26% 0.012 218)
--accent oklch(72% 0.17 218)
--accent-fg oklch(10% 0.01 218)
--focus oklch(78% 0.15 218)

Token	Value
--font-body	`'Roboto', system-ui, sans-serif`
--font-display	`'Roboto', system-ui, sans-serif`
--font-mono	`'Roboto Mono', ui-monospace, monospace`
--radius	`2px`
--radius-sm	`2px`
--shadow	`0 2px 6px oklch(0% 0 0 / 0.4)`
--shadow-lg	`0 8px 24px oklch(0% 0 0 / 0.55)`

@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Roboto:ital,wght@0,300;0,400;0,500;0,700;1,400&display=swap');

:root {
	--bg: oklch(13% 0.007 218);
	--fg: oklch(94% 0.004 215);
	--muted: oklch(60% 0.01 215);
	--surface: oklch(17% 0.009 218);
	--surface-2: oklch(21% 0.009 218);
	--border: oklch(26% 0.012 218);
	--accent: oklch(72% 0.17 218);
	--accent-fg: oklch(10% 0.01 218);
	--focus: oklch(78% 0.15 218);
	--font-body: 'Roboto', system-ui, sans-serif;
	--font-display: 'Roboto', system-ui, sans-serif;
	--font-mono: 'Roboto Mono', ui-monospace, monospace;
	--radius: 2px;
	--radius-sm: 2px;
	--shadow: 0 2px 6px oklch(0% 0 0 / 0.4);
	--shadow-lg: 0 8px 24px oklch(0% 0 0 / 0.55);
}

Where it came from

Origin: Google Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich

Holo was introduced with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich in 2011 as Google's first serious attempt at a unified Android design language. The design team built both light and dark variants; the dark one, with its deep charcoal surfaces and vivid cyan-blue accents, became iconic. It gave Android an identity distinct from iOS and established the base that Material Design later replaced in 2014.

How to spot it

Dark charcoal or near-black base surfaces
Vivid cyan-blue ("Holo blue") accent colour
Thin hairline dividers and sparse decoration
Roboto typeface, introduced alongside Holo

Trade-offs

Strengths	Weaknesses
Dark surface reduces battery use on OLED (relevant then and now)	Replaced by Material Design — now obsolete on Android
Teal on dark has strong contrast and character	Dark-only variant can feel cold and dated
Clean and consistent — clear improvement over earlier Android	Very specific to a single two-year era

In the wild

Android 4.0–4.4 system apps — Settings, Dialler, Messaging
Gmail and Google Maps, 2012 era
AOSP (Android Open Source Project) default apps

Use it when

Android developer nostalgia projects, or apps leaning into the early-Android aesthetic.