Obsidian October 2021 daily progress and learnings

Basement
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I’ll kick things off then!

Material Obsidian

I’ve been meaning to create a theme for a bit and just couldn’t find one that worked well for me on mobile. Obsidian October is the perfect incentive to build an Obsidian theme from scratch for the first time!

I’ll keep sharing the full documentation of my process on my digital garden: Building an Obsidian Mobile theme in public. But here is a sneak peek of the skeleton 0.0.1 so far:

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I want to create a theme that reflects Google’s Material Design Guidelines to feel native on Android, and beautiful anywhere else. :sparkles:

Here’s an excerpt on my notes on building 0.0.1:

:+1: What I like

I spend hours on a simple animation when opening a text field. I think it turned out alright and showed me that details are worth focussing on.

I use the theme as a daily driver on my phone to keep thinking about ways to improve.

:thinking: To improve

I want to improve the use of colour. To keep it simple, I stuck with Obsidian’s default shade of purple. I used the Color Tool - Material Design to generate a lighter and darker shade that I used throughout the design. I want to add some more accents, so far the scheme feels quite plain.

I am also not sure about the typography. I stuck with roboto and the specified weights, but they seem boring and corporate to me. Both sidebars also need significant improvement.

Then there are all the details: tag pills, settings, links.

Conclusion

0.0.1 is a workable start to feel out the theme. I want to add more playfulness to it and need to improve the core styling of different elements. In this stage, gathering inspiration is key. Then I can steal from my favourites and create something unique.

Main questions going forward

  • Is roboto the right choice of font?
  • Which weight should the headers have?
  • How do I incorporate a feeling of layer and surfaces?
  • How can I redesign the icons to make them feel more ‘material’?
  • Which tool can I use to gather all the design inspiration?

Main action items

  • Share my progress with others
  • Find a tool to gather design inspiration (Recommendations anyone?)
  • Create a git repo
  • Design the different elements of the body
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