New Design: Dark Mode and a Minimal Theme

Emiliano Montesdeoca — Fri, 20 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The blog has a new look.

I spent a few weeks redesigning The .NET Blog from the ground up with a custom Hugo theme I’m calling dotnet-minimal. It’s dark by default, fast to load, and designed to keep the focus on the writing.

What changed

Dark mode as the default. Not as an option, not as a toggle you have to find — dark by default, with a light mode toggle in the header for those who prefer it. Most developers I know have their editor in dark mode, their terminal in dark mode, their OS in dark mode. The blog should match.

Typography first. The previous design had too much visual noise. The new one strips everything back to the content: a clear reading width, generous line height, and a font stack that respects the system.

Code blocks. Syntax highlighting uses the Nord theme, which pairs well with the dark background. Line numbers are off by default — they add visual weight without much value for most posts.

Performance. No JavaScript frameworks, no CSS-in-JS, no npm install required to edit the theme. The entire CSS is a single file. Page load times are in the sub-100ms range on the CDN.

What stayed the same

The content structure didn’t change. Posts still live in Markdown files organised by author. The Hugo build pipeline is identical. If you were a contributor before, nothing in your workflow changed.

The typewriter effect

The one bit of JavaScript on the home page is a small typewriter animation in the hero. It cycles through phrases like “share what they build.” and “build cloud-native apps.” It’s purely cosmetic and degrades gracefully if JS is disabled.

Open source

The theme is part of the blog repository and is available under the MIT license. If you want to use it as a base for your own Hugo blog, go ahead.

Design | The .NET Blog

New Design: Dark Mode and a Minimal Theme

What changed

What stayed the same

The typewriter effect

Open source