Light, Dark, and the Nord Palette

03 Jan 2026

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System Halted is built around the Nord palette — a calm, arctic-inspired set of colors that reads well in both light and dark modes.

The toggle

There’s a theme toggle in the masthead. When a reader flips it:

• The choice is saved to localStorage, so it sticks across visits.
• On a reader’s first visit, the theme follows their operating system via prefers-color-scheme — dark if their system is dark, light otherwise.
• The switch is applied before paint, so there’s no flash of the wrong theme.

Typography

The palette is paired with a typographic system that scales fluidly across screen sizes:

• Rubik for body and headings.
• Source Code Pro for inline code and code blocks.

Because the colors are defined as theme variables, both modes stay consistent across cards, tables, blockquotes, code blocks, and the search overlay — you don’t have to restyle anything to support dark mode.