Dithered

Dithered is a retro-machine aesthetic that borrows the visual language of early bitmap displays — ordered stipple patterns, halftone bands, and controlled noise — and applies it with restraint to otherwise modern, well-spaced layouts. The grit lives in textures and edges, never in the typography or alignment, so the result reads as deliberate craft rather than chaos. It creates a feeling of analog warmth fused with engineered precision, like a well-made instrument. Reach for it when a product wants personality and a hand-built signal without tipping into full kitsch.

Design principles

• Texture is decoration, never structure: dither patterns sit behind or beside content, never inside reading areas.
• Keep the grid clean and the type sharp; the contrast between crisp text and noisy fields is the entire point.
• Favor flat fills and 1px borders over soft shadows — depth is implied by stippling, not blur.
• Limit the palette hard; let one warm accent and one cool secondary carry all emphasis.
• Every dither field should have intent: a fade, a band, a highlight — never a full-bleed wash of noise.
• Pixel-snap everything. Borders, dividers, and pattern cells align to a 4px sub-grid for that machine-cut feel.