Themes

A theme is the whole look of a video’s graphics in one name: paper and ink colours, one accent, how keywords are emphasised, fonts, corner radius, shadow, and how things move. Title bands, captions on a paper band, notes cards, quote cards, stamps, pop words, progress bars and the other themed effects all read from the same theme.

Why it matters

Consistency is most of what makes a video look considered. With one theme, a notes card, a title and a progress bar always agree with each other, across one clip or a hundred. Changing the look is one decision, not twenty colour pickers.

The themes

Theme	Look	Good for
`editorial` (default)	Warm paper, deep ink, one terracotta accent; serif titles and quotes; keywords get a soft marker band	Most talking-head and how-to content. The safe premium choice
`mono`	Neutral paper, near-black ink, a pale yellow marker, no colour accent	Opinion and tech content where colour would distract
`soft`	Stone white, sage green accent, rounder corners, lighter shadow	Lifestyle, gentle sharing
`night`	Charcoal paper, warm ivory ink, amber accent; keywords in amber	Night talks, mood pieces, dark footage
`xhs-pop`	The Xiaohongshu red, on one keyword only; white cards, hairlines	When you want the platform-native red

There is also classic, the look from before themes existed. It is kept only so older setups don’t change under you, and is never offered for new work.

The rules every theme follows

One accent per frame. The accent marks one thing: a short rule, a dot, the progress fill, one keyword. Never a whole title or a box border.
At most one emphasised keyword per line. Extra 【keyword】 marks in the same line render plain.
No saturated red on light paper. Only xhs-pop uses red, a deeper one, on one keyword.
Notes are paper, not dashboards. A light card, a small label, a hairline rule, then rows.
Quotes are typography. Weight and size, not a coloured clip-art quote mark.
Stamps and pop words are quiet. Fade and rise in 200 to 350 ms with ease-out; no slam or tilt outside xhs-pop.
Captions have contrast of at least 4.5:1. The tests check this for every theme.
Progress is a hairline. A thin track with the accent fill. No knob, no glow.

Fonts are open-licensed only (Noto Sans SC and Noto Serif SC).

How a theme is chosen

The first one that is set wins:

A theme edit on a finished clip
The VSTUDIO_THEME environment variable
The project’s or recipe’s theme setting
The client’s theme (for client work)
Your persona’s style.theme
editorial

Any layer can tint a theme instead of replacing it, for example editorial with your own accent colour. A colour you set by hand on a single element (an effect’s colour, a caption highlight) always wins over the theme, until you apply a theme edit, which hands those back to the theme.

Effects are themed too

Every themed effect reads its colours, fonts, shapes and motion from the current theme. New effects are written the same way: a theme token instead of a colour literal, with an optional colour parameter for one-off overrides.

In the Mac app and with the skill

Set your default once with style.theme in your persona. To restyle a finished clip, say it plainly: “use a more premium palette”, “switch to black and white”, “night mode”. That becomes a theme edit, applied in one undoable step.