Free dark academia color palette hex codes: 30 dark and moody shades with academic vibes for your designs!
If you want inspiration to create a design using dark, moody colors, you are in the right place!
This dark academia palette of 30 colors will take you on a journey to a magical world of Gothic architecture, old books, and a neverending fall!
What Is The Dark Academia Aesthetic?
An appreciation for the great works of literature, a love of learning, and awe at grand buildings all spun into one exquisite style. The dark academia social media movement is not to be missed!
Social media and the internet have become the breeding grounds of innovative artistic and societal phenomena. With millions of Instagram posts and countless more on TikTok, it is impossible to overlook the dark academia aesthetics.
“Academia” refers to a set of aesthetics intimately tied to knowledge, particularly the practices of research and study. There is a wide aesthetic disparity between social media subcultures, each emphasizing a unique set of values, tenets, or historical periods.
The “dark academia” world reveres a bygone period when society’s finest valued education above all else. The subculture is characterized by an appreciation for Western European architecture, artwork, literature, and fashion and a love of great literature and tongues, including Latin, Greek, and French.
In the eyes of the “dark academics,” as they term themselves, learning is something to be celebrated and celebrated with delight rather than boredom.
The “dark” in dark academia refers to the members’ inclination for the uncommon and forbidden. The mystery, cults, and underground societies that characterize dark academia set it apart from its more ideological counterpart, the light academia.
The History Of Dark Academia
The Romantic era, famed for its mystical and gloomy atmosphere, was the birthplace of dark academia. The Romantics placed greater value on sentiment and instinct than on rationality and logic.
They believed that nature was the ultimate fountain of aesthetic value. Dark, otherworldly vistas became extremely prevalent in art and literature. Perhaps the most famous Romantic picture is Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich.
In the late ’90s, a director called Tim Burton used elements of the dark academia aesthetic in his eccentric and somber films, propelling the style to new heights of fame. To achieve his own dark and alluring style, Burton drew inspiration from the imagery and concepts of the Romantic era.
His name is likely familiar to you from films like The Nightmare Before Christmas, Sleepy Hollow, and Edward Scissorhands.
However, some say that “dark academia” was brought to the mainstream in another way.
Some claim that “dark academia” was introduced in 2015 and first used on the microblogging platform Tumblr. At first, though, the atmosphere seemed more akin to a reading club than a virtual one. Its inspiration? The Secret History, by Donna Tartt.
In this novel, our protagonists are a collection of outlier students and a professor who retreats from the rest of the campus to have deep philosophical debates. But almost immediately, a web of lies and deceit begins to form.
Over time, with the help of new forms of online communication, dark academia grew from a loose network of “dark academics” into a distinct subculture. TikTok videos and Instagram photos reflect this shift toward focusing on finding and expressing oneself visually. Another place to look for the dark academia trend is, of course, Pinterest.
Dark Academia Color Palette
At its heart, dark academia is characterized by the careful balancing and extensive use of a darker and neutral color palette, frequently tied to natural wood and old metal furniture, and plenty of unusual and organized things from the academic or educational sector, such as literature, artifacts, curiosities, and artwork.
Neutral tones like creams, browns, grays, and blacks are popular in both dark and light academia. While lighter tones are permitted in dark academia, rich chocolate browns and jet blacks will dominate the color scheme.
The dark academia color palette is a visual representation of the commitment to learning and knowledge. A spectrum of dark hues, including black, dark brown, forest green, and burgundy, are complemented by lighter tones of cream, gold, and orange. You can also use gray, emerald, olive green, navy, white, cream, French blue, scarlet, dark walnut, chestnut, mustard yellow, maroon, and many other muted tones.
Dark Academia Color Palette Hex Codes
A color palette is simply a set of colors that work well together.
Below, you can find a dark academia color palette that consists of 30 beautiful colors. It can be used as inspiration in interior design, fashion, etc.
I have included a hex (hexadecimal) code for each color if you want to use it in digital design tools such as Procreate, Photoshop, or Canva.
I have listed all the hex codes below in the order they are displayed in the picture above so you can easily copy and paste them.
#422d20 #421220 #5a3925 #81613b #774c3a
#271d20 #b6aca8 #2b271c #321f19 #5a2827
#a8835d #241b24 #5c343b #22151f #5b3630
#bdac86 #54342b #3c3838 #3d3232 #202430
#8f5e5f #120f12 #8d7458 #704a2e #b69b7d
#2b2832 #b89c8c #472f26 #43473e #341f22
I hope you enjoyed this post and create many beautiful designs with this dark academia color palette!
If you like the dark academia aesthetic, you may also want to check out these free dark academia wallpaper backgrounds for iPhone and dark academia iPhone app icons.
Thanks for stopping by!
Magda
xoxo
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