Glacial Bloom

Glacial Bloom

A dark, icy Obsidian theme built for focused deep work. Deep glacial blue-black backgrounds carry ice-white text, with a crystalline cyan accent and a signature warm red bloom for highlights — designed to feel like frost catching firelight.

Glacial Bloom is a recolour of Minimal v9.0.2 by @kepano. All credit for the theme architecture, feature set, plugin compatibility, and Style Settings surface goes to Steph Ango. This repo only changes the color values.

Why Glacial Bloom?

Most dark themes default to pure black backgrounds with pure white text. After a few hours of deep work, that's harsh — and the standard yellow highlighter for marks feels aggressive against dark surfaces. Glacial Bloom takes a different approach:

• Blue-black, not pure black — backgrounds use #0a1218 (deep glacial blue) instead of #000000. Less OLED smear, less harsh on the eyes, more "moonlit ice" than "void."
• Ice-white text, not pure white — body text uses #e0f2fe (cool ice white) instead of #FFFFFF. Same readability, softer contrast.
• A single cyan accent — crystalline cyan #22d3ee for links and interactive elements. Cool enough to read as light, not so saturated it shouts.
• A signature warm red bloom — text highlights use muted red #dc2626 at 35% opacity, not yellow. The result feels like warm light bleeding into ice — a single warm note in a cold field.

The light variant (Glacial Mist) inverts the same palette: pale icy backgrounds with deep blue-black text, a darker cyan accent for contrast on bright surfaces, and the warm red bloom preserved.

Screenshots

Install

From Obsidian (after community directory approval)

1. Open Settings → Appearance → Themes → Manage
2. Search for "Glacial Bloom"
3. Click Install, then Use
4. Toggle between dark and light via Settings → Appearance → Base color scheme

Manual install

1. Download the latest release .zip
2. Extract into your vault's .obsidian/themes/Glacial Bloom/ directory
   • The folder name must be exactly Glacial Bloom (with a space) — it must match the name field in manifest.json
3. In Obsidian: Settings → Appearance → Themes → Manage, then select Glacial Bloom

Companion plugins (recommended)

Glacial Bloom inherits Minimal's full feature set. For complete control over features like focus mode, table styles, tab styles, and color schemes, install:

• Minimal Theme Settings — adds a settings panel for all Minimal features
• Hider — hides UI elements for distraction-free writing
• Style Settings — exposes Glacial Bloom's full Style Settings panel for granular color customization

Palette

Dark mode (default)

Light mode (Glacial Mist)

What's included

Because Glacial Bloom is a Minimal recolour, you inherit the full Minimal feature set:

• Focus mode — auto-hides ribbon, tabs, status bar; reveals on hover
• Cards — Dataview tables and lists render as responsive card grids
• Image grid — adjacent images auto-arrange into a grid
• Table helpers — row/column lines, striped rows, row numbers, tabular figures, centered tables, and more
• Tab styles — default, square, underline, modern; sidebar variants
• Callouts — filled or outlined
• Embeds — strict, hide-title, underline
• Heading dividers — optional underline below H1–H6
• Tag styles — plain, bordered pill, rounded, square
• Image tweaks — #invert, #blend, #circle, #outline, #interface URL suffixes
• Plugin compatibility — Calendar, Charts, Dataview, Git, Kanban, Style Settings, Zoom, and more
• 14 preset color schemes — Dracula, Gruvbox, Nord, Solarized, Catppuccin, and more (Minimal's presets remain selectable for comparison)

What changed from Minimal

Only color values were changed. Specifically:

1. Base HSL — --base-h/s/l shifted to deep glacial blue (206°, 41%, 7%) for dark, pale ice (204°, 94%, 96%) for light
2. Accent HSL — --accent-h/s/l set to crystalline cyan (188°, 86%, 53%) for dark, darker cyan (188°, 86%, 40%) for light
3. Pinned palette values — --bg1, --bg2, --bg3, --ui1–3, --tx1–4, --ax1–3, --hl1, --hl2, --sp1 pinned to palette-exact hex values (Minimal's auto-derivation formula is bypassed)
4. Extended palette — --color-red through --color-pink shifted to frosted tones that harmonise with the cyan primary (frosted emerald, icy lavender, dusty rose, etc.)
5. Signature bloom — --hl2 (text highlight background) set to warm red #dc2626 at 35% opacity in dark mode, 25% in light mode — preserved across both variants
6. Explicit scheme classes — .minimal-glacial-bloom-dark and .minimal-glacial-bloom-light added for parity with Minimal's other named schemes

Everything else — layout, feature modules, plugin styles, Style Settings YAML — is unchanged from Minimal v9.0.2.

Compatibility

• Obsidian 1.13.0+ (per minAppVersion)
• Tested on macOS, Windows, Linux, and mobile
• All Minimal-compatible plugins work unchanged

Demo vault

The /demo-vault folder contains sample notes showcasing headings, callouts, tables, code blocks, task lists, and Dataview examples. Open it in Obsidian with Glacial Bloom enabled to see every feature in context.

Credits

• Minimal by @kepano — the entire theme architecture, feature set, plugin compatibility, and Style Settings surface. Glacial Bloom would not exist without Minimal.
• Minimal Theme Settings — companion plugin for feature control
• Glacial Bloom palette — designed by Ward Skaiker

License

MIT License — same as Minimal. Copyright 2020–2026 Steph Ango. The Glacial Bloom recolour is by Ward Skaiker and is released under the same MIT License. See LICENSE for details.

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md.