PostHog design specDev Tools

Playful skeuomorphic dev tool dressed as a retro desktop OS: grainy warm-paper canvas, a file-icon dock, titled draggable windows, IBM Plex Sans, boxy square corners, hand-drawn hedgehogs, and a sunflower-orange #cd8407 accent.

Browse PostHog in the interactive gallery

Captured from the live site's computed styles into a prompt-ready DESIGN.md you can paste into Cursor, v0, Lovable, Bolt or Claude Code. Below is a summary of each captured surface.

Marketing site

Source: posthog.com (live DOM, computed styles), 2026-07-10 (desktop 1512px). Coverage: marketing home (desktop-OS shell + hero window). Dashboard: pending login (needs-dashboard). Responsive: behavior only; mobile not verified.

Visual Theme & Atmosphere

Playful skeuomorphic dev-tool design — the entire marketing site is dressed as a retro desktop operating system. A warm grainy-paper canvas holds a top menu bar, a left dock of pixel-art "file" icons (home.mdx, demo.mov, customers.mdx…), and draggable windows with classic title-bar chrome (minimize / maximize / close). Hand-drawn illustrations of hedgehog mascots gardening, hiking and hacking fill the margins, and copy is cheeky and self-aware ("Legally-required cookie banner"). It deliberately rejects the sleek gradient-SaaS look for something hand-crafted, dense and fun: square corners, hairline borders, IBM Plex everywhere, and a warm sunflower-orange accent. Feels: playful, retro, hand-crafted, irreverent.

Color Palette & Roles

Surfaces (warm paper)

TokenHexRole / usage
tan-canvas#e1d7c2Page background (grainy warm paper)
tan-200#d0d1c9Secondary surface, dock hover
stone-100#eeefe9Light panel / window body tint
stone-50#e5e7e0Card / inset fill
white#ffffffWindow content area, editor surface

Text

TokenHexRole / usage
ink#000000Primary text, headings
ink-800#23251dButton text, strong labels
gray-600#4d4f46Body text
gray-500#65675eSecondary text
gray-400#73756bMuted / captions

Accent

TokenHexRole / usage
orange-600#cd8407Primary accent: CTA fill, links, brand
orange-500#eb9d2aLighter orange, hover/highlight
orange-700#b17816CTA border (darker than fill)
green#6aa84fRare secondary (illustration / success)

Rule: single sunflower-orange accent for CTAs and links; greens/blues live only inside illustrations.

Typography Rules

RoleSize/LineWeightTracking
Hero display40–56600–700tight (~-1%)
Section head28–32600~0
Body16 / 244000
UI / buttons15–16400–5000
Dock label / caption12–134000

Patterns: one type family (IBM Plex Sans) everywhere; mono only inside code windows. Sentence case, moderate weights.

Also documented in the full DESIGN.md: Component Stylings, Layout Principles, Depth & Elevation, Motion, Backgrounds, Effects & WebGL, Do's and Don'ts, Responsive Behavior, Agent Prompt Guide.