Created with the discerning digital artist in mind, the Apple Gray with Lights suite of schemes are designed to turn the Macintosh desktop into the perfect working environment.

As digital artists, we at Akamai Design spend all our time in front of computer monitors. Because of this we are very sensitive to light and the strain that too much or too little of it puts on our eyes. The biggest problem that we find is that of too much contrast.

With Greg Landweber's fantastic Macintosh desktop accessory Kaleidoscope it is now possible to take control over the look of your desktop. Unlike other popular shareware products that do the same thing Kaleidoscope is built upon a plug-in architecture. This has given birth to a sub-culture of 'color scheme' designers. Now free to concentrate on designing looks that work well within the Apple OS (without having to understand Greek to do it), talented graphic artist from all over the world are producing outstanding art on this most unusual of canvases, the Macintosh interface.

The Apple Gray with Lights series is a limited study of the grayscale within the Macintosh 256 palette. Starting with Apple Gray we explore the relationship of dark and light and their effects upon the eye. Using neutral gray as a foundation here we keep ourselves within a field of only 4 shades. Apple Gray2T (2 tone) expands our use of shades to five with the addition of the next darker shade. Apple Gray 2TL does the same thing as 2T but to the lighter side of neutral. Apple Gray2TX is a mix of the extremes of 2T and 2TL, uses 6 shades of gray, and offers the greatest contrast of them all.

Apple Gray with Lights is freeware. We invite you to download them separately or as a suite either by following the links withing this text or the icons above. For more information about the schemes please read the ReadMe file that comes with the color schemes. To find out more about the authors please follow the links below or email us at: Design@AkamaiDesign.com