# Ubuntu Yaru (Ubuntu Yaru)

> Ubuntu's community-built default theme overlays Adwaita-based GTK and GNOME Shell with Ubuntu orange, dark header bars and Suru-derived icons, distributing windows, shell, icons, cursors and sound as one suite.

- IndexStyle No.570 — https://indexstyle.org/styles/ubuntu-yaru
- Kind: Style · Family: Platform Screen Languages · Era: 2018–
- Mood: Technique, Intimacy, Trust
- What this family collects: Design languages written down for a platform and published, from the vendors that shipped an operating system to the governments that had no reason to hide rules paid for with public money, every one of them recognisable at a glance.

## Defining characteristics

- Light window body contrasted with a dark header bar
- Ubuntu orange for selection and focus
- Suru-derived icons based on circles, squares and vertical or horizontal oblongs
- One-pixel icon edge, restrained gradient and lower shadow

## Best used for

- Unifying the Ubuntu desktop, default applications and distribution assets
- Adding a distribution identity while remaining compatible with upstream GNOME

## Composition recipe

- Typography & lettering: Use Ubuntu type and short labels; avoid lettering inside icons.
- Layout & structure: Preserve GTK structure, using the dark header and orange focus ring to declare the active window.
- Material & texture: Reuse the Suru palette, restrained gradients and translucent dark outlines to keep icons from drifting apart.

## Colour

Read off the reference works below, so a direction rather than a fixed palette.

- Ground: #FAFAFA
- The colour it is remembered by: #E95420
- Text and outlines: #2C001E

## What to avoid

Large overrides of Adwaita collide with application styling. Contain Ubuntu identity in color, headers and iconography instead of restructuring widgets.

## Application checklist

Work through this before calling a piece an application of this style.

- [ ] Visible in the piece: Light window body contrasted with a dark header bar
- [ ] Visible in the piece: Ubuntu orange for selection and focus
- [ ] Visible in the piece: Suru-derived icons based on circles, squares and vertical or horizontal oblongs
- [ ] Visible in the piece: One-pixel icon edge, restrained gradient and lower shadow
- [ ] The layout follows: Preserve GTK structure, using the dark header and orange focus ring to declare the active window.
- [ ] The lettering follows: Use Ubuntu type and short labels; avoid lettering inside icons.
- [ ] The material and surface follow: Reuse the Suru palette, restrained gradients and translucent dark outlines to keep icons from drifting apart.
- [ ] The colour relation holds: #FAFAFA as ground, #E95420 carrying the style, #2C001E for text and outlines
- [ ] At least one reference work below has been studied directly
- [ ] The caution above ("What to avoid") has been addressed

## Related styles

- **Adwaita (アドワイタ)** — Adwaita is the name GNOME gives its default visual style, defined in the project's Human Interface Guidelines. One set of components has to carry a light style, a dark style and a high contrast style, so colour arrives as named variables that switch rather than as fixed values. A header bar crosses the top of every window holding buttons drawn with no background and no border, and interface icons are monochrome symbolics built on a 16 by 16 pixel grid. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/adwaita
- **Breeze (ブリーズ)** — The default visual style KDE introduced with Plasma 5, described in its own announcement as a high contrast, flat theme for the workspace. Graphics assets are simpler and more monochromatic, and layouts lean on typography rather than ornament so elements stay recognisable. Light and dark variants shipped as a matched pair from the beginning. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/breeze

## Compose it with something else

The dictionary can put this entry in a structural role and another in an accent role, and report where the two fight: https://indexstyle.org/compose?ids=ubuntu-yaru+adwaita

## Further study

- Yaru and upstream Adwaita
- Suru icon lineage
- Yaru GTK, shell, icon and sound themes

## Reference works

- Ubuntu Yaru — Theme suite and icon guidelines — https://github.com/ubuntu/yaru/wiki/%234-Help-for-creating-yaru-icons

## AI interpretation

An AI-generated interpretation image exists for browsing convenience only — it is not a reference work: https://indexstyle.org/ai/ubuntu-yaru.jpg

## Source of record

- Ubuntu Yaru — Theme suite and icon guidelines — https://github.com/ubuntu/yaru/wiki/%234-Help-for-creating-yaru-icons

## Machine surfaces

- JSON: https://indexstyle.org/api/styles/ubuntu-yaru
- Image-generation prompt (legally clean): https://indexstyle.org/styles/ubuntu-yaru/prompt.txt
- MCP: https://indexstyle.org/mcp (tools: search_styles, get_style, compare_styles, compose_styles, find_related_styles; prompts: image-prompt, apply-style)