Vanilla is commonly used to describe the plain, or ordinary, yet is deliciously sweet and smooth. Vanilla UI is a UI kit and style guide designed to be as clean and simple as possible while still maintaining the semblance of tactile controls. Although gradients and drop shadows are generally extraneous embellishments, sometimes even the subtlest shadow can help transform a UI element from simply an informative icon to an invitation for the user to interact with it.

 

In addition to the UI elements, Vanilla features styling for larger page elements to divide space in a clean but discernible manner. Once again, by using extremely subtle shadows, certain divisions of space become distinct from their backgrounds.

The Vanilla UI kit and theme were used to create Minlio, a minimalist portfolio content management system.

Background pattern by Tony Kinard.