So that each of your sock puppet accounts can have a unique top color. It helps to remind you of which facade to present.

Shoot I do that at work for admin vs non-admin logins, or different gmail accounts (personal vs side-biz). Reddit, too -- leave one permanently on night-mode.

IMO should be an SOP for anywhere that you might log in with different accounts.

How many times have you been logged in as root and didn't realize it?

Now that you mention it, I do the same for my dev installation of HN.

It’s a great visual indicator to remind of your active environment. I use it in just about every app that supports it with custom colors aligned with the environment (e.g. blood red for prod or canary yellow for dev). Gmail supports it as well. If you have multiple accounts with an “official” corporate color, it makes it easy to realize which you’re acting upon.

I tried 8185E2 and liked it.

I used a color palette generator with the black text and orange logo and it spit out: CFDBD5, which gives the site a bit of a high desert brush look.

Same with me, I can tell immediately if I am logged in or not.

I use D8D8C0, a slighly darker shade of the background. I find it aesthetically more pleasing than the bright orange bar. Also makes the logo pop.