Hi I’m Ray.
I am new here. Just started using Audacity on a Mac.
It is a nice program. And I love it is open source.
But…
It is Ugly.
I’m artist and graphic designer.
The dark mode is kind of ok…
The standard appearance looks like I am back in the nineties.
In a cellar with a computer nerd. 
Is there a way i can contribute for designing a more up to date logo or UI?
please let me know your thoughts about is.
While I quite like Audacity’s “retro” look (I passionately dislike the ubiquitous fashion for dark grey), I can see why many find it ugly 
Audacity is built using WxWidgets, which is a toolkit that allows Audacity to run on multiple platforms (Windows, Mac and Linux). The clear open source licensing of WxWidgets was an important factor for choosing WxWidgets. While WxWidgets provides one of the most flexible and comprehensive cross-platform toolkits, with licensing terms that suit open source projects very well, it has unfortunate got a reputation for producing ugly GUIs. Improving the appearance of a Wx app involves a lot of programming. Do you code?
PS. This is an older version of Audacity:
Though the 3d/raised buttons look has been removed, there are still a few widgets which are still drawn with that look:
I don’t know much about these things, but it could be that the manifest file needs a checkup: https://forums.wxwidgets.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=47130&p=198681#p198720
Wxwidgets threads on “dark mode” problems on Windows: https://forums.wxwidgets.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=45869 and https://forums.wxwidgets.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=47110&p=205961
We’re hoping that the Audacity GUI will get a substantial makeover soon, but this will require a lot of programming work.
Any C++ / wx developers that wish to help with this can find the developer’s mailing list here: https://www.audacityteam.org/community/developers/
and additional information for developers here: https://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/For_Developers
Thanks for the reply’s.
I am not a coder, but i know some who can really code.
They are musicians as well so I’ll ask for some help.
I’ll have a look at the wxwidgets and maybe dive into it.
Had a quick look.
I never knew this wxwidgets is responsible for the looks of the programs.
In my professional life I had some “interesting discussions” about the appearance of things, but no one ever told me this.
There are this parallel worlds of Technicians and Designers existing in the same space. 
This fascinates me…
For people that don’t code, Audacity currently has some (limited) customisation options by creating a “theme” palette. See: https://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Theming_HowTo
Although this is not as straightforward or flexible as “skinning”, it can produce quite nice results.
This is one of my favourites (despite being dark grey ). The theme was created by mischamajskij (https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/arc-dark-theme-arc-dark-with-dark-icons/61010/14)
@steve Do you know if the white/light grey lines(giving the widgets a 3d/emboss/raised look), I marked above, is something which can be done something simple about in ex. the manifest files used when building Audacity?
(Btw. our Blender+Audacity tool, seems to have been completely broken within the latest releases of Audacity, however I don’t have time to investigate now)
Sorry, no idea.
When you have time, start a new topic and I’ll be happy to help if I can.