HelloEdit was designed by Raphael Kabo as an homage to Microsoft Word 5.1 and Macintosh System 7, and therefore to a childhood sitting in the laundry, where the Macintosh SE inexplicably was, writing school assignments about the reproductive life cycle of frogs. It takes Kevin Lipe at his literal word when he says that "Markdown is the new Word 5.1".

In the backend, this is just an opinionated wrapper for EasyMDE by Jeroen Akkerman. This font is ChiKareGo2, designed by Giles Booth as an homage to the Chicago typeface (designed by Susan Kare) which was used as the system font in Classic Mac OS.

The interface also uses Font Awesome icons. The button sprites are handmade.