I\'ve got (in my .emacs)
(set-background-color \"#101416\")
(set-foreground-color \"#f6f3e8\")
And I\'ve got 2 bindings:
al
set-background-color and set-foreground-color only affect the current frame, and your .emacs file is not executed when running emacsclient.
Try setting the variable default-frame-alist ("Alist of default values for frame creation") instead:
(setq default-frame-alist
'((background-color . "#101416")
(foreground-color . "#f6f3e8")))