Colour
Four brand colours and a supporting register. The four are fixed. The register below them is provisional — it is derived from the brand, not delivered with it.
The four
Three purples and a paper. There is no fifth, and no accent waiting to be added. Click a swatch to copy its hex.
Pairings
Each colour is a ground that carries the other three. These are the combinations that hold; anything outside them needs a reason.
Dark register
Not brand colour — the neutral scale that carries text, rules and panels. Derived, not given: hue locked to Dark purple, chroma tapering as lightness rises, so it reads as a neutral that belongs here rather than as more purple.
Usage
Proportion is the rule, not the hex codes.
One ground, one mark, everything else quiet. If a layout has three coloured areas competing for the same attention, one of them is decoration and should be removed.
What each one is for
- Dark purple — ground for anything that should feel considered. Type sits on it in Base.
- Bright purple — the mark. A field, a fill, a moment. Not a text colour.
- Light purple — the quiet ground. Panels, secondary surfaces, anything that needs to recede.
- Base — paper. The default, and the most-used colour in the system.
Contrast
Measured against Base: Ink 900 is 17.3:1, Ink 700 11.4:1, Ink 500 5.4:1 — all clear of AA for body text. Dark purple is 13.0:1.
Bright purple on Base is 3.7:1. That is below AA for body text and above it for large type only. This is why Bright purple is a field colour: set it as a ground with Base type on top, or use it at display sizes, but do not set a paragraph in it.