NASA Web Design System
UI components
Colors
A flexible, yet distinctly NASA palette designed to communicate warmth and trustworthiness while meeting the highest standards of 508 color contrast requirements.
Palette
This palette is designed to support a range of distinct visual styles that continue to feel connected. The intent of the palette is to convey a warm and open American spirit, with bright saturated tints of blue and red, grounded in sophisticated deeper shades of cool blues and grays. These colors — combined with clear hierarchy, good information design, and ample white space — should leave users feeling welcomed and in good hands.
This is a simple, minimalist color palette. Shades of blue dominate, providing a neutral backdrop on which brighter shades, clean type treatment, and bright white content areas "pop" on the page.
Primary colors
This palette’s primary colors are blue, black, and white. Blue is commonly associated with trust, confidence, and sincerity; it is also used to represent calmness and responsibility.
#105bd8
$color-primary
#0b3d91
$color-primary-darker
#061f4a
$color-primary-darkest
#212121
$color-base
#323a45
$color-gray-dark
#aeb0b5
$color-gray-light
#ffffff
$color-white
Secondary colors
These are accent colors to provide additional lightness and style to pages looking for a more modern flair. These colors should be used to highlight important features on a page, such as buttons, or for visual style elements, such as illustrations. They should be used sparingly and never draw the eye to more than one piece of information at a time.
#02bfe7
$color-primary-alt
#046b99
$color-primary-alt-darkest
#00a6d2
$color-primary-alt-dark
#9bdaf1
$color-primary-alt-light
#e1f3f8
$color-primary-alt-lightest
#dd361c
$color-secondary
#99231b
$color-secondary-darkest
#c62d1f
$color-secondary-dark
#e59892
$color-secondary-light
#f9e0de
$color-secondary-lightest
Background colors
These colors are used largely for background blocks and large content areas. When alternating between tones, be sure to use enough contrast between adjacent colors.
#323a45
$color-gray-dark
#5b616b
$color-gray
#aeb0b5
$color-gray-light
#d6d7d9
$color-gray-lighter
#f1f1f1
$color-gray-lightest
#494440
$color-gray-warm-dark
#e4e2e0
$color-gray-warm-light
#061f4a
$color-primary-darkest
#dce4ef
$color-gray-cool-light
Tertiary colors
These colors are used primarily for content-specific needs, such as alerts and illustrations. They should never overpower the primary colors.
#ff9d1e
$color-gold
#f9aa43
$color-gold-light
#ffc375
$color-gold-lighter
#ffebd1
$color-gold-lightest
#2e8540
$color-green
#4aa564
$color-green-light
#94bfa2
$color-green-lighter
#e7f4e4
$color-green-lightest
#205493
$color-cool-blue
#4773aa
$color-cool-blue-light
#8ba6ca
$color-cool-blue-lighter
#dce4ef
$color-cool-blue-lightest
Special state colors
#aeb0b5
$color-focus
#4c2c92
$color-visited
Text accessibility
WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) ensure that content is accessible by everyone, regardless of disability or user device. To meet these standards, text and interactive elements should have a color contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1. This ensures that viewers who cannot see the full color spectrum are able to read the text.
The options below offer color palette combinations that fall within the range of Section 508 compliant foreground/background color contrast ratios. To ensure that text remains accessible, use only these permitted color combinations.
If you choose to customize beyond this palette, this color contrast tool is a useful resource for testing the compliance of any color combination.