BlackDoctor is black ink on warm paper with a single gold accent. Everything else is a step on one of two scales — a neutral scale from paper to black, and a gold scale from tint to ink — plus two soft highlighter surfaces. The values below are the brand's Figma variables; the web tokens that express them are on the Website colour page.
Core palette
| Colour | Hex | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Black | Ink: text, primary buttons, rules | |
| Paper | The page ground | |
| Gold | The accent: fills, selection, highlights, and text on black or the dark page | |
| Warm grey | Surfaces and graphics only — it is 2.65:1 on paper and never carries text |
Print equivalents (CMYK, Pantone) come from the rebrand deliverables and are not derived from these hex values.
Gold scale
Gold is a scale, not one colour, because the brand gold cannot carry text on paper: measures 1.68:1 there, far below the 4.5:1 that WCAG AA asks of text. The 500 step is the gold; the 800 step is the gold that accented words, link underlines and hover states are set in on light surfaces.
| Step | Hex | Role |
|---|---|---|
| 50 | Tint | |
| 100 | Tint; warning surfaces | |
| 150 | Tint | |
| 200 | ||
| 300 | ||
| 400 | ||
| 500 | The brand gold — fills, selection, the accent on black | |
| 600 | ||
| 700 | Large text and graphics only (3.15:1 on paper) | |
| 800 | Accent ink — accented text, link underlines and hover states on light surfaces (5.70:1 on paper) | |
| 900 | Warning ink | |
| 950 |
The steps other than 500 and 800 are provisional stand-ins that hold the gold's hue at a stepped lightness; the final values are being supplied.
Neutral scale
The neutrals are black laid over paper at increasing strength: step 150 is 5 % black, 500 is 40 %, 800 is 70 %. That is why they read as one family.
| Step | Hex | Use |
|---|---|---|
| 50 | Panels that open over the page | |
| 100 | Paper | |
| 150 | Secondary surfaces | |
| 200 | ||
| 300 | ||
| 400 | Decorative rules, placeholders | |
| 500 | ||
| 600 | Control boundaries — the lightest grey that clears 3:1 on paper | |
| 700 | Faded text (5.55:1 on paper) | |
| 800 | Secondary text (8.10:1 on paper) | |
| 900 | ||
| 950 | The dark-mode page | |
| 990 | Ink |
Surfaces
| Surface | Light | Dark |
|---|---|---|
| Page | ||
| Secondary | ||
| Plain (cards, inputs on a tinted ground) | ||
| Panel (menus, dropdowns) | ||
| Accent | ||
| Highlighter | — | |
| Highlighter 2 | — |
Dark mode is paper inverted: white ink on , secondary text in , and the true gold as the accent, where it measures 9.35:1.
Rules
- Gold never carries text on a light surface. Use the 800 step for accented words, link underlines and hover states; link text itself is black. On black or the dark page the true gold is the accent.
- Warm grey is a surface colour. It sits under graphics and behind placeholders; it is not a text colour at any size.
- Faded text is 60 % black, not lighter. Anything lighter fails AA on paper.
- Highlighters carry black text. Both are grounds, never inks.
- Selection is black on gold.
Checking a pairing
Every text-on-background pairing must clear WCAG 2.1 AA. Use the Colour Pairing tool to measure any two palette colours before a pairing ships.