Color Palettes

Whenever appropriate, SIMS should align our products’ colors with the official IFRC color palette. How you use these colors depends on the element within the product. Below are broad rules of thumb for how best to choose the right colors. The button below will download an Adobe file which can be imported into Illustrator (and any other Creative Suite app) for quick access to the swatches referenced in this guide.

To use these swatches with Illustrator, open a project, click on Swatches > Open Swatch Library > Other Library, and open the file you downloaded.

To download and import these colors for QGIS, see this guide.

Primary

These should be used for infographic and map titles, icons, and any other elements that are designed to draw the viewers eye. Note that these should not be used for basemaps or large areas of infographics.

Color	Hex	CMYK	RGB	Usage
	#323232	0, 0, 0, 95	50, 50, 50	Main section headers and other featured text
	#A8AAAC	2, 1, 0, 33	168, 170, 172	Design accents
	#EFF2F3	2, 0, 0, 5	239, 242, 243	Backgrounds
	#F5333F	C0, M86, Y63, K0	239, 51, 64	Sparingly for titles and icons
	#011E41	100, 87, 42,, 52	1, 30, 65	Secondary titles

The infographic seen below is an example of using these primary colors for the title and subtitle of the document in order to draw the eyes. The text in the main table, however, uses more muted grays.

Secondary

Secondary colors should be used more sparingly. Use brighter colors to highlight important information.

Color	Hex	CMYK	RGB
	#f58220	0, 47, 87, 4	245, 130, 32
	#fbb15d	0, 29, 63, 2	251, 177, 93
	#fbdb65	0, 13, 60, 2	251, 219, 101
	#61c2a4	50, 0, 15, 24	97, 194, 164
	#00ab84	100, 0, 23, 33	0, 171, 132
	#009776	100, 0, 22, 41	0, 151, 118
	#009ccd	100, 24, 0, 20	0, 156, 205
	#4b8cca	63, 31, 0, 21	75, 140, 202
	#226293	77, 33, 0, 42	34, 98, 147
	#1b365d	71, 42, 0, 64	27, 54, 93
	#958dbd	21, 25, 0, 26	149, 141, 189
	#512d6d	26, 59, 0, 57	81, 45, 109
	#d985b8	0, 39, 15, 15	217, 133, 184
	#893c67	0, 56, 25, 46	137, 60, 103