Color

Palettes

Neutrals

Our neutrals have been streamlined for on-screen use. They are organized by lightness value from Black (0) to White (100).

Feedback

Use feedback colors to reinforce user action. Color alone is not sufficient to meet WCAG 2.0 Level AA Accessibility Guidelines. An additional affordance, such as an Icon, must be included.

Errors

Always pair with mds-text-color-white when used as a background color.

Warnings

Always pair with mds-text-color-primary-on-light when used as a background color.

Backgrounds

Background colors work in pairs to establish visual hierarchy.

Primary

Primary backgrounds always contain the product’s focal point. The user is doing most of their work on this background.

Secondary

Secondary backgrounds offer visual rest from primary backgrounds. They often contain auxiliary elements such as side navigation, card backgrounds, registration forms, or ad-unit containers.

The MDS site uses the secondary-background for the navigation on the left. The site’s content is contained in the primary-background area.

Morningstar.com uses the secondary-background to contain ad units. This helps separate ad units from editorial content.

Interactive

Use to establish interactivity and hierarchy between UI components (i.e., mds-button--primary versus mds-button).

• Always pair with $mds-text-white when used as a background color.
• Never use $mds-background-color-interactive-default for text, as this creates an optical imbalance with interactive objects.
• Use $mds-background-color-interactive-dark and $mds-background-color-interactive-darker for hover and active states.

Text

Text on any background color must have a minimum foreground-to-background contrast ratio of 4.5:1. This ensures compliance with WCAG 2.0 Level AA Accessibility Guidelines.

Brand logos and disabled text do not have a minimum contrast ratio. All other content, including placeholder text, must meet or exceed 4.5:1.

Primary

Use for fundamental text, such as body copy, Data Table cell data, and List Group items.

Secondary

Use for supportive text, such as placeholder text in Forms, Data Table column headers, and metadata.

In this example, mds-text-color-secondary-on-light is used for text box placeholder text in Forms, as well as for the readout of disclosure information in small type (metadata).

Links

Error

Use to highlight errors. This color is under evaluation, as it doesn’t meet Accessibility benchmarks.

Disabled

Use to indicate components that cannot be used. Disabled components are exempt from minimum contrast ratios.

Use the @include disabled-text(text-color) mixin on a component to render the disabled text color.

Visualization & Charts

We assign specific meanings and orders to colors to create clarity and consistency across widely-used data visualizations.

Asset Allocation

Use to tie data to asset classes.

• If a product does not use these exact terms when breaking down asset classes, use the color associated with the closest asset type. For example, Alternatives would use the color ascribed to Real Estate.
• Never apply these colors to type, as they don’t meet Accessibility guidelines.

Super Sectors

Use to represent data relating to Morningstar Super Sectors.

• Sectors that underlie a larger Super Sector should inherit the color of the Super Sector. For example, Basic Materials would use the color ascribed to Cyclical.
• Never apply these colors to type, as they don’t meet Accessibility guidelines.

Valuation

Use to represent under, fair, or over valuation.

• Never apply these colors to type, as they don’t meet Accessibility guidelines.

Performance

Use to show positive, neutral, or negative performance in both text and visualizations. The positive and negative colors are under evaluation for use in text, as they don’t meet Accessibility guidelines.

• Apply $mds-font-weight-bold as the font weight to typography using performance colors.

Color Order Inside Charts

Use when there are no specific color meanings associated with a visualization.

• Use colors in order, starting with $mds-chart-color-1 and ascending in order to $mds-chart-color-15. If there are more than 15 items, begin again with $mds-chart-color-1.
• This color order is intended to be a default for when there are not specific color meanings assigned to the data. Designers may deviate from the default when color can be used to communicate meaning.

Borders

Borders define and structure content.

Separators

Controls

Accessibility

Color contrast refers to the difference between foreground and background. The World Wide Web Consortium established specific color-contrast ratios for achieving compliance. The guidelines are split into three levels: A, AA, and AAA. The organizational benchmark for Morningstar products is Level AA.

The color decisions shared here reflect an adherence to a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1. When possible, we recommend a ratio near 5.5:1, just to be safe. Never use any combinations that do not meet Level AA Guidelines.

The table above is reproduced from W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0.

Neutrals Color Contrast Matrix

Subtlety and refinement are integral to our visual language, however, ensuring that our content is legible takes precedent. The successes and failures below guided System color decisions.