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PUBLIC REFERENCE

Anthropic

Research journal printed on warm stone — authoritative typographic composition where word-level underlines replace color as the primary emphasis mechanism, and the only warmth comes from the paper itself.

Anthropic captured reference
DESIGN.md tokens.json Tailwind v4 detail JSON

Colors

Slate Dark #141413

Primary text, borders, nav items, icon fills, card backgrounds — the near-black that appears on both light and dark surfaces, making it function as both foreground and background

Ivory Light #faf9f5

Page background, button fills, light surface base — the warm off-white that gives the site its parchment character instead of clinical white

Ivory Medium #f0eee6

Nav backgrounds, secondary surface level, border highlights

Ivory Dark #e8e6dc

Body text on dark backgrounds, dividers, subtle borders

Oat #e3dacc

Tertiary surface backgrounds, warm mid-tone fills

Cloud Medium #b0aea5

Disabled/muted borders, secondary interactive borders, subdued UI chrome

Cloud Light #d1cfc5

Dividers, hairline borders, inactive states

Cloud Dark #87867f

Secondary text, meta labels, timestamps

Slate Medium #3d3d3a

Mid-dark borders, focus rings on light surfaces

Slate Light #5e5d59

Tertiary text, captions, footer secondary content

Clay #d97757

Accent CTA elements, highlight states — warm terracotta held in reserve for moments of intentional warmth against the achromatic base

Accent Ember #c6613f

Deeper accent state, hover/pressed clay interactions

Olive #788c5d

Thematic tag or category label color variant

Sky #6a9bcc

Thematic tag or category label color variant

Fig #c46686

Thematic tag or category label color variant

Cactus #bcd1ca

Thematic tag or category label color variant

Do

  • Use #faf9f5 (Ivory Light) as the page base — never pure white (#ffffff) or neutral gray.
  • Apply borderRadius 0px to all buttons and interactive controls except the primary 'Try Claude' CTA which uses 0px 0px 8px 8px (asymmetric: flat top, rounded bottom only).
  • Emphasize headline keywords with a thick text-decoration underline only — never color, bold weight increase, or highlight backgrounds — as the sole decorative emphasis mechanism.
  • Use Anthropic Serif at display sizes (91px, weight 400) exclusively within dark (#141413) surface cards; use Anthropic Sans for all light-surface headlines.
  • Restrict chromatic color to the CSS accent palette (Clay #d97757, Olive #788c5d, etc.) and deploy it sparingly — one accent per section maximum; default state uses zero chromatic color.
  • Set dark editorial feature cards to borderRadius 24px and keep them full content-column width with hard clipping of interior imagery at the same radius.
  • Use Anthropic Mono 16px for metadata field labels (DATE, CATEGORY) in card footers — the mono/grotesque contrast signals structured data within editorial layout.

Don't

  • Never use pure white (#ffffff) or pure black (#000000) as a surface background — all surfaces must come from the ivory/slate token range.
  • Never add box-shadows or drop-shadows to any component — surface contrast and border lines are the only depth signals.
  • Never round button corners uniformly — the 0px radius is a deliberate formal signal; avoid introducing 4px, 6px, or pill buttons.
  • Never use Anthropic Serif on the page's ivory background at large sizes — the serif display scale is reserved for the dark card inversion.
  • Never apply multiple chromatic accent colors within a single section — the palette tokens (Clay, Sky, Fig, Olive) are categorical variants, not combinable accents.
  • Never use background fills for badge or label components — metadata labels are pure text with no chip, pill, or capsule treatment.
  • Never replace the underline emphasis mechanic with color emphasis on headlines — links within headlines underline, they do not change color.