The New York Times

The New York Times palette as deployed on nytimes.com. The brand is paper-toned and ink-led: a near-black "Ink" body color on a bright white canvas, with a small accent set — a desaturated link blue ("Reading Blue"), the masthead's deep red ("Masthead Red"), and a tight gray scale used for rules, captions, and meta. The result reads as authoritative print on screen.

15 swatches 12 light roles 12 dark roles nytnew-york-timesnewsjournalismpaperseriflight-first

Swatches

ink-black
#121212
Primary body text; the deep ink of a newspaper print page.
ink-medium
#363636
Secondary text; deck and byline weight.
ink-light
#5A5A5A
Tertiary text; meta, timestamps, kicker labels.
gray-light
#727272
Quiet meta text; disabled captions.
gray-rule
#979797
Hairline rule between stories; column dividers.
gray-border
#C7C7C7
Heavier border; card outlines.
gray-divider
#DFDFDF
Section divider; quiet block boundary.
gray-tint
#EBEBEB
Pull-quote background; chip surface.
gray-surface
#F7F7F7
Alternating row tint; subtle inset surface.
paper
#F8F8F8
Newsprint-like off-white; quiet section canvas.
white
#FFFFFF
Primary page canvas; the bright digital sheet.
reading-blue
#346EB7
In-copy link color; the desaturated NYT blue.
reading-blue-hover
#2B8AD8
Brighter blue for link hover and interactive emphasis.
masthead-red
#D0021B
Breaking-news red; masthead-bridge accent.
masthead-red-bright
#F4564A
Brighter red used in live-update pulses and tags.

Mode role mappings

Light mode (12 roles)

accent → masthead-red
accent-hover → masthead-red-bright
background → white
border → gray-divider
error → masthead-red
primary → reading-blue
primary-hover → reading-blue-hover
surface → paper
surface-elevated → white
text-primary → ink-black
text-secondary → ink-medium
text-tertiary → ink-light

Dark mode (12 roles)

accent → masthead-red-bright
accent-hover → masthead-red
background → ink-black
border → ink-light
error → masthead-red-bright
primary → reading-blue-hover
primary-hover → reading-blue
surface → ink-medium
surface-elevated → ink-light
text-primary → white
text-secondary → gray-divider
text-tertiary → gray-border

Provenance

Source
https://www.nytimes.com/
License
Proprietary — All Rights Reserved
Attribution
The New York Times Company — palette values captured from the deployed HTML and inline styles on nytimes.com. The New York Times, its masthead, and associated marks are property of The New York Times Company.
Imported
2026-05-19
Notes
Hex values extracted from the live nytimes.com homepage on 2026-05-19; no public brand guide located. The masthead red (#D0021B) appears in editorial breaking-news labels and legacy print bridges; #346EB7 is the in-copy link blue. Cheltenham, Imperial, and Franklin are NYT proprietary typefaces and are not publicly distributed.