Color

Firefox colors are bold, vibrant, and attractive. They enhance the user experience by providing visual clues and bringing attention to primary actions.

Usage

Acorn's color palette is intended for styling Firefox user interfaces.

Acorn uses a subset of Mozilla's brand color palette, however, Mozilla's full color palette may be referred to and used for Firefox in-product illustrations—such as onboarding illustrations. You can reference Mozilla's color palette in Protocol, Mozilla's marketing website design system.

Example of the difference in color usage between illustrations and user interface elements within Firefox.

Full color palette

Below is Acorn's full color palette. Refer to the semantic color palette below to learn the meaning behind our colors and when to use them.

Not all colors are listed and explained under the semantic color palette.

Blue

For the most part, blues apply to elements that use the Firefox brand primary accent color (e.g. primary button, links, focus outline) and element states the primary accent color can adapt to (e.g. hover, active, disabled). Blue is also used to color elements that indicate an informative message or update on desktop and Android and to color-code tab collections on mobile.

#aaf2ff

#80ebff

#00ddff

#00b3f4

#0090ed

#0060df

#0250bb

#054096

Gray

Grays are used for the background color of pages and overlays (e.g. modals and panels), the background color of buttons, text colors, border colors, and icon colors.

Light

#fbfbfe

#f9f9fb

#f0f0f4

#e0e0e6

#cfcfd8

#bfbfc9

Dark

#5b5b66

#52525e

#42414d

#3a3944

#2b2a33

#1c1b22

#15141a

Green

On desktop, greens are used to indicate a new app update and to color elements that represent the concept of "success" and "new update".

On mobile, greens are used for color-coding tab collections.

#b3ffe3

#54ffbd

#2ac3a2

Orange

We use Acorn's lightest orange for the warm tone called "Sepia" in iOS's reading mode.

#fff4de

Pink

Pinks are used on mobile for color-coding tab collections.

#ff8ac5

#e21587

Purple

Purples are used as the private browsing mode accent colors.

#952bb9

#722291

Red

Reds are reserved for elements that are used to represent critical feedback, errors, or destructive actions.

#ffdfe7

#ffbdc5

#ff9aa2

#e22850

#c50042

#810220

Violet

Mobile platforms use violets for icons, borders, text, and for color-coding tab collections. Android uses violet as a primary accent color.

#cb9eff

#ab71ff

#9059ff

#7542e4

#592acb

Yellow

On desktop, yellows are used to accent elements that represent the concept of "warning."

On mobile, yellow is used for color-coding tab collections.

#ffea80

#ffbd4f

#ffa436

#e27f2e

Semantic color palette

Acorn's semantic color palette correspond to the semantic color concepts used throughout the product (e.g. Blue 50 = Color Accent Primary). This is the palette designers and developers refer to when styling our user interfaces. All of our semantic colors are aliases of the colors from the full color palette above.

Throughout Acorn's documentation—when appropriate and available—you'll see a semantic color value alongside its corresponding dark theme value. You can identify the dark theme color values through this symbol:

Accent

Primary

A primary brand accent color is used on recurring user interface elements to give Firefox a distinct look. Therefore, you'll see each platform's primary brand accent color used on primary buttons, focus outlines, links, toggles, checkboxes, and radio buttons.

While desktop and iOS share the same shade for light mode's primary accent color, we are currently improving accent color parity between platforms. Android's primary accent color is currently a violet shade. iOS also has implemented a new dark mode primary accent color shade of blue and desktop is expected to follow suit.

Desktop's primary accent color has diverged a little throughout the codebase. The CSS variable responsible for our primary accent color is --in-content-accent-color which results in #0061e0. We are currently creating design tokens for desktop. In the future, we should be able to resolve accent color issues.

Acorn / Desktop / Color / Accent

#0060df

#00ddff

Primary

Firefox primary brand accent color

Acorn / Mobile / Color / iOS / Accent

#0060df

#00b3f4

Primary

iOS Name

ActionPrimary

Acorn / Mobile / Color / Android / Accent

#312a64

#7542e4

Primary

Android Name

fx_mobile_action_color_primary

Background

Mobile platforms share background colors but apply them towards different page and overlays contexts. Desktop uses these background colors, but doesn't currently follow this layer system.

#f9f9fb

#2b2a33

iOS Name

Layer1

Android Name

fx_mobile_layer_color_1

#ffffff

#42414d

iOS Name

Layer2

Android Name

fx_mobile_layer_color_2

#f0f0f4

#1c1b22

iOS Name

Layer3

Android Name

fx_mobile_layer_color_3

Text

Desktop and mobile platforms share some color values for text.

#15141a

#fbfbfe

Primary

Token

--in-content-text-color

iOS Name

TextPrimary

Android Name

fx_mobile_text_color_primary

#5b5b66

#cfcfd8

Secondary

Token

--in-content-deemphasized-text

iOS Name

TextSecondary

Android Name

fx_mobile_text_color_secondary

rgba(21,20,26,0.4)

rgba(251,251,254,0.4)

Disabled

Token

N/A

iOS Name

TextDisabled

Android Name

fx_mobile_text_color_disabled

#c50042

#ff9aa2

Error

Token

--in-content-error-text-color

iOS Name

TextWarning

Android Name

fx_mobile_text_color_warning

Border

Android and iOS share a default border color.

#e0e0e6

Primary

iOS Name

BorderPrimary

Android Name

fx_mobile_border_color_primary

Themes

Acorn supports both light and dark modes. Desktop and mobile share some of the same light and dark mode colors, but apply them to different user interface elements.

Firefox's light and dark modes are also treated as themes and correspond to Firefox's light and dark themes. While users can freely choose between the light or dark theme, their devices default to the mode their operating system is set to.

You can read about Firefox's support for certain high contrast mode themes in this guide's accessibility section below.

You can find background color values for light and dark themes under backgrounds.

Accessibility

Don't use color alone for "conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual element." (WCAG 2.1).

Further WCAG resources:

Understanding use of color

How to meet use of color

Reference materials and tools

Color contrast

Acorn strives for WCAG 2.1 minimum contrast guidelines.

Color blindness

There are different types of color blindness that makes people see colors differently. Color blindness also affects 1 in 12 people that were assigned male at birth.

Ensure that adjacent color shades are distinguishable for color blind people.

High-contrast mode

Every operating system's high-contrast mode behaves differently. Some operating systems have default high-contrast mode color palettes, with some palettes being capable of user overrides. Other operating systems will increase the contrast on the existing interface colors.

You can learn how high-contrast mode themes work on Firefox for desktop in Firefox's source docs.

Need more guidance? Check #accessibility in Slack.

Changelog

Date	Version	Notes
Feb 14, 2023	1.0.0	Introduced color overview