Color

These guidelines are the framework upon which we have built our system for how color is used in Vanilla, we use a fairly neutral color palette along with a traffic light palette.

$color-x-light
#fff

$color-light
#f7f7f7

$color-mid-x-light
#e5e5e5

$color-mid-light
#d9d9d9

$color-mid-dark
#666

$color-dark
#111

$color-x-dark
#000

$color-brand
#333

$color-negative
#c7162b

$color-caution
#f99b11

$color-positive
#0e8420

$color-information
#24598f

$color-link
#06c

$color-accent
#e95420

$color-accent-background
#333

You can define a brand color ($color-brand) that can be used for call-to-action buttons and other highlights across the framework. The default Vanilla brand color is $color-dark.

Accessibility

It’s important for us to meet all web accessibility standards. Vanilla encourages meeting the minimum contrast ratios specified by WCAG 2.1 Level AA for text, icons and background colors.

Do:

Use a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5 for normal text and UI components.

Don't:

Use low-contrast text and background combinations.

Color theming

Starting with the 2.3.0 release, Vanilla framework introduces a theming mechanism. The current default for all components is referred to as the light theme. A subset of elements and components now offer a dark theme:

Checkbox and radio form inputs
Horizontal rule element <hr />
Contextual menu
Lists / Divider
Lists / Middot
Navigation
Side navigation
Search box

Element / Component	Variable	Default value
checkbox	`$theme-default-forms`	`light`
radio	`$theme-default-forms`	`light`
hr	`$theme-default-hr`	`light`
Contextual menu	`$theme-default-p-contextual-menu`	`light`
Lists / Divider	`$theme-default-p-divider`	`light`
Lists / Middot	`$theme-default-p-inline-list--middot`	`light`
Navigation	`$theme-default-nav`	`light`
Side navigation	`$theme-default-p-side-navigation`	`light`
Search box	`$theme-default-p-search-box`	`light`

Future releases will expand this list to include all elements and components.

Setting the default color theme per element / component

To set the default theme to dark on any of the elements / components listed above:

Go to _settings_themes.scss
Set the value of the respective variable in the table above to 'dark'

Invoking a theme that is not currently a default

Besides setting the default, you can invoke the non-default theme by adding a class to your markup. For the list of themed elements above, add is-dark (if the default for the respective element or component is light, or is-light if the default is dark.