City of Calgary colour palette

Why colour is important

Moving forward with the “One Voice” initiative, it is imperative to step back and take a look at The City of Calgary brand holistically. Our goal is to create consistency and focus across all City communication channels. Selecting a colour palette of core colours helps to create that consistency.

A selective brand colour palette creates recognition with Calgarians. Many successful brands use a very limited and focused core palette to help ensure that they are memorable and trustworthy. Core brand colours help create a tone, mood and a unified brand.

Our simplified colour palette will help Calgarians easily recognize The City of Calgary and the value we provide. Our core colours should always be dominant in our communications, used properly they will help in establishing a strong City of Calgary brand.

Building trust with our audiences

To strengthen our trust with Calgarians and build our reputation we need to create familiarity and consistency. By using our core colours, red, grey, black and white we are setting up a consistent visual language which Calgarians can begin to recognize in our ever-changing marketplace.

Our brand colours were carefully chosen. They are not trendy. They are meant to be timeless. These colours represent the City of Calgary’s core values. They are strong, bold and dependable. These colours are deeply embedded in our history and will help lead our identity into the future.

Core colour palette

These are our core brand colours. They are strong, bold and dependable. These colours are deeply embedded in our history and will help lead our identity into the future. Our simplified colour palette will help citizens easily recognize The City of Calgary brand. The core colours should always be dominant and used to help establish our brand.

Shades of grey based off the corporate colour (#4b4f55)

Grey colours used for backgrounds or other UI are based off of the corporate grey #4b4f55. The shades are a 10% decline, from dark to light, except the last grey which is a 5% decline.

Shades of grey based off the corporate colour (#000000)

Grey colours used for backgrounds or other UI are based off of the corporate black #000000. The shades are a 10% decline, from dark to light.

Secondary colour palette

We know that a repetitive colour palette will help establish a successful brand, but there will be times when additional colours may be required.

Seven additional secondary colours were chosen to provide additional range to the City of Calgary brand. Our secondary colour palette can be used when functionally necessary to complement the core colours. They can help set a consistent color language for illustrations and accent colours which will help strengthen brand recognition and familiarity with our citizens.

These colours should work with the core colour palette, not compete with it. The secondary colours should be used subtly and sparingly. Using too many colours at once will make it difficult to establish a recognizable brand and opposes our rational of using a simplified primary colour palette.

These colours were chosen to compliment the brand. For the “One Voice” initiative to be successful, the secondary colours should never be used to differentiate or create sub-brands within the City of Calgary Brand. When in doubt revert to using the primary colour palette.

Compelling photography can also help add dimension and colour to the brand when not using the secondary colour palette.

Additional shades

Background and foreground combinations

The default text colours below meet the AAA rating of the Web Accessibility Initiative.

Default text colours (dark on light)

Use #333333 on #ffffff for general text content on the web page.

Default text colours (light on dark)

Use #f6f6f6 on #333333 for general text content on the web page.

The colour combination examples below meet the required minimum AA rating of the Web Accessibility Initiative.

Information This site is moving

City of Calgary colour palette

Why colour is important

Building trust with our audiences

Core colour palette

Shades of grey based off the corporate colour (#4b4f55)

Shades of grey based off the corporate colour (#000000)

Secondary colour palette

Additional shades

Background and foreground combinations

Default text colours (dark on light)

Default text colours (light on dark)

Grey colour palette

Secondary colour palette