Color

FM Slate, FM Fire and FM Sea are the primary colors for our brand.

These colors can be used in combination with each other and with white. We often use the colors in the following ways, but we know that variation is sometimes necessary for emphasis or variety.

• FM Slate is our main brand color.

• FM Fire is often used as a key color in promoting our clinical products and aligns with the color of each clinical product logo.

• FM Sea is often used as a key color in communicating about our data products and aligns with the color of each data product logo.

Our secondary colors complement the primary palette, and increase the opportunity for visual interest and variety. These colors are intended as accents to the primary palette.

Gold foil or gold metallic Pantone ink can be used to accent graphics for printed materials, environmental graphics and printed swag. We use gold for print only, in order to take advantage of the metallic nature of gold foil and Pantone gold ink. Do not use gold for digital communications as it reads as brown.

Gold Foil

PMS 871 C

Tints of each of the brand colors allow for additional options in a design. Create tints in 20% increments from 100%. Tints should be used only as a supplement to the predominant use of the original color. Never screen or tint FM Gold PMS 871 C.

Do not use Fire on Slate or Slate on Fire. These colors vibrate and contribute to reduced legibility when placed on top of one another—this usage should be avoided.

Do not use the colors as gradients. Gradients dilute the overall brand palette and should be avoided, unless needed to articulate data within a heatmap or other chart (please see Data Visualization page).

Do not use the colors in rainbow order. Our colors shouldn’t be used to create meaning beyond the designations discussed above. Additionally, primary and secondary color hierarchies should be maintained.

Don't mix fire and slate

Don’t use gradients

Don’t Place in rainbow order

Our accessible color palette enables usability in digital environments. Due to web accessibility best practices, the colors in the accessible palette should be used instead of our primary and secondary colors.

Our expanded color palette provides options when more colors are needed to convey a large number of data points. Data visualizations such as heatmaps and charts often require a larger range of colors to accurately convey the information.

Never use the accessible or expanded palettes in print, digital advertising, social media, animation, swag or environmental graphics.

Accessible Palette: Web & UI Usage

The Foundation Medicine corporate website utilizes web-safe colors from the expanded palette to adhere to accessibility standards and provide optimum usability. Please see the Web Site Style Guide section for more information on designing for Foundation Medicine web sites.

Primary Web Colors

The primary brand colors were updated to meet accessibility standards and guidelines defined by WCAG 2.1. Please note that Slate is the same as FM Slate brand color, but Fire Dark and Teal are web safe versions of FM Fire and FM Sea.

Secondary Web Colors

Secondary brand colors are incorporated throughout the design to provide depth and highlight important pieces of content. Please note that Slate Dark and Slate Light are the same as our brand colors FM Slate Dark and FM Slate Light.

Expanded Palette: Data Visualization Usage

The expanded palette should be used when a large amount of data points need to be shown at a single interval. It is not advised to show more colors than allowed by this palette.