Colour.
White on Fort Red is our primary combination. Pressed, Brick, Oxblood and Ember are shades of that one red, and White is its partner. Pick colours by the job they do, never by eye.
Find your colours
Answer two questions. The guide gives you the ground, the text colours and the red that works on it, with every contrast measured. If it is not shown here, don’t use it.
Brand
Purpose
Why
FLDC Cohort 8
Applications now open.
Your leadership journey could begin here. Deadline Sunday, 15 November 2026.
Every colour has a job
Pick by job, never by eye: Core for the brand moment, Pressed for hover and pressed states, Text red for small red text, Deep for headings, Night for dark grounds. Swatch widths follow how much each colour is used. Click any swatch to copy its HEX.
#E70023
#D90429
#C1121F
#780000
#38040E
The ramps
Every ramp runs from its lightest step to its darkest, and the jobs repeat: once you know one ramp, you know them all. Each sub-brand ramp ends with Fort Red, its signal. Every hue in the TFI colour file is here: the reds, the neutrals, BOLT, CLIR, The Bridgr, The Well and the pink palette.
The five reds from 6.1, with the job, screen and print values of each.
#E70023
| Use | Logo, primary CTA, Red mode, headlines |
| RGB | 231 0 35 |
| CMYK | 0 100 85 9 |
| PMS | PMS 185 C* |
#D90429
| Use | Digital hover and pressed states only |
| RGB | 217 4 41 |
| CMYK | 0 98 81 15 |
| PMS | None |
#C1121F
| Use | Small red text and links on white |
| RGB | 193 18 31 |
| CMYK | 0 91 84 24 |
| PMS | PMS 186 C* |
#780000
| Use | Headings on light, emphasis, footers |
| RGB | 120 0 0 |
| CMYK | 0 100 100 53 |
| PMS | Match at proof |
#38040E
| Use | The Night ground: people, quotes, ceremonies |
| RGB | 56 4 14 |
| CMYK | 0 93 75 78 |
| PMS | Match at proof |
*Pantone candidates: press-proof before large print runs.
How the reds pair with each other
Ink for body text. Grey 500 and 600 for captions. Grey 400 and lighter are never used for text.
#F8F9FA
#E9ECEF
#DEE2E6
#CED4DA
#ADB5BD
#6C757D
#495057
#343A40
#212529
The reds that pair with each grey
#E70023
The reds that pair with each shade
#E70023
The reds that pair with each shade
#E70023
The reds that pair with each shade
#E70023
The reds that pair with each shade
The pink palette from the TFI colour file. It is not assigned to a programme yet, so it never appears in TFI’s own pieces until it is.
The reds that pair with each shade
Red on every shade
Fort Red alone is readable on only 12 of the 32 sub-brand and grey shades. So the red tone comes from the right member of the red family: direct red on light shades, deep red (Oxblood or Ember) on mid-tones, Fort Red on the darkest grounds, and a Fort Red plate, a red block carrying white text, where no red reads at all. Pick a shade to see its partner and its measured contrast.
BOLT
CLIR
The Bridgr
The Well
Lead differently.
Canvas modes
Every layout picks one ground. White on Fort Red leads; White carries the reading. Ember, the deepest shade of our red, is occasional: use it only when a piece truly needs a quiet, solemn ground, and never because it looks different.
Last call. Apply by Sunday.
Red · primary
White on Fort Red: our primary combination. The logo and big white type, with plenty of space.
Applications now open.
White · reading
Fort Red on White: documents, reports, long reads and quiet posts.
The future isn’t waiting.
Ember · occasional
Only for memorials and solemn moments. Try White or Red first; Ember is never the default.
Special cases
Three situations with their own rules. Open the one you need.
Ember, the Night ground
Ember always needs a bright partner: every Ember layout gives at least 20% to White. No dark on dark, ever. Never under more than about 40 words of body text.
The speaker poster: Ember ground, white type, one red field.
Applications close on Sunday
Oxblood on Ember is 1.5:1.
Fort Glow, our only gradient
Radial: Fort Red at the top centre, through Oxblood, to Ember at the edges. Event and hero key visuals only. Never behind body text.
National and cultural days
Independence Days and Africa Day may borrow the occasion’s colours inside an edge band only, at no more than 15% of the layout. Never in type, buttons or the logo.
Happy Independence Day, Nigeria.
Print values
| Colour | HEX | RGB | CMYK | Pantone |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fort Red | #E70023 | 231 0 35 | 0 100 85 9 | PMS 185 C* |
| Pressed | #D90429 | 217 4 41 | 0 98 81 15 | None |
| Brick | #C1121F | 193 18 31 | 0 91 84 24 | PMS 186 C* |
| Oxblood | #780000 | 120 0 0 | 0 100 100 53 | Match at proof |
| Ember | #38040E | 56 4 14 | 0 93 75 78 | Match at proof |
CMYK values are screen conversions. Press-proof before any large run.
Contrast
We follow WCAG 2.1 AA: 4.5:1 for text, 3:1 for large text (24px and up) and graphics. Logos are exempt. Red and green are never the only difference between two things.
Mix any ground with any text colour below, and swap them. The ratio is measured live; the note says whether the pairing is ours.
Background
Foreground
Lead differently.
Applications for FLDC Cohort 8 close on Sunday, 15 November 2026.
thefortinstitute.org
| Text | On | Ratio | Use |
|---|---|---|---|
| White | Fort Red | 4.75 | All text |
| Brick | White | 6.22 | Small red text and links |
| Fort Red | White | 4.75 | All text |
| Fort Red | Ember | 3.71 | Large text only (24px+) |
| Fort Red | Oxblood | 2.46 | Never |
| White | BOLT Orange | 2.63 | Never: use Ember (6.70) |
| Ink | White | 15.4 | Body text |
Misuse
The colour mistakes we see most.
Red on Oxblood
White on orange
Small red text on navy is unreadable
Sub-brand colour proposal
Proposal · for review
How BOLT, CLIR and The Bridgr could use their colours: the colour stays, but it stops carrying words. Every piece is built in the TFI structure, and the sub-brand colour becomes one woven field. Not yet approved: use the rules above until it is.
The samples first, posts then slides. Then our concern and the questions for reviewers, the red rule, and our recommendations.
Our concern
Orange and Fort Red fight
Close hues at full strength. Where they meet, a red button above an orange block or a red motif beside an orange band, they vibrate. Two loud warm accents in one piece is one too many.
White on the colour fails
White on BOLT Orange is 2.49 to 1. Today the sub-brand colour is asked to carry text it cannot carry.
Fort Red could shrink
Here Fort Red is reduced to the logo and the button. In a feed people may notice orange, blue or violet first. If sub-brands post more than TFI, red stops being what people remember.
Questions for you
Identity
Does each sub-brand still feel like itself when its colour carries no words?
How much red
Are the red logo and the red button enough red to make every sub-brand piece read as TFI?
The mother-palette brands
Should The Fort Awards and Letters, which already use the mother palette, stay as they are?
Red for the logo and the action
Fort Red #E70023 in two places only: the logo, top left, and the button. No other red: Brick, Pressed, Oxblood, the tints and Fort Glow stay for TFI’s own work. Kickers and labels are muted Ink.
Red buttons, away from the colour
The button stays Fort Red, the TFI action, but always on the opposite side from the sub-brand field. On night grounds it is White.
Never touching
Red never sits within one grid column of the sub-brand colour. Logo top left; the field on the far right or along the foot.
Night grounds
On Ember, CLIR navy or Bridgr violet the logo turns White and the piece carries no red at all.
No words on the colour
The sub-brand colour is a field only: a Mat Band, a toned photo or a block. Text, buttons and logos never sit on it.
One field per piece
One band, one toned photo or one block. Never two, and never two sub-brand colours together.
Give the field a job
Every field is a Mat Band: Fort Motifs woven in the band, so the colour carries TFI’s own pattern instead of sitting as decoration.
Snap it to the grid
The field is column 6 plus the margin, or a 14-cell band at the foot. Never a width chosen by eye.
Keep TFI loudly red
TFI’s own work stays on Fort Red grounds with big red type and Fort Glow. Sub-brands borrow that strength.
Let the motifs be the thread
All sub-brands share the twelve Fort Motifs. The pattern says TFI even when the colour says BOLT, CLIR or The Bridgr.