Color System vs Brand.yml

Color System

By JR Brugger (Design Workflow)

Build complete color palettes with accessible shades and dark/light mode variants.

Brand.yml

By Posit

Define your brand colors, fonts, and logos once, use them everywhere in Shiny and Quarto.

Color System

• Generates full tonal scales (light to dark) for your brand colors
• Creates semantic color sets for success, warning, error, and info states
• Tests all color combinations for accessibility compliance (WCAG AA/AAA)
• Builds matching dark mode and light mode palettes
• Provides usage guidance for each color in your system

Brand.yml

• Creates a single YAML file that stores your brand colors, fonts, and logo files
• Automatically applies your branding to Shiny web apps and Quarto documents
• Supports light and dark mode variants for colors and logos
• Integrates with Google Fonts and custom typography
• Works across HTML reports, dashboards, slides, and PDFs

Reach for Color System when…

• You're building a brand identity and need a complete color palette
• You need to ensure your design meets accessibility standards
• You're creating a pitch deck or marketing site and want professional color choices
• You need dark mode colors that match your existing brand

Reach for Brand.yml when…

• You're setting up brand guidelines for a team's reports and dashboards
• You need consistent colors and fonts across multiple documents without manual styling
• You're creating Shiny apps or Quarto reports and want them to match your brand
• You want to update your brand palette once and have it apply everywhere