Colors

The University of Maryland's core brand colors are red, white, black and gold. Inspired by the Maryland state flag, these colors reflect our role as Maryland's flagship university. The university encourages the use of all four colors as they represent a core element of its visual identity.

• RGB (red, green, blue) colors are used for screen applications: web, email, video; they represent the values of the three types of pixels that make up all colors in a screen or monitor. The value of each of the pixels can range from 0 to 255.
• CMYK colors are used for print applications; they represent the four inks used to create all colors for printing: cyan, magenta, yellow and black. K, for black, means "key" color and is added to the other three to produce rich shadows and contrast. Otherwise, CMY together produces a dark grayish brown. The values of each of the ink densities can range from 0 to 100%.
• PMS (Pantone Matching System) colors are used for specialty print applications—T-shirts, banners, tchotchkes, etc.—especially when printing large blocks of solid color. Using one or two PMS colors instead of CMYK can also reduce printing cost (depending on the project). The UMD logo in full color uses three PMS colors to print.

To use the Maryland color swatches in Adobe Creative Cloud applications, download and install ASE (Adobe Swatch Exchange) files.

Maryland is committed to meeting WCAG 2.0 AA accessibility guidelines. Please use the guide below to identify type color and background combinations that are compliant. A ratio of 4.5:1 or higher is acceptable.

Color contrast is very important to legibility. To meet current accessibility standards, use only approved color combinations. Be sure to take special care with reverse type and type overlays, especially if your audience tends to be middle-aged or older.

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) require a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text to achieve Level AA compliance. To achieve Level AAA compliance requires a contrast ratio of at least 7:1 for normal text and 4.5:1 for large text. Large text is defined as 14 point (typically 18.66px) and bold or larger, or 18 point (typically 24px) or larger.