Type Black sets the weight of the palette in authority and sophistication, and Body Dark is the swatch that breaks rank: a single charcoal that stops the set reading as one note. Type Black to Column White spans 100 points of lightness, so the palette can carry its own hierarchy without reaching for a second one. Saturation averages 0 percent, so close to grey that Type Black reads as a colour accent purely by being the least grey thing present.
Type Black reads as pure authority: sophistication, power, and the visual weight that makes everything placed near it feel more serious.
Body Dark is black's softer relative, still authoritative, but with enough warmth to feel considered rather than severe.
Caption Grey is true neutrality, balance and restraint, a color that recedes so the palette's other choices can carry the emotional weight.
Rule Light functions as quiet breathing room, understated, unobtrusive, built to let other colors do the talking.
Column White reads as purity and openness, the color of empty space, clarity, and things left deliberately unresolved.
International typographic style with grids, sans-serif type, and objective clarity
Explore the full Swiss / International style guideIts decade on the timeline · 1950s