Sanity design specDev Tools

A near-black stage rather than the white-with-orange the CMS category implies, and strictly two-voiced: Waldenburg carries every headline and content role at a single weight 400 with tracking scaled proportionally to about -4% of font size, while IBM Plex Mono at 13px uppercase carries all the chrome, with nothing in between the two registers. Every control is a full pill whose 1px border matches its own fill, and the install command sits beside the CTAs as an outlined pill with a copy icon. There are no drop shadows at all — the only recipe is an inset white ring — and every remaining colour is GitHub-dark syntax colour locked inside code blocks.

Browse Sanity in the interactive gallery

Captured from the live site's computed styles into a prompt-ready DESIGN.md you can paste into Cursor, v0, Lovable, Bolt or Claude Code. Below is a summary of each captured surface.

Marketing site

Source: sanity.io (live DOM, computed styles), 2026-07-19. Coverage: home. Responsive: breakpoints not captured. A cookie banner was present and only non-essential cookies were declined; no other interaction.

Visual Theme & Atmosphere

Not the "white site with a red-orange accent" the category suggests — Sanity's home is a near-black #0b0b0b stage with white type, punctuated by full-bleed #ff4100 orange bands. Two faces do all the work and they are held in strict opposition: Waldenburg, a neo-grotesque, carries every headline and content role at a single weight 400 with aggressive negative tracking (-4% at the 112px hero); IBM Plex Mono carries every piece of chrome — nav links, buttons, eyebrows, labels — always 13px, always UPPERCASE. So the page reads as editorial display type sitting on a developer-console UI layer, with nothing in between.

Every control is a 99999px pill with a 1px border, and the hero's third "button" is not a button at all but an outlined pill containing npm create sanity@latest with a copy icon — the install command promoted to a primary call to action. Surfaces are flat: there are no drop shadows anywhere, only a inset 0 0 0 1px #ffffff ring. All remaining colour is syntax colour, borrowed from a GitHub-dark code theme.

Feels: black-stage, editorial, developer-console, strictly two-voiced.

Color Palette & Roles

TokenHexRole / usage
white#ffffffPrimary text on black; also a surface
ink#0b0b0bText on white and on the orange band
muted#797979Secondary copy on black
muted-light#b9b9b9Tertiary copy
code-default#e1e4e8Default code text
TokenHexRole / usage
canvas#0b0b0bThe dominant page ground
white surface#ffffffInverted sections
surface-raised#212121Cards, product rows, panels on black
deepest#040507Darkest inset ground
border-dark#212121 (1px)Hairline between dark surfaces
border-mid#353535 (1px)Emphasised hairline on black
border-white#ffffff (1px)Outline controls on black
border-ink#0b0b0b (1px)Outline controls on white/orange
border-light#d6d6d6 (1px)Hairline on white
TokenHexRole / usage
orange#ff4100The one accent — primary CTA fill, full-bleed logo band
TokenHexRole / usage
syntax-keyword#f97583Code blocks only
syntax-string#9ecbffCode blocks only
syntax-fn#79b8ffCode blocks only

Rules: #ff4100 is the only non-neutral in chrome, and text on it is always #0b0b0b, never white. The pink/blue trio exists exclusively inside code samples — never in UI.

Typography Rules

RoleSize/LineWeightTracking
Hero h1112/112 px400-4.48px (-4%)
Section h272/75.6 px400-2.88px (-4%)
Sub-section h348/51.84 px400-1.68px (-3.5%)
Lead paragraph32/36.16 px425-0.32px
Button label (large)24/26.4 px400-0.24px
Body16/24 px400normal
Mono chrome / eyebrow13/16.9 px400normal, UPPERCASE
Mono label (small)13/19.5 px400normal, UPPERCASE

Patterns: weight never moves — 400 everywhere, with a single 425 escape. Hierarchy is size + tracking only, and tracking scales proportionally (about -4% of font size) rather than by a fixed step. Line-height at the hero is exactly 1.0. Nothing sans is uppercase; everything mono is.

Also documented in the full DESIGN.md: Component Stylings, Layout Principles, Depth & Elevation, Motion, Backgrounds, Effects & WebGL, Do's and Don'ts, Responsive Behavior, Agent Prompt Guide.