Palette extension v2 — The Hemingway Report

Accent one

Cover stamp · Editorial signal

Galley Yellow

An acidic editorial yellow. Bloomberg-cover energy. The colour we use when a piece is a tentpole — a multi-part series launch, the annual conference issue, a Pro-only deep-dive. It signals to the reader: this isn't a regular issue.

#F2C744

--thr-galley · pair ink #1A1B1F

Does

Magazine-cover hero backgrounds with Newsreader in Near-Black ink
"ISSUE" / "SERIES" / "PRO" stamps on hero surfaces
Marker-underline beneath a single key phrase in long-form
Galley tint #FBF1CE as "key takeaway" infobox background
Single chart-bar highlight on the data point that is the story

Does not

Replace Forest as the eyebrow colour. Eyebrows stay Forest.
Become a link colour. Links remain Forest Deep #2E5241.
Pair with white text. The ink on Galley is always #1A1B1F.
Appear more than once a fortnight. Earn it.
Sit next to Plate Pink (two acids = consumer wellness).

Application · Eyebrow stamp

Issue 24 · Cover story

Reserve for tentpole issues. The eyebrow stamp replaces the green eyebrow on these covers only.

Application · Magazine cover

Issue 24

The therapy layer

A four-part investigation.

Full-bleed cover. Always Near-Black ink. Never white.

Application · Marker underline

…the operators that actually understand distribution in this category.

Once per piece, on the line that contains the thesis. Like a highlighter on galley proofs.

Application · Chart highlight

Highlight the bars that prove the thesis. Never the whole series.

Accent two

Pro mark · Series brand

Plate Pink

A four-colour-process magenta with editorial weight. The Pro mark. Plate Pink identifies paid / member-only / closed-room moments and the series-level brand of one tentpole investigation per year. When the reader sees Plate, it means: this is for members, this is the series, this is the year's biggest piece.

#DD2E6C

--thr-plate · deep #B41E55 · ink #FFFFFF

Does

"THR Pro" pill on every paywalled surface
One tentpole series-stamp per year, consistent across parts
Drop-cap on a Pro section opener — single letter, very large
Row highlight on the winning operator in a comparison table
The active step in interactive scrollytelling

Does not

Appear on free-tier surfaces. The newsletter is not Plate Pink.
Replace Forest. Forest remains the brand signature.
Become a sustained background. Plate is a mark, not a surface.
Take the role of Red. Errors stay Red #EA384C.
Pair with Galley (two acids = wellness register).

Application · Pro badge

THR Pro

Always present on Pro surfaces. Small, white ink, never larger than 14px text.

Application · Series stamp

III The Therapy Layer

The unit math, line by line

One series per year gets Plate as its identifier. Stays consistent across all parts.

Application · Drop cap

K ooth is the only publicly traded mental-health business I know of that prints software margins on a clinical product.

Pro section opener. Standard pieces use Foundry for drop-caps.

Application · Table row accent

BetterHelp	−$3.4M / mo
Cerebral	−$8.1M / mo
Talkspace	+$3.4M EBITDA
Brightside	−$2.1M / mo

Plate marks the row that proves the thesis. One row per table.

III

Accent three

Editorial heat · Marginalia

Foundry Brick

A burnt terracotta with the warmth of fired brick and the gravity of typeface metal. The warm anchor the palette didn't have. Forest is cool; Black is neutral; Periwinkle is cool. Foundry handles the parts of a piece where the writing — not the structure — needs to be felt. Drop-caps. Marginalia. Footnotes. Chapter (in-person) accents.

#C84A24

--thr-foundry · tint #F7E8DF · ink #FFFFFF

Does

Drop-cap on long-form articles outside Pro
Marginalia text and the leading rule above it (Stripe-Press style)
Footnote superscripts and source-line markers
Chapter (in-person) dinner accent — invites and recap dispatches
Third chart category beside Forest and Periwinkle
Foundry tint #F7E8DF as a tinted-margin infobox background

Does not

Become a hero background. Big slabs of Foundry read as moodboard.
Get confused for Red. If a reader could mistake it, the application is wrong.
Become a link colour. Links stay Forest Deep.
Take a stamp role. Stamps are Galley (tentpole) or Plate (Pro).
Pair with Galley (warm-on-warm) or Plate (clashing warms).

Application · Drop cap

T alkspace burned five million dollars a month. Then it didn't. The transition wasn't a pivot.

Standard pieces. Pro pieces use Plate instead.

Application · Marginalia

Editor's note

Kooth's gross margin compounded because they sized clinical headcount to peak concurrent users, not enrolled population. I missed this in Issue 7.

Sits in the gutter beside the body. Stripe Press / Tufte register.

Application · Tinted infobox

Definition Per-member-per-month (PMPM) The MCO-contract pricing structure Kooth borrowed for its US state deals.

The signal that says "pause to define a term." Once or twice per long-read.

Application · Footnote markers

Kooth's FY24 revenue^¹ ran 59% ahead of the prior year. Gross margin held at 41%^².

¹ Kooth Plc FY24 annual report.
² Gross margin per company definition.

All source markers and superscripts. The most-used Foundry move.

Combined rules

A page uses at most one acid accent.

When in doubt: don't. The default Hemingway page uses zero new accents. Earn the addition.

A single page may use at most one of {Galley, Plate} at a time. The two are designed not to share a surface — pairing them is the consumer-wellness register we are explicitly the inverse of.

Foundry may co-exist with either one, because it lives at smaller scale (type, rules, small tints) and won't fight for attention with a single brand-loud accent.

Forest Green is unchanged. It remains the brand-signature accent — the 3px stripe, the eyebrow, the nav pill. None of the three new accents replaces it or competes for it.

Pairing	Galley	Plate	Foundry	Forest
Galley	—	No	No (warm-warm)	Adjacent OK
Plate	No	—	Adjacent OK	No (clash)
Foundry	No (warm-warm)	Adjacent OK	—	Adjacent OK
Forest	Adjacent OK	No (clash)	Adjacent OK	—