What is Elicit's primary brand color?

Elicit does not follow the single-voltage CTA pattern common in SaaS design. The structural foundation is deep teal (#083d44), which functions simultaneously as the dark section background, the primary text color on off-white, and the primary border color — 281 total occurrences as text (113), bg (55), and border (113). The sole chromatic accent is chartreuse (#e5ff97) with 8 total occurrences, used for the primary search button fill, a gradient stop, and interactive highlights. If you need to identify 'the brand color' for a CTA, chartreuse is the correct token; if you need the brand's typographic voice, deep teal is the structural anchor.

What typefaces does Elicit use, and what can I substitute?

Elicit runs three typefaces in strict role separation. Martina Plantijn Regular — a Dutch serif with old-style proportions — handles display headlines at 48-64px weight 400; it appears on the hero h1 ('AI for Scientific Research') and section feature headlines. Special Gothic Variable (a condensed grotesque) handles all body text at 15-27px at weight 400; it runs the hero subtext, feature descriptions, and card body paragraphs. DM Mono handles section labels and timestamps at 14.4px in weight 500 uppercase. For substitutes: Freight Display Pro or EB Garamond approximate Martina Plantijn at display sizes; Barlow Condensed or Aktiv Grotesk Condensed works for Special Gothic Variable at 16px body; any monospace (IBM Plex Mono, JetBrains Mono) at weight 500 uppercase for DM Mono labels.

What background color does Elicit use?

The main canvas is #fcfcf8, an off-white with a barely-perceptible warm-yellow tint. It clusters perceptually with pure white but is intentionally distinct — the faint warmth reads as paper or parchment, supporting the academic publishing aesthetic. The extraction merged #fcfcf8, #ffffff, and #f6f8f8 into a single token because of their near-identity. Sections that carry the deep teal (#083d44) as background — the hero band and the 'Stand on the shoulders of giants' section — flip the canvas entirely to dark; there is no mid-range gray or charcoal surface in between. The system operates in binary: off-white or deep teal.

How does the deep teal work as both text and background?

Deep teal (#083d44) with 281 total occurrences serves two non-overlapping roles. On off-white sections (#fcfcf8 canvas), teal functions as the primary text color and hairline border, replacing the near-black that most design systems use as ink — this gives body text a slightly warmer, less harsh read than pure black while maintaining the academic color authority. On the hero band and the feature section, teal flips to a full-bleed section background with off-white or chartreuse text on top of it. There is no single 'teal as CTA' usage — the chartreuse accent handles the interactive fill role exclusively.

Can I use this DESIGN.md to build a research-tool or knowledge-base interface?

Yes — the file captures Elicit's three-typeface stratification, dual-role teal system, and chartreuse accent in portable token form. Feed it to Claude or Cursor and the tool can reproduce the specific construction: Martina Plantijn serif headlines at 48-64px for section titles, Special Gothic Variable condensed body at 17.6px, DM Mono uppercase labels for metadata, off-white canvas with teal text, and chartreuse-filled search buttons. One consideration: Martina Plantijn is not openly licensed. The closest freely available serifs that maintain the old-style proportions at display sizes are EB Garamond (from Google Fonts) and Fraunces. The DESIGN.md tokens document the extracted family names; you will need to swap to an available substitute for production.

Elicit Design System

Elicit's design system layers a serif display face, condensed grotesque body, and mono uppercase labels over a deep teal and off-white canvas.

About Elicit DESIGN.md

Curated by Dov AzencotUpdated May 18, 2026Source elicit.com

AI & LLM Platforms
Education & Learning

Elicit's marketing page is a library catalog before it is a product page. The hero presents a search field as the primary CTA — not a button, not a headline-led pitch, but a white input field with placeholder text ("e.g., Does zinc improve the duration of the common cold?") sitting in the center of an off-white canvas with institution logos (NASA, Stanford, Cornell, Harvard, Tulane) ranged below. The visual grammar quotes academic search rather than consumer software. Where Semantic Scholar, PubMed, and Google Scholar maintain either institutional austerity or consumer-web flatness, Elicit assembles the typography of a journal — display headlines in Martina Plantijn (a Dutch serif with old-style proportions), body text in Special Gothic Variable (a condensed grotesque that packs information at the column density of a printed abstract), and section labels in DM Mono uppercase (a fixed-width face that reads as archival notation).

The DESIGN.md file packages the system into 15 color tokens, 12 typography tokens, 7 border-radius steps, 8 spacing values, and 15 component definitions. Color is spare: deep teal (#083d44) runs every surface that isn't the off-white canvas (#fcfcf8), and a single chartreuse accent (#e5ff97) appears as the primary CTA fill and as the "Search" interactive highlight — the only chromatic non-neutral in the system. The teal carries an unusual load: it functions simultaneously as the dark background for the hero band and the "Stand on the shoulders of giants" section, AND as the primary text and border color on the off-white sections below the fold. One hue, two roles.

Feed this file to an AI coding tool and it reproduces Elicit's specific moves: off-white parchment instead of pure white, deep teal as both text and background depending on section context, three-typeface stratification by semantic role, and chartreuse reserved for the single most important interactive moment on each section. The system rewards attention if you're building a research, documentation, or data-extraction product that needs to signal credibility through typographic precision rather than through gradient fills and illustration.

What makes it distinct

Three-typeface systemMartina Plantijn serif for display, Special Gothic Variable grotesque for body, DM Mono uppercase for labels; each occupies a non-overlapping typographic tier
Deep teal (#083d44) as structural inkused for text (113), bg (55), and border (113), functioning simultaneously as the darkest canvas and the primary text color
Chartreuse accent (#e5ff97)acid-bright against the teal and cream surfaces; the only non-neutral brand color in the system, used for CTAs and interactive highlights
Off-white canvas (#fcfcf8) with a barely-perceptible warm tintthe system's parchment substitute for academic publishing aesthetics
Library-search UI archetypethe hero section contains a search-input field and database-count display rather than a standard headline-plus-CTA pattern

Live at elicit.com

A snapshot of the brand in production. Hover the frame to scroll the page; click to visit.

elicit.com

Explore Elicit

Pick what you want to see — mockups, colors, typography, layout, or the full component list.

Brand & Accent

Sparing, CTA-only voltage.

Surface

Page and card backgrounds.

Text

Headlines, body, captions, muted.

Borders & Hairlines

Dividers, outlines, structural rules.

Elicit design system FAQ

Common questions about Elicit's tokens, components, and how to use this DESIGN.md in your project.

Specs, directories, and component libraries that pair with this design system.

Browse all design systems

The full directory of DESIGN.md files on shadcn.io, with live mockups for each.

Elicit — official site

Elicit's public marketing site — the source of truth for the live tokens captured in this file.

The DESIGN.md specification

Google Labs' open spec for machine-readable design system files — the format this page is built on.