Custom colour palettes are being deprecated

What's changing

Starting from the 25 Aug, 2026, the custom palette under Configuration > Appearance won't be available as an option for new projects — it will only be possible to use monochromatic palettes. Pick a hue, and the rest of the palette (backgrounds, text, accents) is generated for you automatically, tuned for readability.

If your project was created before that date, nothing changes for you: custom palettes remain available, whether you're already using one or not.

Why we're making this change

Since early on, DatoCMS wanted to offer a way to customise the theme of a project's admin area, to give you as much creative freedom as possible over how your admin area looked. Over time, though, we heard from editors — the people actually spending their day inside these interfaces — that some custom palettes were tiring to read comfortably. After some research, we found that colour is harder to get right than it looks: contrast ratios, how a background reads against small text, how a palette holds up across every screen in the product.

That's the main reason we introduced the monochromatic system in 2024: it solves that problem by design. Every colour in the palette — text, backgrounds, accents — is engineered to meet WCAG AA contrast standards, so whatever hue you pick, the result stays comfortable to read. We've now decided to make it the standard for every project, keeping that quality bar guaranteed while still leaving room to personalize it.