Home Depot Brand Design System Deep-Dive

1. Brand Overview

Home Depot’s digital presence is exactly what you expect from the US’s largest home improvement retailer: utilitarian, straightforward, and unapologetically transactional. This isn’t a brand trying to seduce you with elegant serif typography and whitespace for its own sake — it’s about getting you the drill, lumber, or paint you came for, fast. The design language is grounded in retail pragmatism. The site is structured to handle thousands of SKUs without overwhelming the user, and the visual system is built to support that scale.

What’s interesting is how much they don’t lean into decorative flourishes. The typography is “Times” — a classic serif — which is unusual for retail e‑commerce in 2025 but consistent with their heritage. It feels almost newspaper‑like, which may subconsciously signal reliability and authority. There’s no flashy gradient system or complex border radius architecture. In fact, the extracted data shows zero border radius tokens and no shadows — a flat, edge‑driven UI.

Spacing is regimented on an 8px grid. This gives them a rhythm that works across product cards, category grids, and utility nav bars. No breakpoints are explicitly extracted here, but given the scale, it’s safe to say they work responsively. The 8px scale means margins, paddings, and gaps line up cleanly — important for a site with such dense content.

This is a design system for work. It’s for contractors, DIYers, and weekend warriors who don’t need “immersive experiences” — they need to find the right screw size or compare two lawn mowers. Every decision seems to favor clarity over delight, consistency over experimentation.

I like that. There’s confidence in stripping down to essentials. No border radius? Fine. No shadows? Even better. It pushes the focus to hierarchy, spacing, and typography. And it works because the brand equity is strong enough that they don’t need UI gimmicks to be memorable.

2. Color System

The extracted data gives us no explicit palette — which is telling. Either colors are baked into images and CSS directly without tokens, or the brand’s style guide lives outside the front‑end code. Without hex values, we can’t list them, but that absence is part of the design story.

2.1 Primary Colors

We don’t have a declared “Primary Orange” token here, but anyone familiar with Home Depot knows their signature is a construction‑site orange. The fact it’s not in the extracted data means developers are likely hard‑coding it into components rather than tying it to a semantic variable. This is risky: it reduces maintainability and makes accessibility auditing harder.

2.2 Complete Palette

No palette extracted. Here’s the table — it’s empty because the data is empty.

2.3 Color Relationships

Without explicit tokens, we can’t run contrast ratio checks. This is a gap in the system. Accessibility compliance (WCAG AA/AAA) is harder to enforce without a central palette.

2.4 Usage Guide

If you’re building on top of this:

• Pull the orange, neutrals, and any secondary accents into a token set.
• Test contrast for body text, buttons, and form labels.
• Avoid ad‑hoc hex values — consistency matters.

3. Typography

Typography is where the system does have clarity.

3.1 Font Families

The heading font is Times — no fallbacks listed here. That’s unusual; most modern sites declare a full stack (Times, 'Times New Roman', serif) but the extraction shows just "Times". No Google Fonts, no Adobe Fonts, no variable fonts. This is raw system serif.

3.2 Type Scale

Extracted sizes are minimal — two entries for heading-1 context.

The duplication of heading-1 with two different sizes is odd — possibly a responsive override or a semantic mismatch in the CSS.

3.3 Hierarchy

With only two sizes, hierarchy is blunt: big bold for top‑level headings, small regular for secondary text. This forces reliance on spacing and weight rather than nuanced type scales. It’s effective for retail where scanning matters more than typographic nuance.

4. Spacing & Layout

4.1 Spacing Scale

Base grid: 8px — confirmed.

Extracted values:

The 21.44px value is unusual — not a clean multiple of 8px. Possibly derived from typographic line‑height math.

4.2 Layout

No breakpoints extracted. This means container widths, responsive rules, and grid configurations aren’t tokenized here. Given the 8px base, expect consistent alignment across devices.

5. Visual Elements

• Border Radius: None. Literally zero values extracted. Everything is sharp‑cornered.
• Shadows: None. Flat design.
• Borders: No extracted combinations — likely inline CSS per component.

This is a minimalist surface treatment — edges define elements, not depth or curves.

6. Components

The extraction shows no button, link, or input styles. That’s telling — the site’s components aren’t built from a centralized design token set (or the tokens are obfuscated/minified).

What we know:

• Buttons: Without tokens, these are likely styled per class with hardcoded colors, padding, and typography.
• Links: No explicit data — expect default browser underline or custom removal with hover states.
• Forms: Inputs, checkboxes, radios, selects all empty — means styles are inline or in non‑tokenized CSS.

For a design system, that’s a gap. If you’re reconstructing this, you’d need to manually sample these elements in the browser.

7. Design Tokens (Extracted)

:root {
  /* Typography */
  --font-heading-1-family: "Times";
  --font-heading-1-size-lg: 32px;
  --font-heading-1-weight-lg: 700;
  --font-heading-1-size-sm: 16px;
  --font-heading-1-weight-sm: 400;

  /* Spacing */
  --space-8: 8px;
  --space-16: 16px;
  --space-21-44: 21.44px;

  /* Border Radius */
  /* none extracted */

  /* Colors */
  /* none extracted */
}

8. AI Coding Assistant Prompt

# Home Depot Design System Specification

This design system is inspired by Home Depot's official website. All values, typography, and spacing are extracted from their production site. Use this specification to build UIs that match Home Depot's visual language.

## System Prompt
You are a Home Depot design expert. Build UIs matching their visual language exactly.

## Brand Context
Home Depot's design language is utilitarian and direct. It favors sharp edges, flat surfaces, and an 8px spacing rhythm. Typography is classic serif ("Times"), signaling reliability. Components are functional without decorative flourishes.

## Color Palette
(no colors extracted — must source from brand style guide when available)

## Typography
- Font family: "Times"
- No Google/Adobe/variable fonts
- Sizes:
  - Heading-1 Large: 32px (2.00rem), weight 700
  - Heading-1 Small: 16px (1.00rem), weight 400

| Level         | Size   | Weight | Line Height | Use For         |
|---------------|--------|--------|-------------|-----------------|
| Heading-1 lg  | 32px   | 700    | —           | Page titles     |
| Heading-1 sm  | 16px   | 400    | —           | Subheadings     |

## Spacing & Grid
Base: 8px grid
Scale:
- 8px — tight gaps
- 16px — component padding
- 21.44px — typographic spacing

## Border Radius
None — all corners are sharp.

## Shadows & Depth
Flat design — avoid shadows. Use borders for separation.

## Component Specifications
(No extracted component tokens — define manually based on inspection)

Example Primary Button (speculative based on spacing/tone):
```css
.btn-primary {
  font-family: "Times";
  font-weight: 700;
  font-size: 16px;
  padding: var(--space-8) var(--space-16);
  border-radius: 0;
  border: 1px solid currentColor;
  background: orange; /* source from brand palette */
  color: white;
  transition: background 150ms ease;
}
.btn-primary:hover { background: darkorange; }
.btn-primary:focus { outline: 2px solid black; outline-offset: 2px; }
.btn-primary:disabled { opacity: 0.5; cursor: not-allowed; }

Layout & Responsive Rules

• Maintain 8px spacing multiples
• Sharp edges across all components
• No breakpoints extracted — define per project needs

Interaction Rules

• Transitions: 150ms ease for hover/focus states
• Focus indicators: 2px solid high-contrast outline

DO

• Use "Times" for all headings
• Keep corners square
• Maintain 8px spacing grid
• Use flat borders instead of shadows
• Check color contrast for accessibility

DON'T

• Add rounded corners
• Use drop shadows
• Introduce unapproved fonts
• Break the 8px rhythm

Code Examples

Card

.card {
  font-family: "Times";
  padding: var(--space-16);
  border: 1px solid #ccc;
  border-radius: 0;
  background: white;
}

Input

.input {
  font-family: "Times";
  padding: var(--space-8);
  border: 1px solid #ccc;
  border-radius: 0;
}
.input:focus {
  outline: 2px solid black;
  outline-offset: 2px;
}

---

## 9. Summary

**TL;DR** — Home Depot’s design system is stripped‑down retail pragmatism: serif headings, 8px grid, sharp edges, and flat surfaces. No tokenized colors, no shadows, no rounded corners. It’s functional to the core.

**Brand Keywords**:
- retail-utilitarian
- sharp-edged
- serif-functional
- grid-disciplined
- flat-no-frills