ANSIColorLayout is a Log4J Layout that formats messages using ANSI colors. Each level (DEBUG,INFO,WARN) has its own color that you can customize. To use this file, in your log4j.properties or log4j.xml specify ANSIColorLayout instead of a PatternLayout. log4j.properties: log4j.appender.A1.layout=org.osuosl.logging.ANSIColorLayout log4j.appender.A1.layout.ConversionPattern=%-5p [%d{MM-dd-yyyy HH:mm:ss}] %c - %m%n log4j.appender.A1.all=\u001B[1;37m log4j.appender.A1.fatal=\u001B[1;31m log4j.appender.A1.error=\u001B[0;31m log4j.appender.A1.warn=\u001B[1;33m log4j.appender.A1.info=\u001B[0;37m log4j.appender.A1.debug=\u001B[0;36m log4j.appender.A1.reset=\u001B[1;37m log4j.appender.A1.stacktrace=\u001B[0;31m log4j.appender.A1.defaultcolor=\u001B[1;37m