The Web-Smart palette

By | December 9, 2004 | JavaScript & CSS

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Anyone who has been designing for the web for more than a year or so ago is likely to have heard of the browser-safe palette, a set of 216 colours recommended for use on the web as they represented the intersection between the 256 colours supported by both Windows and Mac computers in the late 90s. Few computers these days are limited to 256 colours and the browser-safe palette has been consigned to history.

The concept of a smart palette for the web has not died completely, however. The Web-Smart palette, a colour-cube of 4,096 colours that should display consistently on displays that use both 16-bit (thousands of colours) and 24-bit (millions of colours). The linked site includes a dynamic colour cube and slider for exploring the web-smart set of colours.

Written By:

Simon Willison

Simon is a seasoned Web developer from the UK, currently working in Lawrence, Kansas. He specializes in both client- and server-side development, and recently became a member of the Web Standards project. Visit him at http://simon.incutio.com/, and at Stylish Scripting: SitePoint's DHTML and CSS Blog.

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{ 3 comments }

Starlyth January 13, 2005 at 12:49 am

Don’t forget rgb values, too.

radiohead December 13, 2004 at 5:41 am

woohoo… 216 colour palette is a nightmare! Far too limited…

By using the HEX shorthand for specifying colours its dead simple to stay within the web-smart colour range of 4096.

eg. #cc0000 = #c00 whereas #cd0000 is not web-smart and cannot be written in shorthand

ant1832 December 9, 2004 at 10:52 pm

Thanks for this. It’s a very nice tool, and something that I can’t say I have been careful enough about in the past.

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