Color Pulse

Accents in rotation

Every clearly colored hue found this week, merged when two sites use nearly the same one. Select a swatch to inspect it and see what it’s paired with.

Inspector

Values, contrast for type, a tint and shade ramp, and the colors this one actually appears with.

Your palette

Add up to eight swatches from anywhere on the page, then take them with you.

Where the color goes

Each site’s first screen broken into its colors, in proportion to the area they cover. Select any band to inspect it.

Grounds

White isn’t one color. These are the backgrounds each site actually sets, light to dark.

Hues in play

Accent area by hue, so you can see which families of color each camp leans on.

How it’s measured

Area, not mentions: Each site’s first screen at 1440 by 900 is reduced to fourteen colors, and each color is weighted by how much of the screen it covers.
Accents: Colors with clear saturation that aren’t near white or black. Ones that differ by less than a just-noticeable step are merged across sites.
Contrast: WCAG 2 ratios. Body text needs 4.5:1, large text 3:1. The ramp steps lightness in OKLCH so tints stay even to the eye.
CMYK: A plain conversion with no color profile, for rough planning. Proof print color against a real press profile.
Weekly: Measured with Design Pulse every Monday. Colors from photography are included, because that’s what visitors see.
Your palette: Stays in this browser. The swatch file opens in Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop.