A coder’s guide to colors — stop using RGB and use this instead

Rather than becoming an expert at color theory, here’s how you can easily wield colors like a designer.

Apple iPad 2 pixels under a microscope. From Anandtech.com

Part I. Don’t use RGB Unless you’re an expert in color theory.

Pop Quiz: Without cheating, describe what color this hex code is likely to represent: #03A87C? Here’s a hint: RGB(3, 168, 124) (did that help at all?)

— The answer: ¡uoʇʇnq ʍoןןoɟ ǝɥʇ ɟo uǝǝɹƃ ǝɥʇ s,ʇI

Light combines in different ways. Red and green make yellow, green and blue make cyan, and red and blue make magenta. It’s difficult to predict what colors you’ll get and to control them with ease, so it’s best not to code or design in the RGB color space.

What you’re communicating to your machine is the intensity of red, green, and blue light per pixel on RGB display. If you’re not an expert at additive color mixing, you likely won’t be able to predict what color combos will give the exact color you’re looking for. In the most basic sense, combinations of these three primary colors are used to generate the 16M+ colors we commonly see in our displays.

About this series

In this series, I’ll be breaking down the mystique of choosing the right colors for the job. The goal is to give you the practical tools to make it…