Over the past years, I've been experimenting with ways of building color.
The latest iteration is shown in Poet & Scribe's new website.
The idea is relatively simple: using odd scale palette sizes, grounded in accessibly compliant minimums. The trick and challenge has always been creating something more formulaic but providing accessible space & capacity for artistry and intention.
The biggest "issue" I have with the current ways of thinking about color, in the modern web color spaces of oklch and the like, is the very "formulaic" bit.
I get the "make the things match and make it easy" with the levers of lightness, chroma, and hue.
My challenge comes with the whole intention of color, in an artistic sense.
Van Gogh layered thick, fingers full of vivid colors.
Fun fact
I was on a tour once, and the guide asked, "So! What's the most expensive painting in the room?" Everyone looked to the walls. She pointed just near me, "That is by van Gogh! Painted during one of his only visits to Amsterdam." Shit, I thought. loud, inner thoughts that's the one I almost knocked over."
3, 5, 7, 11.
In each of the odd scale, a compliant contrast level is set at preference.
Three
Lighter; mid; darker.
AA <-> mid <-> AA.
Or:
Lightest; mid; darkest.
AAA <-> mid <-> AAA.
Five
Lightest, lighter, mid, darker, darkest.
AAA <---> mid <---> AAA;
AA <-> mid <-> AA.
This way, you have a primary and secondary color for two color modes per palette, with three potentially compliant pairings of fore- & back-grounds.
Seven
Lightest; lighter; light; mid; dark; darker; darkest.
AAA <-----> mid <-----> AAA;
AA <---> mid <---> AA.
AA18 <-> mid <-> AA18.
I like this as it gives some clear differences and ways to use color. The dark-side's provided non-compliant shades to each other, but keep the text
Eleven
This is where it gets a little wonky, because we're not longer doing explicit mapping of colors to the center. We're now having to map the light/dark (or somewhere in between some of the others, if we seek to maintain the semantic gradient) to some sort of compliant set.