Speech Colors

[Avalikia]

Not all colors are created equally - some are dark enough to be difficult to see against a black background, and some are light enough to be hard to distinguish from white. To make it as easy as possible for you to choose a color that won't accidentally lean too far one way or the other is the purpose of this post.

To be clear, even though there's a section to tell everyone which color you're using this is not a color claim - at least in the sense that you are absolutely not allowed to pick the same color as someone else. There's only so many named colors to go around, and if everyone wants red then there are only so many shades of it that are truly obviously different and I don't think anyone should be forced to pick a color that's completely different than what they want. Though note that it's considered impolite to pick the exact same color as someone else when there are clearly many similar shades still available.

Named Colors

If you prefer the ease of a named color (where you can simply type color=pink or something), please choose from the following list. All named colors that are not on this list are either too dark, too light, or too bright so don't use them.

Reds/Pinks
Pink
LightPink
Salmon
LightCoral
HotPink
RosyBrown
Tomato
PaleVioletRed

Oranges
BurlyWood
Tan
Orange
LightSalmon
SandyBrown
DarkKhaki
GoldenRod
DarkSalmon
DarkOrange
Coral
Peru
DarkGoldenRod
OrangeRed

Greens/Turquoise
Turquoise
MediumTurquoise
YellowGreen
MediumAquaMarine
LimeGreen
DarkSeaGreen
LightSeaGreen
MediumSeaGreen

Blues
LightBlue
LightSkyBlue
SkyBlue
LightSteelBlue
DarkTurquoise
DeepSkyBlue
CornflowerBlue
CadetBlue
DodgerBlue

Purples
Thistle
Plum
Violet
Orchid
Fuchsia/Magenta

Grays
Silver
DarkGray/DarkGrey

Hex Colors

If you prefer to use hex colors, which look like a random assortment of six numbers and letters but let you choose any color you want, I can't make a list because there's too many. Instead, I'll give you the criteria you need to follow and a tool that will help you.

A good color should have at least a 6:1 ratio with black and at least a 1.5:1 ratio with white.

To check a color:

1. Click on this link. This should take you to a page with three color boxes, with the proper text and background colors for the forum already filled in.
2. Put the color you want to use in the box that says 'link color' (even though the color you're picking isn't for that). If you need help picking a color, click on the colored box below the code and it will give you a color picker tool.
3. Don't pay any attention to the pass/fail indicators on that site - they have different criteria for what they're doing than we do, but their tool for checking contrast is very handy for our purposes if you ignore that. If your color is good, then the number in the first box will be 1.5:1 or higher, and the number in the second box will be 6:1 or higher. (You don't need to worry about the third box.)
4. If the number in the first box isn't high enough, your color is too light or too bright, and if it isn't high enough in the second box then your color is too dark. There's a handy slider below the box where you put your color that can help you adjust it.

Current Speech Colors

To have yours added, tell me what you're using below.

Carmen Hernández ~ FF3399
Edward Nygma ~ 42E619
Heather Glass ~ FF6000
James Gordon ~ DodgerBlue
Jeremiah Arkham ~ B79202
Jonathan Crane ~ FF4040
Pamela Isley ~ 00A300
Roman Sionis ~ FF3D61
Shayera Hol ~ F1D222
Victor Fries ~ 9FCFFF