I’ve never really used regular color names in my CSS styles, preferring to stick to HEX values I get from Photoshop. I was a little surprised then to see this, a long list of CSS color names that are “supported by all major browsers”. It starts with AliceBlue, an almost ethereally light blue, goes on to Chartreuse and FireBrick and HoneyDew… there’s even a pretty light lavender shade called Thistle, which I’m now seriously considering painting my guest bathroom in.
But then- aha. Apparently, despite all these lovely color names being supported by major browsers, the W3C have listed that only sixteen of these color names are “valid”. They are (and why these particular colors, I’m not exactly sure- although they do seem to cover all bases):
- Aqua
- Black
- Blue
- Fuchsia
- Gray
- Green
- Lime
- Maroon
- Navy
- Olive
- Orange
- Purple
- Red
- Silver
- Teal
- White
- Yellow
Of course, nobody wants to be remembering color names these days- and when I don’t want to open up Photoshop, I turn to Chirag Mehta’s Name that Color, which gives you the color name, its hex value, and its RGB values.
If you have a little more time on your hands, check out the very awesome Color Scheme Designer, which can keep me busy for hours. It sports a quick-loading, and lovely, interface, as well as “page examples” with your chosen color palette. You get hex values upon rollover, or you can export in several formats.
How do you use colors in CSS?
