Block 1

Let's take a quick diversion into discussing color names. Because let's face it, creating a shared language around color is really hard. And that's not just because US English and British English have different spellings for gray.

Even if we are not colorblind, we all perceive color slightly differently. And if you talk to many designers, it can be a surprisingly subjective topic. When we are decorating a room, haven't we all been baffled by paint color names?

Here are a few tips that I use to make naming colors consistent, easy to remember, and accessible.

One: use naming rules consistently for all your colors. Colors only become easy to find if you name them consistently.

Two: use the most concise name possible. If you only have blue, green, and red in your color palette, there's no need to get fancy with names like dark blue, muted yellow green, or deep red.

For hue variations, use the compound color name technique that I learned in painting class when I was little. The second part of the color name is the hue itself, like pink. The first part of the color name is the hue that is next closest, like purple. So this is purple, pink, orange, yellow, and green blue.

If you have multiple hues of the same color, you'll probably want to add an additional variation to the name related to its lightness or its saturation.

For lightness variations, it depends on how many variations you have. It might be light and dark. It might be lightest, lighter, light, dark, darker, darkest. If you have more than six, then maybe it's time to think about using a ramp of numbers instead of names.

And if you get into variations on saturation, then you might want to use terms like muted and vivid or soft and strong.

When it comes to black and white, we have another variation common in UI design that doesn't fit all colors: off. Off describes a shade that is not quite black. And not quite white. Off black is a black that is slightly lighter and off white is a white that has a slightly saturated hue.

The more similar your colors are to each other, the more likely you'll need variations on those names. Giving colors names, and using them consistently creates a shared language with your coworkers. And importantly, it can prevent confusion in your design discussions.