How We Do It

Every color code on this site is either read from a source that publishes it or computed from a value that was. Nothing is estimated to fill a gap. This page explains what that means in practice, because the difference is most of the work.

Where a named color’s value comes from

The 288 named colors are seeded from two places, and each page records which one it was. Most come from Wikipedia’s List of colors, which cites its own source for every entry: Crayola, Pantone, Maerz and Paul, and others. The rest come from the community color-name index, and those pages say so rather than implying a standards body stands behind the name.

That distinction matters when two sources disagree about the same name. Rather than average them or pick the prettier one, the page names its source and shows one value.

Where a brand’s value comes from

Brand colors are only added when there is something citable to add. The value comes from the brand’s own published guidelines where those exist, and 31 of the video game brands link the exact press or brand-center page the value was read from.

A brand whose colors cannot be sourced is left out rather than guessed at. That is why some obvious names are missing: the alternative is a page that looks authoritative and is not.

What is measured rather than published

Most of what you see on a color page is calculated from the hex, not copied from anywhere. RGB, HSL, HSV, CMYK, LAB and CIELCHuv are conversions of the same value. Shades, tints, tones and the five harmony palettes are generated by moving that color through a defined transform. The WCAG contrast ratios are computed from relative luminance, and the color-blindness simulations apply the Brettel-Vienot-Mollon matrices in linear light, not to the gamma-encoded value, which is the mistake most simulators make.

Because these are computed, they are exact and they agree with each other. They cannot drift out of step with the hex the way a hand-typed table does.

Pantone is a match, not a claim

Pantone is a licensed ink system. This site holds no license to publish any brand’s official Pantone reference, so it does not claim to. What it does is measure the closest Pantone swatch by color distance and label it as exactly that: the nearest match. Where a brand publishes its own print references and those become available, they replace the measurement and the qualifier comes off.

Logos, and what this site can honestly show

Brand and game logos are shown for identification. They remain their owners’ trademarks and this site is not affiliated with any of them.

Only openly licensed artwork is used: public domain or CC0 files from Wikimedia Commons, and the CC0 mark set published by Simple Icons. Where a logo is only available under a license that requires attribution the cards cannot carry, or is not available freely at all, the page shows a color mark generated from the brand’s own palette instead. Those are described as generated marks and never as the brand’s logo, because they are not.

What the check mark means

A brand page shows a check mark and an updated date. That mark means the value has a recorded provenance and a date attached to it. It does not mean anyone at this site telephoned the brand, and the word “verified” is deliberately not used anywhere on the site for that reason.

Brand books change. The date is printed so a value read a year ago can be re-checked against its source before it goes into production work.

What gets left out

Several things have been researched and deliberately not published. Two incompatible palettes both circulate as the canonical Pokemon type colors, so that page names both and says which one it uses. Terraria’s Rainbow and Fiery Red rarity tiers animate and have no single hex, so they are described rather than given a value. Among Us is not covered at all, because only five of its eighteen player colors could be sourced.

A missing page is recoverable. A wrong value that someone ships to a client is not.

Corrections

If a value here is wrong, it gets fixed. The contact page has a form, and a message that includes the page URL and where the correct value comes from is usually enough to settle it in one pass.