The Web Safe Color Dilemma
The web safe color palette includes 216 different colors that are considered to display exactly the same regardless of computer platform or browser. It includes highly saturated colors, and very few muted colors or colors that are tinted. This is because the 8 bit limitation in place at the time the palette was developed did not allow for much color mixing and adjustment.
W3Schools offers information on the Web Safe Color Palette along with a hexadecimal color code chart.
CloFord offers an excellent resource on colors and the web, providing color names, the web safe palette, and more than 500 colors that are commonly used today.
Colors on the Web provides information on color theory for web designers to assist in the correct scheme choices.
WebDesign.org offers color theory information related to the computer display for web designers.
A online color scheme generator is available from Well Styled.
Is the Browser-Safe Palette Dead?
For the most part, it is safe to design websites and other interactive media without having to worry about the browser-safe palette because the number of people using an 8 bit computer is very low. Many computer users nowadays are using more advanced technology. Though they may be subtle differences in display depending on the browser, computer platform, and graphics card, these differences are not generally drastic enough to deter designers from venturing outside that 216 color comfort zone. Even still, because it is a design standard, presets for the 216 color palette can be found in many of the design programs used by web designers today such as Photoshop, Fireworks, Dreamweaver, Paint Shop Pro, and Illustrator. Loading these into the program helps the designer make sure that he or she is following the browser safe colors.
It is fairly safe to say that the Browser-Safe Palette is dead because there are so many new computers being used on the Internet today that the worries about the 216 color palette are not there anymore. The color palette is very limiting in terms of the designs that can be done with it, so many designers venture outside of it today to make more visually interesting designs and attempt to differentiate from commonly used color schemes used by other websites.
What Is the Browser-Safe Palette?
The web safe color palette, also referred to as the Browser Safe Palette, refers to a 216 color palette that in the early days of web browsing and web design were the only colors that would display on a monitor evenly across all monitors regardless of whether the computer was a PC or Mac. When the palette was created, many computers only used 8-bit color, so it meant that only 256 different colors could be found. The reason 216 colors were used instead of 256 is because 40 of these colors were reserved specifically as system colors. There are not many reasons to use this palette today because technology has expanded so much as to make up to 16 million different colors viewable.
