David Aerne

A color palette isn't just a list: it's a partition of color space. If a new color doesn't carve out its own territory in the visualization, it's not earning its place. Useful gut-check for those who keep adding "just one more" shade. :D

You can now visualize how a color palette distributes across OKHsv, OKHsl, OKLCh and CIELab, and compare 6 distance metrics side by side. Zero dependencies, raw WebGL2.

Took me 3 years to make something I wasn't too embarrassed to share 🙃

meodai.github.io/color-palett...

This shader answers the question: where did my colors go?

(PDF) Aesthetic response to color combinations: Preference, harmony, and similarity PDF | Previous studies of preference for and harmony of color combinations have produced confusing results. For example, some claim that harmony... | Find, read and cite all the research you need on R...

Aesthetic response to color combinations: Preference, harmony, and similarity: researchgate.net/publication/...

Sounds like preference patterns (hue similarity, lightness contrast) are consistent and measurable. Need to read into this more.

Using this on @pckt.blog now and it’s really nice ! Super easy to implement. Will probably fine tune interactions but I’m liking it a lot so far :)

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A wooden desk with a computer monitor, laptop, keyboard, mouse, and other items. The screen saver is the Poline visualizer linked in the OP.

Done and it looks SICK

poline-orbits.color.pizza

Its a 100% curated.

Nah I’m the color fairy

If you compose on a keyboard using its synthesis engine, you’re generating something.

If you press “demo song,” you’re triggering a pre-recorded track.

That doesn’t make you the author of the song.

If a system computes palettes from a formula and caches results, that’s still generative. Algorithm → output. Shipping a fixed, finite curated list is a different mechanism.

It is hard.

github.com/1612elphi/de... <3 <3 <3

I just wanted to back what I was saying :D

Just discovered that "Palette Genny" is using the Color Name project 🥹

There’s something incredibly satisfying about seeing your weird color obsession quietly power other tools on the internet.

tools.rmv.fyi/tools/palett...

they also have a section that they marked as user created palettes, maybe it refers to that part. (They are not part of the "generator")

Poline — Esoteric Color Palette Generation Library poline is lightweight, dependency free and fast JavaScript function written in TypeScript. It draws lines between anchors over polar coordinates to generate pleasing color palettes.

meodai.github.io/poline/
okpalette.color.pizza
meodai.github.io/pro-color-ha...
meodai.github.io/rampensau/
farbvelo.elastiq.ch
etc..

...So when something that’s essentially a curated gallery with random navigation is marketed as a “generator,” that distinction matters to me.

This isn’t about copyright/exclusivity. It’s about how the tool is framed.

Ive spent the last decade building color generation systems, tools where palettes are derived from rules, constraints and parameters you control..

The code ships ~2,119 predefined palettes.
That’s curation with random access.
To me, “generator” implies a different sense of authorship.

There are ~16 million sRGB colors.

For a 5-color palette that’s 16million⁵ palettes.

Even if only a tiny fraction “looks good” that’s still an astronomically large space.

A piano has 88 keys. How many 20-note melodies that sound good are possible?

Finite ≠ exhausted.

totally

bsky.app/profile/meod...

...Picking from a pre-made list isn't "generating" beauty; it's just a digital catalog.

Your argument is a bit like saying "there are only 88 keys on a piano, so why not just list every possible song?" The "generation" isn't about inventing a new note; it’s about the infinite ways you can arrange them. A pre-made list is just a jukebox, not a composer. 🎹

You’re misunderstanding. It has nothing to do with UV light or breaking RGB. It’s about the math of harmony. There are ~16.7M sRGB colors. For a 5-color palette, there are (1.6 × 10^7)^5 possible combinations. Randomly hitting a set that actually works is a literal lottery.

Finite state spaces don’t eliminate generativity.

An algorithm mapping parameters to outputs is not the same as indexing into a predefined list.

You could also just check out the libraries I wrote most will help you to generate colors that work well together