Tints

Monday, 12th April 2004
In SUMit HQ, during the last couple of weeks, a lot of graphical work has been done. It was amazing for me to peek at a graphical designer at work. It is still magic to me seeing how easy such a graphical designer picks colours. A job that takes me weeks takes him only a couple of minutes.
My red, green, blue way of thinking The way of thinking of a graphical designer
to me colours are a hexadecimal code with red-green-blue values: A graphic designer has a different view on colours:
  • as emotions, associations of colour variations in the whole rainbow spectrum
  • Powerful colours versus greyish tints.
  • Bright till white and dark till black.
colour matrix with 3 axes I once designed the Nutty Buggie Wuggie as a colour pick tool:

Hm, how do I combine brightness, saturation and the whole rainbow in one single tool? Drawing tools usually show all colours at once in a colour circle. That is why I started the design thinking of a 5 segment pie,

It would be cute, but the pie shape is meaningless. The tints inside a segment would be related, but have little to do with the ones in a adjacent segment. A colour picking tool does not have to be round.

A simple table

So, things can be much more simple. Have a look at one table, with 5 columns for various variations on purple #862490.
Saturation Brightness Red Green Blue
AD00C5FFA4FFFF249086A4908624FF
9C00AEC664D0C624908664908624D0
9303A2A644B0A624908644908624B0
8F0D9C9634A09624908634908624A0
8D129A8E2C988E2490862C90862498
8C15988A28948A2490862890862494
8B1697882692882490862690862492
8B1697872591872490862590862491
8B1797862490862490862490862490
8B189685238F85249086239086248F
8A189684228E84249086229086248E
8A1A9582208C82249086209086248C
891C947E1C887E2490861C90862488
862191761480762490861490862480
822B8B660470662490860490862470
79407F460050462490860090862450
686868060010062490860090862410
Click on the colour that looks most like the one you are looking for. After about 5 clicks you must have found the perfect tint. Have fun with it.

Till next nut,
Nut