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Hamaas979

: How do I select a high-contrast color set for a map? Obviously, black & white are the highest contrast. I also want 2 sets of colors, so that regions on the map can be colored with

@Hamaas979

Posted in: #Cartography #ColorTheory #DataVisualisation #InformationGraphics #Maps

Obviously, black & white are the highest contrast. I also want 2 sets of colors, so that regions on the map can be colored with good contrast. For instance, one region might be red, another blue, and another green. Simultaneously, each of those regions may contain sub-regions that are cyan, yellow, and magenta. I could just pick dark versions of the 1st set and light versions of the 2nd set, but would like about 6 colors in each set. Also, simply picking colors that are numerically far apart doesn't lead to good visual contrast.

Any suggestions? (Colors are for on-screen display)

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@Becky351

If you want to check contrast ratios, there's this tool.

It's designed to check color contrast ratios of text color against background color to see if it meets Web Content Accessibility Guidlines, but should work for any other purpose where contrast is important.

The ratios range from 21:1 (for black and white) down to 1:1 (for the same color).

Also, color blindness is something you might wish to consider. Here's a great introductory article, with lots of links to color blindess checking sites and further information.

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@Kevin459

ColorBrewer is an amazing tool that does just that.

It's aimed at cartographers, support up to 12 colors, and has some nice options as well (such as the ability to generate colorblind-safe color sets)

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@Lee3735518

It's all about the contrast my friend. It basically comes down to being able to contrast colors using hue, saturation and tint/shade, or hsl.

Here is a nice way to experiment with colors: colorschemedesigner.com/
and here is a decent explanation of different ways to produce contrast in colors: www.colorsontheweb.com/colorcontrasts.asp
on the aforementioned color scheme site you can experiment with different color combinations (triads, tetrads) easily, and I highly suggest reading up on your color theory.

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