Introduction to simplecolors

Trying to find a good color palette in R is difficult. I think most people search google for ggplot colors and end up looking at some funky image of all the color names that work in R. These colors are from the X11 colors that were developed in the 1980s. Unfortunately, they have inconsistent names and the lightness/saturation are all over the place. Using simplecolors gies you access to a smaller, consistent set of colors. It is similar to the palette tool you might be used to with Microsoft Word or Tableau.

The sc() function

This function stands for simplecolors. You can specify base colors

library(simplecolors)
sc("red", "blue", "violet")

or add modifiers

sc("brightred2", "mutedblue3", "dullviolet4")

And you can use it just like you’d use "red" or "blue"

library(ggplot2)

p <- 
  ggplot(mpg, aes(y = drv, fill = drv)) +
  geom_bar() 

Let’s look at the base R colors. Although the terms “lightblue” and “navyblue” are common ways to talk about the lightness of blue, when we use them, the colors don’t have the same “feel” as they go light to dark.

p + scale_fill_manual(values = c("lightblue", "blue", "navyblue"))

Let’s see what it looks like with simplecolors

p + scale_fill_manual(values = sc("blue2", "blue3", "blue4"))

You could also simplify this further as sc_blue(2:4)

Palettes

Construction

To get started there are 8 hues, 4 types of saturation, and 5 levels of lightness plus a greyscale. To use a color, just combine the 3 parts:

For example, the following code will return the corresponding colors

Palettes

There are multiple ways to access palettes

knitr::knit_exit()

sc_within(hue = "teal", light = 3:5, sat = "bright")
#> [1] "#29FFFF" "#00B3B3" "#006666"