Guides

WCAG contrast requirements aren't arbitrary — they're built from a specific luminance formula. Here's how the ratio is calculated, what AA and AAA actually require, and why 4.5:1 became the standard.

Jul 21, 2026 · Updated Aug 10, 2026 · 5 min read · Accessibility

Every classic color scheme — complementary, analogous, triadic, tetradic — comes from the same idea: picking hues at specific angles around the color wheel. Here's what each one actually does.

Jul 21, 2026 · Updated Aug 10, 2026 · 5 min read · Design

CSS now supports oklch() natively, and Tailwind CSS v4 uses it for its entire default palette. Here's what makes OKLCH different from HSL, and why it produces better results for things like generating shades or blending colors.

Jul 21, 2026 · Updated Aug 10, 2026 · 4 min read · Color Theory

Two colors can have very different RGB or HEX values yet look almost identical — or the reverse. Delta E is the standard way to measure perceptual color difference instead of relying on raw numeric distance.

Jul 21, 2026 · Updated Aug 3, 2026 · 4 min read · Color Theory

Every pixel on your screen is three tiny lights. Understanding how red, green, and blue add up to every color you see explains why RGB values work the way they do — and why 255 is the magic number.

Jul 21, 2026 · Updated Aug 10, 2026 · 12 min read · Color Theory

HSL and HSV both reorganize RGB around hue, but their third axes mean different things — and picking the wrong one for the job is a common source of confusion. Here's the actual difference.

Jul 21, 2026 · Updated Aug 10, 2026 · 4 min read · Color Theory

Screens emit light; paper reflects it. That single physical difference is why CMYK exists, why it needs a fourth ink, and why your brand color looks different on a business card than in a browser.

Jul 21, 2026 · Updated Aug 3, 2026 · 4 min read · Color Theory

Designers use these three words interchangeably, but they name three different operations — mixing with black, white, or gray — and each one changes a color's character in a predictably different way.

Jul 21, 2026 · Updated Aug 10, 2026 · 4 min read · Color Theory

The 216-color web-safe palette solved a real problem in 1996 — and stopped being necessary around 2000. Here's where those oddly specific hex values came from, and the few uses the palette still has.

Jul 21, 2026 · Updated Aug 10, 2026 · 3 min read · Development

CSS gives you at least four ways to make something see-through, and they are not interchangeable — one of them affects your text and children, and two of them are the same thing in different clothes.

Jul 21, 2026 · Updated Aug 2, 2026 · 4 min read · Development

Every display can only reproduce a subset of the colors humans can see — its gamut. Here's how gamuts work, what Display P3 actually buys you, and how to use wide color on the web without breaking anything.

Jul 21, 2026 · Updated Aug 10, 2026 · 4 min read · Color Theory

Around 1 in 12 men experience color differently than your design assumes. Here is a concrete, testable workflow for making interfaces that survive every type of color vision — without making them ugly.

Jul 21, 2026 · Updated Aug 10, 2026 · 4 min read · Accessibility

WCAG 1.4.1 is short, blunt, and violated everywhere: color must never be the only way information is conveyed. Here is what the rule actually requires — for links, forms, charts, and status indicators.

Jul 21, 2026 · Updated Aug 10, 2026 · 4 min read · Accessibility

Flipping your palette produces a dark mode that is technically dark and practically unusable. Here is what actually changes in the dark — surfaces, saturation, elevation, and contrast — and how to design for it.

Jul 21, 2026 · Updated Aug 10, 2026 · 4 min read · Design

Most palette advice starts with mood boards and ends with regret. This is the engineering-minded version: constraints first, one deliberate base hue, a working scale, accessible pairs, and proof it survives real use.

Jul 21, 2026 · Updated Aug 10, 2026 · 4 min read · Design

The oldest trick in interior design translates surprisingly well to interfaces: a dominant color, a secondary, and an accent in roughly 60/30/10 proportions. Here is why it works, how to apply it to UI, and when to break it.

Jul 21, 2026 · Updated Aug 10, 2026 · 3 min read · Design

"Blue means trust" and "red buttons convert better" get repeated as science. Most of it isn't. Here's an honest tour of what color psychology research really shows — and the few effects solid enough to design with.

Jul 21, 2026 · Updated Aug 10, 2026 · 4 min read · Design

You've used the square-plus-slider color picker ten thousand times. Here's the coordinate system hiding inside it, why the vivid corner is where it is, and what the eyedropper actually samples.

Jul 21, 2026 · Updated Aug 10, 2026 · 3 min read · Tools

Blend two clean, vivid colors and the middle comes out gray, dark, and disappointing. The mud has two specific causes — gamma math and the gray core of the color space — and both have practical fixes.

Jul 21, 2026 · Updated Aug 10, 2026 · 4 min read · Color Theory

The gap between "our brand color is #7C3AED" and a working product is a color system: primitive scales, semantic tokens, contrast anchors, and a dark mode that maps roles instead of flipping values.

Jul 21, 2026 · Updated Aug 10, 2026 · 4 min read · Development

Fancy-text generators don't generate fonts at all — they swap your letters for mathematical Unicode symbols that merely look like styled text. That trick has real costs in accessibility and search that you should know before pasting.

Jul 21, 2026 · Updated Aug 10, 2026 · 3 min read · Tools

A UI font has a different job than a display font: legible at 13px, a wide weight range, and restraint. Here are the Google Fonts built or proven for interface work, and how to verify one before committing.

Jul 21, 2026 · Updated Aug 10, 2026 · 5 min read · Design

A logo font needs a distinctive silhouette, not neutrality, and it must survive shrinking to a 16px favicon as much as scaling up to signage. A shortlist organized by mood, plus how to stress-test a finalist before locking it in.

Jul 21, 2026 · Updated Aug 10, 2026 · 4 min read · Design

A resume font has one job: stay invisible at 11 point while a recruiter skims for seconds. A shortlist built for exactly that, plus an honest answer to whether font choice can actually break an ATS (it almost never can).

Jul 21, 2026 · Updated Aug 10, 2026 · 5 min read · Design