Color, explained practically
Trends, theory and accessibility — every article ships with copy-ready palettes.
What is MCP? A designer's guide to connecting AI assistants to your toolsThe Model Context Protocol explained without jargon: what it is, why designers and developers care, how a color tool plugs into an AI assistant, and what to check before you connect one.Ask Claude, Cursor or VS Code for colors with the Tintly MCP serverA step-by-step setup for adding Tintly's MCP server to Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, Codex CLI, Gemini CLI and Cline, with the exact configuration for each and what to ask first.The Tintly API: generate palettes and check contrast from your own codeA practical quickstart for the free Tintly API: create a key, make a first request with curl and JavaScript, read the 13 tools, handle errors and rate limits, and build a small design-token script.API key safety: how to create, store, rotate and revoke a keyA short, practical checklist for keeping an API key safe: one key per use, where to store it, what to do if it leaks, and how Tintly keys work, including how little we keep.15 prompts for building accessible color palettes with an AI assistantPrompts that work when your assistant is connected to Tintly: generating palettes, checking WCAG contrast, finding readable pairs, previewing color blindness and explaining what colors mean, with what each answer tells you.Color Trends 2026: 10 Palettes Designers Are Actually UsingThe color directions shaping branding and web design in 2026 — warm neutrals, digital lavender's successor, deep teals and cherry reds — each with a copy-ready palette.How to Choose Brand Colors: A 5-Step FrameworkA practical process for picking brand colors that fit your positioning, survive accessibility checks and scale from logo to UI — with example palettes.Color Psychology in Marketing: What the Evidence Actually SaysBeyond 'red means urgency': what research really supports about color in marketing, where the myths come from, and how to test color choices properly.WCAG Color Contrast: The Designer's Field GuideWhat the 4.5:1 and 3:1 contrast ratios really mean, which elements they apply to, and how to fix failing colors without wrecking your palette.CSS Gradients in 2026: Linear, Radial, Conic and BeyondA practical guide to CSS gradients — syntax that matters, banding fixes, text gradients, mesh-style effects and performance tips.The 60-30-10 Rule: Using Color Proportion Like an Interior DesignerWhy the oldest trick in interior design still fixes cluttered interfaces and brand materials, how to apply it to UI, and when to break it.Warm vs Cool Colors: What They Are and When to Use EachThe practical difference between warm and cool colors, how temperature changes the mood of a design, and how to mix both without clashing.Dark Mode Color Palettes: A Complete Design GuideWhy pure black fails, how to lift surfaces with elevation, which saturation levels survive dark backgrounds, and a ready-to-use dark palette.The Color Wheel Explained: Every Harmony with ExamplesComplementary, analogous, triadic, tetradic, split-complementary and monochromatic schemes — what each one is good for, with example palettes.Website Color Schemes: 8 Proven Combinations for 2026Eight complete website color schemes — hero, surface, text and accent — with the reasoning behind each and the industries they fit best.Logo Colors by Industry: Meanings, Patterns and ExceptionsWhat logo colors signal across industries, why categories converge on the same hues, and when breaking the pattern is the smarter move.How to Extract a Color Palette from Any ImageTurn a photo, logo or screenshot into a usable palette: how extraction works, how to clean up the result, and mistakes to avoid.HEX vs RGB vs HSL vs OKLCH: Which Color Format to UseWhat each CSS color format is actually for, where HSL lies to you, why OKLCH is taking over design systems, and a conversion cheat sheet.Pastel Colors: How to Use Them Without Looking Washed OutWhat makes a color pastel, why pastel interfaces often fail contrast, and how to anchor soft palettes so they stay legible and modern.Color in Data Visualization: Palettes That Don't MisleadCategorical, sequential and diverging palettes, color-blind safety, and the mistakes that make charts lie — with working palettes to copy.Autumn Color Palettes: 6 Warm Schemes for Fall CampaignsSix ready-to-use autumn palettes — from classic harvest to moody plum — with notes on where each works best.Building an Accessible Color Palette from ScratchA step-by-step method for designing a palette where every intended text and UI combination passes WCAG — before you ship, not after.Gradient Design Trends: From Mesh Backgrounds to Grainy GlowThe gradient styles defining current web design — aurora meshes, grainy gradients, holographic conic effects — and how to build each in CSS.Wedding Colors by Season: Palettes That Photograph WellSpring, summer, autumn and winter wedding palettes with the reasoning photographers and planners use, plus pitfalls for each season.Why Colors Have Such Strange Names: A Short HistoryFrom mauve's accidental invention to millennial pink and the SEO-era naming industry — how colors get their names and why it matters for brands.