Accoutrement-Color

Sass color-palette management by OddBird…

• Organize all your colors into a single map, or set of maps
• Document color relationships directly in the code
• Automate WCAG-appropriate contrast checking
• Generate color-palette documentation with Herman

OddBird's Accoutrement toolkits are designed around the idea that code should be meaningful to both humans and machines – opening the door for automation, while improving or maintaining readability. These tools integrate with Herman, our automated living pattern-library generator built on SassDoc.

Other Accoutrement include…

• Init provides lightweight browser-normalization.
• Scale helps manage scale patterns like font-sizes, margins, and gutters.
• Type provides webfont management tools, and other typography helpers.
• Layout provides layout utilities such as box-sizing, intrinsic ratios, z-index management, named media-queries, and a clearfix.

Quick Start: Colors

Install the package with npm or yarn:

npm install accoutrement-color
yarn add accoutrement-color

Import the library:

@import '<path-to>/accoutrement-color/sass/color';

Establish your color palette:

$colors: (
  // set explicit colors
  'brand-pink': hsl(330, 85%, 62%),
  'brand-light': #ddf,
  'brand-dark': #224,

  // reference existing colors
  'background': 'brand-light',
  'border': 'brand-dark',

  // make adjustments as needed, using color functions
  'link': 'brand-pink' ('shade': 25%, 'desaturate': 15%),
);

Access your colors from anywhere:

.example {
  border-color: color('border');
}

You can also define your colors in smaller maps, and then add them to the global $colors variable using the merge-color() function, or add-colors() mixin.

$brand: (
  'brand-pink': hsl(330, 85%, 62%),
  'brand-light': #ddf,
  'brand-dark': #224,
);

$patterns: (
  'background': 'brand-light',
  'border': 'brand-dark',
  'link': 'brand-pink' ('shade': 25%),
);

// merge everything into the main $colors map…
@include add-colors($brand, $patterns);

We'll also help you calculate WCAG-appropriate color contrasts:

a:hover {
  // set a background, and get well-contrasted text
  @include contrasted('link');

  // or return a contrasting color for use anywhere…
  border-color: contrast('background');
}