Introduction to simplecolors

Trying to put colors together in R can difficult. I think most people search google for ggplot2 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 gives 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. You use these colors in the same way you would use "red" or "blue" to color text or chart elements. Here are the 165 colors that are available

The sc() function

This function sc() stands for simplecolors. In base R, you would call the colors you need as c("green", "blue")

In simplecolors it is very similar but with sc() instead sc("green", "blue")

The key is that you can add modifiers sc("brightgreen2", "mutedblue3")

The naming convention is standardized: there are 4 types of saturation, 8 hues, and 5 levels of lightness plus a greyscale. To use a color, just combine the 3 parts:

optional saturation	hue	lightness
bright	red	1
“”	orange	2
muted	yellow	3
dull	green	4
	teal	5
	blue
	violet
	grey

By default, the outputs are hex codes and simplecolors can be used anywhere you can use a hex code.

sc("brightgreen2", "mutedblue3")
#> "#8FFF8F" "#5E82C9"

For the rest of this tutorial I’m going to show you how to use this package to enhance your color choices in ggplot2. First, let’s look at the output of base R colors. Although the terms “lightblue” and “navyblue” are common ways to talk about the lightness of blue, when we call them as raw colors they don’t have the same “feel” as they go light to dark.

library(ggplot2)
library(simplecolors)

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


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

Let’s see what it looks like with the sc() function

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

Again, these are just hex codes. The above code is the same as writing

p + scale_fill_manual(values = c("#9DB9F1", "#4479E4", "#16439C"))

sc_blue(), sc_green() & friends

Each hue has it’s own helper function. Our last example can be simplified using sc_blue()

p + scale_fill_manual(values = sc_blue(light = 2:4))

Like sc(), these helper functions returns hex codes

sc_blue(light = 2:4)
#> "#9DB9F1" "#4479E4" "#16439C"

and in each of these you can adjust the lightness and saturation

p + scale_fill_manual(values = sc_violet(light = 3:5, sat = "dull"))

sc_across()

You can also go across palettes. Let’s use base R colors again

p + scale_fill_manual(values = c("blue", "purple", "red"))

We could call them with sc() as sc("blue", "violet", "red") but we can also call them with the first letter of each color using sc_across()

p + scale_fill_manual(values = sc_across("BVR"))

We can brighten or dull the saturation with the argument sat = ...

p + scale_fill_manual(values = sc_across(palette = "BVR", sat = "bright"))

and we can lighten or darken with the argument light = ...

p + scale_fill_manual(values = sc_across(palette = "BVR", light = 4))

I tried to keep the first initial for each color unique. For example, I chose “violet” over “purple” so it didn’t compete with “pink” but there was no getting around “green” and “grey”. For this reason, you must call grey with “Gy”

p + scale_fill_manual(values = sc_across(palette = "BGyR"))

You can also use the simplecolors to make a gradient

library(dplyr)

ggplot(mpg, aes(cty, hwy, color = hwy)) +
  geom_count(alpha = 0.8) +
  scale_color_gradient(
    low  = sc("brightorange3"), 
    high = sc("brightviolet3")
  )

Other outputs

For the palettes (sc_green(), sc_across(), etc.), you can get more info about the colors using the return = ... argument.

sc_green(return = "plot")

sc_across(palette = "RTVGy", light = 4, sat = "muted", return = "plot")

or a table

sc_pink(return = "table")

#> # A tibble: 4 × 2
#>   color_name hex    
#>   <chr>      <chr>  
#> 1 pink2      #F19DF1
#> 2 pink3      #E444E4
#> 3 pink4      #9C169C
#> 4 pink5      #590D59

All the colors

At anytime, you can see all of the colors using show_colors()

show_colors(labels = TRUE)