Need hex codes for colors?
If you’re an online creator or visual marketer, yes you do!
Hex codes give us a simple way to communicate precise colors for display on computers, smartphones, tablets and more.
Once you know the color family that communicates your brand identity, you can find the exact tint, shade, or tone from this page.
And learn all you need to know about these RGB colors.
Let’s hop into hex codes!
What Are Hex Color Codes?
Hex codes are the most popular way to specify colors for computer display.
Hex is short for hexadecimal, which means that these codes consist of six digits. The six digit color number is broken into three groups of two digits which specify the amount of Red, Green, and Blue in the color.
Depending on the color you choose, some characters may be letters. That’s the most efficient way to express the 16 million+ possible RGB colors.
Why so many? Each primary color, Red, Green, and Blue, has values from 0 to 255. This makes 256 x 256 x 256 = 16,777,216 unique colors. This is thought to be more than the human eye can perceive!
Learn more after the hex codes links below.
Find the Best Hex Codes by Color
To make your picking much easier, I’ve narrowed it down to the top codes by color group. These range from 20 to 40 different hex codes for each of 17 different colors. Most include the RGB values, and CMYK is listed where known.
544 colors in all!
After this section you can find FAQs about color codes.
Cool Color Codes
Blue Hex Codes: assortment of 20 blues from baby to brilliant.
Light Blue Hex Codes: 35 pretty pastels for delightful designs.
Aqua Hex Codes: 33 powerful to pastel aquas add punch.
Turquoise Hex Codes: 21 green-blue to blue-green colors.
Teal Hex Codes: 30 shades and tones between blue and green.
Cyan Hex Codes: 23 sensational cyans.
Green Hex Codes: 40 greens from sage to sea and Sacramento.
Purple Hex Codes: 40 creative and craveable purple tones.
Warm Color Codes
Pink Hex Codes: 33 popular pinks from soft to powerful.
Red Hex Codes: 40 ravishing reds from bold to burgundy.
Orange Hex Codes: 22 from bright and bold to rich and rustic.
Yellow Hex Codes: 33 yellows from bright to mellow.
Gold Hex Codes: 40 bright, light, deep, and muted golds.
Neutral Color Codes
Brown Hex Codes: 22 basic to beguiling browns.
Skin Tone Hex Codes: 50 complexion colors make shading skin simple.
Black Hex Codes: 20 bewitching deep shades of black.
Gray Hex Codes: 22 great grays, warm and cool, dark and light.
White Hex Codes: 70 whites! Grouped by undertone to quickly find your best.
What Is RGB Color?
The RGB color model constructs all colors from the combination of Red, Green, and Blue light.
Digital displays consist of Red, Green, and Blue light emitting diodes, or LEDs. RGB LEDs, enough alphabet soup yet?!
Creating colors for digital display is different than mixing colors for painting or printing. RGB color is based on the intensity of Red, Green, and Blue light. This makes RGB an additive system. Colors get lighter as you add more color – since they are made of light!
The RYB color model is subtractive, which means colors get darker as you add more colors or blend them together. This is also true of CMYK ink colors used by printers. You can learn more about this other color system on my color mixing chart and guide.
But back to RGB’s additive system. When one pixel, let’s say Red, is set at 0, that LED is turned off. When the Red pixel is set to 255, that LED is turned fully on. And then there are 254 values between them that sets the LED to partial light intensity!
As the designer, all you have to do is pick your color and enter the codes!
What Do Hexadecimal Numbers Mean?
Hex numbers, or hexadecimal codes, are comprised of three pairs of characters. Since computer displays use the RGB color system, each pair (or byte) represents one of these three colors of light: Red, Green, and Blue.
- The first pair is Red.
- The second pair is Green.
- The third pair is Blue.
The digits used are 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9, along with A, B, C, D, E, and F. A through F stand in for the numbers: 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15.
To get a bit techy, this is a base 16 numbering system.
The six digit codes should be preceded by a hash mark to ensure proper display on all browsers.
Each two digit hex pair can have a value from 00, which is none, to FF, which is 256. This creates the more than 16 million possible colors mentioned above..
If a color is set at 00, it’s off, thus it’s not represented. At FF, it’s fully on.
Once we understand this language, we can see that the hex code #FF0000 is pure red, since red light is fully ON, while green and blue light are completely OFF.
Why Are Some Color Codes Only 3 Digits?
When both digits in a pair are identical, that hex code can be specified in 3 digits.
#FF0000 specifies pure red, but the shorthand for this is #F00.
Do Color Codes Need to Use Uppercase Letters?
Hex codes are usually seen expressed with numerals and capital letters – but lowercase letters work just as well.
I’ve noticed that the HTML on my WordPress site changes hex codes entered in uppercase into lowercase. This is perfectly fine. They are understood just the same.
What Color is FFFFFF?
The FF pairs mean that each of Red, Green, and Blue light are fully ON. The result is pure white.
White can also be expressed as RGB(255,255,255), or a 3 digit code, #FFF.
What Color is 000000?
The 00 pairs mean that each of Red, Green, and Blue light are fully OFF. The result is pure black – the darkest black you can display on a digital device.
Black can also be expressed as RGB(0,0,0). The 3 digit hex code is #000.
All the Hex Codes You Need!
I hope you’ve found them via the 12 pages linked above. And learned a lot about hex colors and RGB colors too!
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To learn more about color, check out why color is important. It’s stuffed with info I think you’ll love!
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