HSLuv/HPLuv color space for TailwindCSS

This package is made to experiment with the HSLuv/HPLuv color space which should be better for UI design. It's technically just a helper function which using the hsluv library to generate the color variants for TailwindCSS.

NEW: From 0.1.4 this package is usable as Tailwind CSS plugin.

Why?

Steve Schoger made a beautiful color palette in Tailwind CSS, but:

• you can't trust in the lightness variations. Even if the colors are hand-picked, if you use bg-blue-300 and bg-yellow-300 the perceived lightness will be different.
• the steps between the lightness variations sometimes not even

How then?

The difference between HSL and HSLuv/HPLuv/CIELUV color spaces is the lightness value based on the human eye instead of how the monitor mixing the colors. With HSLuv we can generate the color variations based on the perceived lightness.

You can read about these here:

• HSLuv comparsion to HSL
• Perceptually uniform color spaces

Credits

The HSLuv library made by Alexei Boronine

The Color name list came from the Name that color library

Installation

npm i tailwind-hsluv
# or
yarn add tailwind-hsluv

Color names

The generateColors function accepts colors as string or array:

• hex color like "#RRGGBB" or "#CCC"
• named color like "Eastern Blue" or "Seaweed", etc. (1)
• RGB color array like: [255, 0, 0]

(1) The color name lookup is case-insensitive. You can find the color names in the source or you can pick one via the Name that color website.

Plugin usage

// tailwind.config.js
const { hsluv } = require('tailwind-hsluv');

module.exports = {
    // ...your other config...
    plugins: [
        hsluv({
            superred: '#ff0000', // 6 digit hex color
            grayscale: '#ccc', // / 3 digit hex color
            blue: [ 0, 0, 255 ], // rgb array
            green: 'green', // simple named color
            mypurple: 'Jacksons Purple' // specific named color
        }, {
            step: 50, // default 100
            hpluv: false, // use the HPLuv color space, default: false
        }),
        // ...your other plugins...
    ]
};

Generate colors directly

generateColors(colorMap, options): generates the colors for TailwindCSS.

Options:

name	default	description
step	100	steps between the lightness values
hpluv	false	use the HPLuv color space (less saturated)

Full example:

// tailwind.config.js
const { generateColors } = require('tailwind-hsluv');

module.exports = {
    theme: {
        extend: {
            colors: generateColors({
                superred: '#ff0000', // 6 digit hex color
                grayscale: '#ccc', /// 3 digit hex color
                blue: [0, 0, 255], // rgb array
                green: 'green', // simple named color
                mypurple: 'Jacksons Purple' // specific named color
            }, {
                step: 100, // steps between lightness variants, default: 100
                hpluv: false // use the HPLuv color space, default: false
            })
        }
    }
};

It will generate an object which usable for tailwind config, like this:

{
    "red": {
        "100": "#FFDADA",
        "200": "#FFB3B3",
        "300": "#FF8888",
        "400": "#FF5353",
        "500": "#EF0000",
        "600": "#C00000",
        "700": "#930000",
        "800": "#690000",
        "900": "#410000",
        "default": "#FF0000"
	},
    "blue": {
        // ...
    },
    // another colors...
}

Comparison between the color palettes

The "text" texts are colored with grayscale hsl(0, 0%, 10%-90%) and each of the boxes have a background color lightness variant from 100 to 900.

If the text lightness is closer to the background color lightness you less likely can see the difference between them.

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md (since 0.1.4), and CHANGELOG-old.md (before 0.1.4)

License

Copyright © 2020 Kövesdi György

Licensed under the MIT License.