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Ask HN: Why is the gray color of TailwindCSS dark blue?

by ugur2nd on 10/4/24, 9:48 PM with 9 comments

The color that comes out when you do "bg-gray-900" is not gray. I checked. It's blue. Dark blue. But why did they do that? Why do they say gray?

  • by seanwilson on 10/5/24, 5:16 AM

    It's a common UI/web design trick now to brand your color palette more by mixing in a little of your primary color into your "gray" swatch. Gray gets used a lot so this has a subtle but noticeable difference. Tailwind has a few gray swatches you can pick from (https://tailwindcss.com/docs/customizing-colors) where "neutral" is all gray if that's what matches your brand.

    I have a tool for creating Tailwind color palettes you might find interesting here (https://inclusivecolors.com) where you can visualize how the hue of Tailwind's "gray" shifts a little to the left and the saturation goes from high to low as the gray gets lighter (you'll need to load the palette first via "Import" then "Tailwind"), and customise it if you want.

  • by jsheard on 10/4/24, 10:55 PM

    https://tailwindcss.com/docs/customizing-colors

    Their "neutral" is the perfect gray you're looking for.

    Why their "gray" is actually blue, I have no idea.

  • by brudgers on 10/5/24, 12:08 AM