Open Call: Let’s pick a colour pallet for Valkey!

[stockholmux]

Why is this important?

The colour pallet is the basis of what will make Valkey instantly identifiable.

You may have not thought about it, but you can immediately identify when a project is using the correct or incorrect colours for example: the blue used by Kubernetes, the yellow/blue of Python or Hadoop, the specific tone of red used by FreeBSD.

Initially, Valkey used the colours borrowed from the Linux Foundation pallet, but this was only for convenience and immediacy. Now it’s time to make something more unique to Valkey!

How the pallet will be used:

The pallet will be used on anything “branded” Valkey.

• Website
• Slide decks
• Give away items (tee shirts, stickers, etc.)
• Conference presence (booth and signage)

Additionally, the pallet will be part of a comprehensive brand document that will be produced at a later point.

What’s needed?

Core colours: The colour in which the logo/logomark is rendered in and on. Generally, these colours should be invertible. Pick 2-4 colours for the core.

Accent Colours: These are the colours which stuff around the logo use. For example, the colour of text, backgrounds, links, diagrams, and extra stuff that isn’t the logo. Pick 2-4 colours.

Both the core and accent colours should coordinate.

What are the constraints?

1. Be unique. Avoid colours that are too similar to projects or products in the same general area as Valkey (and specifically avoid the tones similar to #ff4438, #dc382c, #a32422)
2. Be accessible. Contrast is a big deal, especially with text: too little contrast and the materials can be impossible to use by many people. Check the colour combinations with the WebAIM contrast checker.
3. Dark mode friendly. Many developers prefer dark mode so an overall pallet that looks good in both light-on-dark and dark-on-light is important. This is also helpful when designing things like swag.
4. Keep it flat colours for now. Gradients, opacity, and textures look awesome but only work in some contexts (i.e. hard to print on a tee-shirt). Keep the to the basics for now and the project can later build everything else off the flat colours.

How should it be presented?

Provide the colours in hex format and show how they work together in a comment on this issue. You can use the Valkey logo SVG for illustration. Here is a sample:

You don’t need to follow this format, but note how the colours are arranged and show how they combine and that the core and accent colours are clearly marked.

What about other parts of the overall brand like fonts/web design/tee shirts/etc?

In due time, but please keep this only to colours for now. Too many attributes at once overwhelm and confuse decision making. It would be best to keep this focused on colours only as a building block towards a unified Valkey brand. Please do not submit mockups at this time.

How will these be selected? How long do I have?

If you like a pallet, thumb up the comment that contains the pallets. You can thumb up as many as you’d like. At the end of 2 weeks (closes May 9 23:59 Pacific Time), I’ll take the top 3 pallets with the most thumbs up to the TSC for final selection. Thumbs down or other reactions will be disregarded.

Is Valkey stuck with these colours forever?

No, of course not! Chiseling things in stone isn’t productive. However, from a branding perspective once Valkey becomes identifiable with these colours, it’s best to stick with them for a while.

Will Valkey use these colours exactly?

Sometimes colour pallets look good in isolation but as you start using them you discover weaknesses that make them challenging or impossible in real-use scenarios. So, due to practical concerns, the pallet is best understood as a starting point; the assets built with the colours may introduce new requirements or constraints that require modification, subtractions, or additions to the pallet.

Any resources to get started?

There are a lot of colour pallet generators available on the web that use different techniques to get you started. Here are a few ones I’ve used in the past:

• Canva’s color palette generator
• Adobe Color tools
• Figma Color wheel

[zuiderkwast]

IANAD, but I'd be fine with a website without CSS. Respect the user settings.

[Edit] It's a joke. 😆

[AugustinMauroy]

could you give SVG used to create GitHub org profile picture ?

[stockholmux]

@AugustinMauroy It's linked above but: https://github.com/valkey-io/valkey-io.github.io/blob/main/assets/img/Valkey-logo.svg

[AugustinMauroy]

Here my proposal

https://www.figma.com/file/nRErXkSG36PsGBj5miWy3h/Valkey?type=design&node-id=0%3A1&mode=design&t=5fqmKLFgBI8uOFHl-1

I had add small example how it's can be used. It's tailwindcss based. And font is geist done by vercel

[dtaivpp]

Hey @AugustinMauroy, just tried to open the proposal and it seems to be locked down. Could you open it so others can view?

[AugustinMauroy]

@dtaivpp now it's should be good idk why not it's not allow to view for everyone by default

[stockholmux]

I'm going to keep this open until Friday just to see if we get a few more entries.

(Although I like @AugustinMauroy, it's better to have a choice ;) )

[kris-ms]

I'll post some ideas for the sake of choice, all the font/other stuff is super safe to ignore.

[madolson]

I kind of what @kris-ms's submission to be our "fall theme".

[kris-ms]

@madolson I'd be stoked to see it as a fall theme, that would be awesome.

Here's an alternative idea:

[stockholmux]

@AugustinMauroy and @AugustinMauroy Thanks for your creativity and time on this!

I'm going to close this for now and come back with the selection soon.

[stockholmux]

Looks like we're going with @kris-ms's second idea for our base colour pallet.

Congrats!

[kris-ms]

Wow team, thanks for this! I'm over the moon right now! I can't wait to see how everything progresses from here.

Made my month!