What Are Web Safe Colours?

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As web sites began to become popular for local businesses many professional web designers had one major thing to consider.

How would your web site would look?

Colors at that time could be seen across different web browsers, like Internet Explorer, FireFox and Opera saw ‘blue’ differently. And Windows and Macs saw that same ‘blue’ differently again.

This was generally due to the limitations of computer screens which, for most users, would only display 256 colors. To allow all web sites to look the same, regardless of what computer or browser your visitors chose to use a set of ’safe’ colours were developed.

This set of colours are called “Web Safe Colours”.

Today, however, most computer monitors are capable of displaying at least two times as many colors. This has given many designers greater freedom to use a wider array of colors. However professional designers and developers understand that to truly ensure their designs look that same to all visitors it is better to stick to the web safe set when creating designs.

What Colours Can I Choose?

What colours are safe? The 216 colors that are guaranteed to render the same way on all computer monitors and browsers, along with their hexadecimal codes, are displayed in the table below.

With today’s modern computers, most screens are capable of displaying many more colours. In fact, some estimates say that fewer than 1% of browsers only display 256 colours.

So if you opt to use a larger color pallete in your designs, most of your visitors will see your website as intended. However, to reach all of your visitors, stick to using the web safe colours.

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