The 216 Web Safe Colours

page decoration 1996 partly

Six values per channel, because a lot of visitors were running 256 colour displays.

In 2026: Harmless now and entirely unnecessary. Any hex value where every pair is 00, 33, 66, 99, CC or FF survived the browser's dithering on an 8 bit screen. Anything else turned into speckles.

Where it came from: Lynda Weinman's browser-safe palette, published in Designing Web Graphics, 1996. Wikipedia ↗

<!-- Safe: every pair is 00 33 66 99 CC or FF -->
<font color="#FF0000">safe red</font>
<font color="#00CC66">safe green</font>
<font color="#3366CC">safe blue</font>

<!-- Not safe in 1996: dithered into speckles on a 256 colour screen -->
<font color="#FF3B2A">unsafe red</font>
<font color="#1E88E5">unsafe blue</font>

<script language="JavaScript">
// The whole cube, which every design book printed as a poster
var v = ["00","33","66","99","CC","FF"], out = "";
for (var r = 0; r < 6; r++)
  for (var g = 0; g < 6; g++)
    for (var b = 0; b < 6; b++)
      out += '<span style="display:inline-block;width:12px;height:12px;background:#'
           + v[r] + v[g] + v[b] + '"></span>';
document.write("<div style='width:216px;line-height:0'>" + out + "</div>");
</script>

sandboxed demo · breaks nothing but itselfrestart

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