Palettes¶

Discrete color forms for series: the Octave default cycle, curated qualitative sets, and designed sequential or diverging samples from dm.colors(name, n=...).

For a static token sheet of every single-color string, use Colors.

Pick a palette¶

Use the left rail to choose a palette, drag the color-count control, and toggle black-and-white preview. Click any swatch to copy its hex, or copy the matching Python call from the explorer. The rail has 13 qualitative choices: Octave, Octave Print, and 11 curated qualitative sets.

Apply it¶

import dartwork_mpl as dm

dm.set_colors()                              # octave — the searched default cycle
dm.set_colors("trustworthy")                 # any curated set, by name
dm.set_colors("green", n=5)                  # 5 steps of one hue family
dm.set_colors(["dc.hl", "dc.gray3", "dc.gray5"], ax=ax)  # one Axes only
cols = dm.colors("blue", n=4)                # designed color list
dm.set_colors(ax=ax, styles=True)            # >8 series: 8 colors x 3 styles

Every name resolves under dc.*: "blue" can return designed samples from the single-hue family, "blue_red" can return a diverging list, and "trustworthy" returns the curated qualitative set. The qualitative families are also registered as colormaps (dc.octave, dc.octave_print, dc.trustworthy, …) for scatter(c=...) and seaborn palette=.

Which palette for which data?¶

Your data	Reach for	Explorer group
Everyday 4-8 categories	`dm.colors("octave", n=8)` or `trustworthy`	Qualitative
Many unrelated categories, max distinctness	`vivid` or `neon`	Qualitative
A few related series, one mood	a hue family sampled evenly, or `forest`	Sequential / Qualitative
Ordered amount (rank)	one family ramp; `gray` if hue means nothing	Sequential / Neutral
Ordered around a midpoint (+/- / change / correlation)	`blue_red`, `blue_orange`, `teal_amber`, or `green_purple`	Diverging API
Soft, editorial, dense dashboards	`pastel` or `dusty`	Muted
A specific mood (warm / earthy / luxury)	`ember`, `earth`, or `jewel`	Tone
Highlight one series, mute the rest	`teal_accent`, `coral_accent`, or `dc.hl` + grays	Emphasis
Colorblind-mandatory	`dm.colors("octave", n=8)` or `trustworthy`	Qualitative

How the system is organized¶

Everything lives in one dc.* namespace and uses one API: dm.colors(...) for colormaps or designed color lists, dm.set_colors(...) to apply colors globally or to one Axes, dm.list_colors(...) for family metadata, and dm.show_colors(...) for previews.

There are four discrete forms: Octave, the searched default cycle for everyday charts; 11 hand-tuned curated qualitative sets for muted, tonal, forest, and emphasis use cases; 20 generative single-hue families sampled for ordered and sequential work; and canonical diverging lists such as blue_red, blue_orange, teal_amber, and green_purple for centered data.

The count rule is simple: families have 10 steps; curated qualitative and diverging sets have 8 colors; Octave has 8 chromatic colors, with rose in the eighth slot; and Octave Print has 7 chromatic colors plus dark gray. Single-hue curated ramps are not duplicated; the families serve that job.

Reference¶

Octave — the default cycle¶

Octave is the default coherent data-series cycle when you do not want to choose a palette by hand; use dm.set_colors() or the stable dc.octave colormap token. Its eight chromatic colors were selected by exhaustive search to stay distinct under color-vision-deficiency simulation. The common red-green deficiencies clear min ΔE00 10.3 (vs the Okabe-Ito benchmark’s 11.5), and on the rare tritan the default cycle’s 8.3 actually beats Okabe-Ito’s 7.9 — both under the accurate Brettel-1997 model (see Design rationale); matplotlib’s tab10 scores 1.4 and effectively collapses under protanopia.

Gray is reserved for grids and reference lines, not spent as a data color in Octave; its eighth series color is chromatic rose. Octave Print uses a dark gray as its eighth color for black-and-white lightness spread. The trade-off is screen versus print: Octave keeps every color in the line-safe L* 43-78 band for thin lines on white, while Octave Print guarantees every pair is at least about 7 L* apart (min ΔL* 7.7) for grayscale printing and photocopies. It keeps the same hue per slot as Octave, and the violet slot matches Octave. Need more than eight line series? Opt in to dm.set_colors(styles=True), which expands the cycle to 8 × 3 = 24 color/style combinations. Line styles are opt-in because a plot with lw=0 would otherwise inherit dashes and break.

Hue families¶

The chromatic families follow the hue spectrum: red · rose · coral · tangerine · orange · amber · yellow · lime · green · teal · cyan · sky · blue · cobalt · indigo · violet · purple · fuchsia · pink, plus gray. Use a whole ramp for an ordered scale, or sample evenly spaced steps for related series.

cols = dm.colors("blue", n=4)
cols = dm.colors("teal", n=6, reverse=True)

Curated sets¶

The curated qualitative rail is the hand-tuned set collection preserved through the v5 clean break. Curated sets use the same API as families, and all are grayscale- and CVD-screened.

Group	Members
Qualitative	`trustworthy`, `vivid`, `neon`, `forest`
Muted	`pastel`, `dusty`
Tone	`ember`, `earth`, `jewel`
Emphasis	`teal_accent`, `coral_accent`

The four canonical discrete diverging forms are blue_red, blue_orange, teal_amber, and green_purple. They are ordered encodings for centered data, not unordered categorical sets, so the explorer keeps them out of the qualitative rail.

`colors` and `set_colors` options¶

Option	What it does
`colors(name, n=None)`	Return the registered colormap when `n` is omitted, or a designed list when `n` is set.
`n`	Choose how many colors from the designed discrete form. Continuous families require it when used with `set_colors`.
`reverse`	Flip the resulting list or colormap.
`set_colors(name_or_list=None, ax=None, n=None, styles=False)`	Apply a palette globally, to one Axes with `ax=`, or expand it with line styles.

Names resolve under dc.*, so "blue" and "trustworthy" are enough.

The v5 clean break trimmed the throwaway ad-hoc aliases; the curated dc.* categorical sets are deliberately preserved. See the migration guide for the manual rename table.