If you look up the hex code, #7b5867, in the Color Name API right now, it won't say it's "Deep Magenta" or "Plum." It'll say it's "Royal Fig."
But that wasn't always the case.
A few weeks ago, I shared a new side project, the ColorPalette Pro. It's (yet) another color palette generator that took me two years of nights and weekends. It has lots of innovative features like transforming colors in the perceptually uniform color space of OKLCH, UI mode, and image export options for use in design tools like Figma.
Oh, and it's designed to look like a synthesizer a la Teenage Engineering's EP–133 K.O. II.
Teenage Engineering's Synth
My ColorPalette Pro synth
Nevertheless, my initial release was ... crickets 🦗
The Color Palette Pro is a Synthesizer for Color
But, another distinctive feature of the ColorPalette Pro is that for every color and palette it provides a unique name. So, the blue color in the screenshot above is called "Blue Bobbin" and the palette is "Plum Mossy."
This functionality is provided by the fantastic Color Name API. And, that fact changed everything.
The creator of that API, the inimitable David Aerne (meodai), noticed that the ColorPalette Pro uses the API and tweeted about it.
That post blew up:
- 148k+ views
- 380+ retweets
- 3k+ likes
Which then spilled over to other posts, platforms (Mastodon, Bluesky, LinkedIn), and a ProductHunt launch on my behalf.
As exciting as these numbers are (and, yes, it's pretty damn cool), David also quickly adapted my palette engine to another UI (let's go, open source!) and added Royal Fig as a color name to the API:
"royalfig" is my username almost everywhere on the web:
You get the idea.
But why "Royal Fig"?
My first name, Ryan, means "little king," which explains the "royal" part. And, my last name, Feigenbaum, means "fig tree" in German, and hence: Royal Fig.
Now, it's the "official" name of this purple color:
Real figs for reference:
Photo by Quin Engle / Unsplash
Finally, here's Royal Fig in Estragon Fiction, a triadic palette in the circle variant. A palette I quite like.
At the end of the day, side projects are just plain weird. Sometimes they get 3 views (hi, share button). And, sometimes, they weave you into the fabric of the web itself.
Now, become a color producer yourself and try building a palette with Royal Fig.
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