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Duo by Alex Pate – A Still Growing Database of Color Combinations

August 20, 2021
Staff Blog
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Table of Content
Table of Content

You have been using various colors for your creative design works. However, you want something different this time – a trusted collection of color palettes you can easily access on the web. Duo by Alex Pete answers what you wish for – a set of 102 colors for pairings so far.

The Website at a Glance

When you open the duo.alexpate.uk website for the first time, you will see a simple, compact menu.

There is a brief description of Duo by the creator, Alex Pate. Two clickable tabs follow, namely “View as JSON” and “Toggle only AA Accessible Combinations.”

Scrolling down, you find striking colorful boxes with numbers on them, exactly 102 colors, neatly in three columns.

There is also a clickable blue button on the right top of the colored boxes. It is a direct link to Alex Pate’s Twitter account.

What is Duo?

duo

Alex Pate describes Duo as a set of color pairings that he curated from his design projects and examples he encountered on the Internet.

If you click each colored box, copy-able color codes will pop up. The color codes show detailed information of hues for background and foreground. The color combinations nicely complement each other after you apply them to any web design.

JSON Format

JSON – JavaScript Object Notation – is a lightweight format for data interchange, namely for the sake of data storing and transporting.

By clicking the “View as JSON” tab or button, you will see a direct list of all color codes and the True or False status of AA Accessible.

The format allows you to duplicate all the color codes in one go instead of manually copying the codes from each colored box.

AA Accessibility

When you click the “Toggle only AA Accessible Combinations,” you will notice that color pairings are slightly changing. It happens after the filter process for True-status AA accessibility. However, the JSON list in Duo by Alex Pate will not track or follow any modification even after you click the above toggle button.

If you use WCAG 2.0 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines), Level AA means “Acceptable compliance.” AA conformance level for a particular website will mean that the website is understandable and accessible by the majority of users with or with no disabilities.

Who is Alex Pate?

Now, what if we give a little credit to the mastermind behind these incredible color pairings? The alexpate.uk introduces Alex Pate himself as a London-based engineer who focuses on design.

His current role is as an engineer at Monzo, a UK-based online bank. His job focuses on developing tools for improving the design workflow for engineers, designers, and user researchers.

Alex Pate also writes for Web Designer Magazine and Net Magazine. The professional web design and development competition body – Awwwards – has featured some of his works.

If you have further questions or feedback, you can reach him through Twitter, GitHub, or Dribbble. He steadily develops the Duo database so any users can keep coming back to check for any updates.

The duo is a set collection of 102 curated color pairings by Alex Pate. The database can keep on growing. You can find this set of two color pairings in JSON format so that you can effortlessly add them to any web design projects you are working on.

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