The sc() function

This function sc() stands for simplecolors. In base R, you would call the colors you need as c("green", "blue")

In simplecolors it is very similar but with sc() instead sc("green", "blue")

The key is that you can add modifiers sc("brightgreen2", "mutedblue3")

The naming convention is standardized: there are 4 types of saturation, 8 hues, and 5 levels of lightness plus a greyscale. To use a color, just combine the 3 parts:

By default, the outputs are hex codes and simplecolors can be used anywhere you can use a hex code.

sc("brightgreen2", "mutedblue3")
#> "#8FFF8F" "#5E82C9"

For the rest of this tutorial I’m going to show you how to use this package to enhance your color choices in ggplot2. First, let’s look at the output of base R colors. Although the terms “lightblue” and “navyblue” are common ways to talk about the lightness of blue, when we call them as raw colors they don’t have the same “feel” as they go light to dark.

library(ggplot2)
library(simplecolors)

p <- 
  ggplot(mpg, aes(y = drv, fill = drv)) +
  geom_bar() 


p + scale_fill_manual(values = c("lightblue", "blue", "navyblue"))

Let’s see what it looks like with the sc() function

p + scale_fill_manual(values = sc("blue2", "blue3", "blue4"))

Again, these are just hex codes. The above code is the same as writing

p + scale_fill_manual(values = c("#9DB9F1", "#4479E4", "#16439C"))

sc_blue(), sc_green() & friends

Each hue has it’s own helper function. Our last example can be simplified using sc_blue()

p + scale_fill_manual(values = sc_blue(light = 2:4))

Like sc(), these helper functions returns hex codes

sc_blue(light = 2:4)
#> "#9DB9F1" "#4479E4" "#16439C"

and in each of these you can adjust the lightness and saturation

p + scale_fill_manual(values = sc_violet(light = 3:5, sat = "dull"))

sc_across()

You can also go across palettes. Let’s use base R colors again

p + scale_fill_manual(values = c("blue", "purple", "red"))

We could call them with sc() as sc("blue", "violet", "red") but we can also call them with the first letter of each color using sc_across()

p + scale_fill_manual(values = sc_across("BVR"))

We can brighten or dull the saturation with the argument sat = ...

p + scale_fill_manual(values = sc_across(palette = "BVR", sat = "bright"))

and we can lighten or darken with the argument light = ...

p + scale_fill_manual(values = sc_across(palette = "BVR", light = 4))

I tried to keep the first initial for each color unique. For example, I chose “violet” over “purple” so it didn’t compete with “pink” but there was no getting around “green” and “grey”. For this reason, you must call grey with “Gy”

p + scale_fill_manual(values = sc_across(palette = "BGyR"))

You can also use the simplecolors to make a gradient

library(dplyr)

ggplot(mpg, aes(cty, hwy, color = hwy)) +
  geom_count(alpha = 0.8) +
  scale_color_gradient(
    low  = sc("brightorange3"), 
    high = sc("brightviolet3")
  )

Other outputs

For the palettes (sc_green(), sc_across(), etc.), you can get more info about the colors using the return = ... argument.

sc_green(return = "plot")

sc_across(palette = "RTVGy", light = 4, sat = "muted", return = "plot")

or a table

sc_pink(return = "table")

All the colors

At anytime, you can see all of the colors using show_colors()

show_colors(labels = TRUE)