Retro color palettes
Every decade is remembered by its printing limits. The seventies look warm because of the inks, the eighties look electric because of CRT phosphors, Y2K looks silver because of early 3D. These twelve borrow those constraints on purpose.
- Sega CD Weirdcore
Readable text on #4e2a5b: #FFFFFF
- 80's Alien
Readable text on #4d6aff: #FFFFFF
- Vaporwave
Readable text on #ff75ff: #111827
- Dark Academia
Readable text on #3c2a30: #FFFFFF
- Glamrock Roxy
Readable text on #a400b3: #FFFFFF
- Pac-man
Readable text on #ffcc00: #111827
- Moody Sunset
Readable text on #3b1c2f: #FFFFFF
- Twiggy
Readable text on #b4daa4: #111827
- 80s Red Vibes
Readable text on #e63746: #111827
- Retro Romance
Readable text on #4d0f1f: #FFFFFF
- 1970 Vibes
Readable text on #d7c1a3: #111827
- Evil Magic
Readable text on #390a43: #FFFFFF
Making retro look deliberate
- Pick one decade and stay in it. Seventies orange next to Y2K chrome reads as a mistake, not as range.
- Add grain, a slight colour shift or a soft edge. Perfectly clean shapes in vintage colours look like a filter.
- Modern screens are brighter than the ones these palettes came from. Pull the saturation down a step and the reference lands better.
The text colour under each palette is whichever of near-black or white reaches the higher contrast ratio against its first colour — check any other pairing before using it for body text.