Text Colors by Colorwheels

What is text color?

White background with black text provides optimal readability with its maximal value of contrast. However, styling your text with colors can emphasize the core message, convey meaning beyond the ordinary text and create a visual hierarchy for your designs.

How to use text and background color combinations by Colorwheels?

Explore various ready-to-use text and background color combinations we have for you. Visualize your color text on different background colors to check the color accessibility and readability. The higher the color contrast ratio, the better the text readability of your designs.

Once found your preferred text and background color combination, you can apply them directly to your creative projects by clicking on the colors to copy hex codes. Click, copy, paste, that’s it!

Importance of color in typography

Did you know that the human eye can process 10 million different colors? Styling text with colors not only increases visual attractiveness, but also impacts the readability and accessibility of your content. It is difficult to process all colors efficiently, not to mention for those who have a form of low vision or color blindness that affects their ability to distinguish colors correctly.

This is why colors play a crucial role when typography is involved. Using the right contrasting colors allows the audience to read the text with more clarity and ease. Color combinations that are too similar in hue and shade will likely blend the text and background together, especially for those with red-green color blindness.

Contrasting colors for better text readability

The most optimal way that ensures text readability is to choose contrasting colors for the background and text that complement each other well. You can use contrast colors from the opposite ends of a color wheel or complementary contrast colors in different shades and tones of the same hue.

An example of a good contrasting color combination is a vibrant color paired with a pastel color. This color pairing could be of the same hue, such as electric blue and soft baby blue. Alternatively, replace the baby blue with a pastel yellow for a warm and cool contrast.

WCAG color contrast

According to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), the readability scoring comes in three passing levels (A, AA and AAA) and a fail level (Does Not Pass or DNP).

• A is the minimum contrast requirement with a score range between 3.0 to 4.9. It usually indicates that large texts are readable.

• AA is considered as good and sufficient for most users, with a score range between 5.0 to 6.9. It is readable with small, medium and large texts, but few colors are not advisable for small texts.

• AAA is the most excellent standard with a score range of 7.0 and above. It indicates good readability in all font sizes.

You can explore various text and background color pairings with a good readability score available for you here. Or, use our Color Contrast Checker to find out the WCAG compliance level for your color pairings. The higher the score, the better the text readability.