Okabe–Ito
Okabe & Ito (2002) — colorblind-safe qualitative set
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#e69f00 -
#56b4e9 -
#009e73 -
#f0e442 -
#0072b2 -
#d55e00 -
#cc79a7 -
#000000
A synthetic demo grid, classed with equal intervals — the point is the palette against real basemap ink, not the data. Switch themes to see how much basemap the palette leaves room for.
Metadata
Provenance
Masataka Okabe and Kei Ito published this eight-color set in 2002 as part of Color Universal Design (CUD), choosing hues that remain distinguishable under the three common forms of color vision deficiency. It has since become the reference accessible qualitative palette across scientific graphics libraries. An earlier revision of this catalog substituted grey for the set's canonical black; the canonical values were restored on 2026-08-17 (mp-61pe).
When to use it
This is the palette to reach for when a small set of categories must be distinguishable by everyone — up to eight classes of anything nominal, from transit modes to habitat types. The swatches are strong and mid-to-high saturation, so give them a quiet basemap and let the categories carry the map. Beyond eight classes the set runs out; move to carto-safe or tol-muted rather than inventing extra colors, which will break the accessibility guarantee.
License
Free to use (uncopyrightable color values; attribution courtesy) · source
The color specification carries this license, which is separate from the MIT license on this site. See attribution.