Using and creating color palettes

The taylor package comes with it’s own class of color palettes, inspired by the work of Josiah Parry in the cpcinema package.

1 Creating palettes

taylor uses vctrs to create a special vector class of color palettes that can be used to create and visualize palettes. We can create a palette using the color_palette() function. We only have to pass a vector of hexadecimal values or valid R color (from colors()), and a palette is created that will print a preview of the colors.

library(taylor)

my_pal <- color_palette(c("firebrick", "turquoise", "#0051ba"))
my_pal
#> <color_palette[3]>
#>     firebrick 
#>     turquoise 
#>     #0051ba

We can also use color_palette() on an existing palette to interpolate additional values, by specifying that we want more colors than were originally specified.

my_big_pal <- color_palette(my_pal, n = 10)
my_big_pal
#> <color_palette[10]>
#>     #B22222 
#>     #984C48 
#>     #7F766F 
#>     #66A096 
#>     #4CCABC 
#>     #38D0CD 
#>     #2AB0C8 
#>     #1C90C3 
#>     #0E70BE 
#>     #0051BA

Similarly, if we have a large color palette, we can select just a few representative colors.

my_small_pal <- color_palette(my_big_pal, n = 5)
my_small_pal
#> <color_palette[5]>
#>     #B22222 
#>     #7F766F 
#>     #4CCABC 
#>     #2AB0C8 
#>     #0051BA

2 Built-in palettes

The taylor package comes with a few palettes built-in, based on Taylor Swift’s album covers. They can be viewed using taylor::album_palettes.

album_palettes
#> $taylor_swift
#> <color_palette[5]>
#>     #1D4737 
#>     #81A757 
#>     #1BAEC6 
#>     #523d28 
#>     #E7DBCC 
#> 
#> $fearless
#> <color_palette[5]>
#>     #6E4823 
#>     #976F34 
#>     #CBA863 
#>     #ECD59F 
#>     #E1D4C2 
#> 
#> $fearless_tv
#> <color_palette[5]>
#>     #624324 
#>     #A47F45 
#>     #CAA462 
#>     #C5AA7C 
#>     #EEDBA9 
#> 
#> $speak_now
#> <color_palette[5]>
#>     #2E1924 
#>     #6C3127 
#>     #833C63 
#>     #D1A0C7 
#>     #F5E8E2 
#> 
#> $speak_now_tv
#> <color_palette[5]>
#>     #2A122C 
#>     #4a2454 
#>     #72325F 
#>     #874886 
#>     #96689A 
#> 
#> $red
#> <color_palette[5]>
#>     #201F39 
#>     #A91E47 
#>     #7E6358 
#>     #B0A49A 
#>     #DDD8C9 
#> 
#> $red_tv
#> <color_palette[5]>
#>     #400303 
#>     #731803 
#>     #967862 
#>     #B38468 
#>     #C7C5B6 
#> 
#> $`1989`
#> <color_palette[5]>
#>     #5D4E5D 
#>     #846578 
#>     #92573C 
#>     #C6B69C 
#>     #D8D8CF 
#> 
#> $`1989_tv`
#> <color_palette[5]>
#>     #487398 
#>     #659BBB 
#>     #8BB5D2 
#>     #AFC5D4 
#>     #E4DFD3 
#> 
#> $reputation
#> <color_palette[5]>
#>     #2C2C2C 
#>     #515151 
#>     #5B5B5B 
#>     #6E6E6E 
#>     #B9B9B9 
#> 
#> $lover
#> <color_palette[5]>
#>     #76BAE0 
#>     #8C4F66 
#>     #B8396B 
#>     #EBBED3 
#>     #FFF5CC 
#> 
#> $folklore
#> <color_palette[5]>
#>     #3E3E3E 
#>     #545454 
#>     #5C5C5C 
#>     #949494 
#>     #EBEBEB 
#> 
#> $evermore
#> <color_palette[5]>
#>     #160E10 
#>     #421E18 
#>     #D37F55 
#>     #85796D 
#>     #E0D9D7 
#> 
#> $midnights
#> <color_palette[5]>
#>     #121D27 
#>     #5A658B 
#>     #6F86A2 
#>     #85A7BA 
#>     #AA9EB6 
#> 
#> $tortured_poets
#> <color_palette[5]>
#>     #1C160F 
#>     #3F3824 
#>     #635B3A 
#>     #ADA795 
#>     #F7F4F0

Or we can access a single palette.

album_palettes$fearless_tv
#> <color_palette[5]>
#>     #624324 
#>     #A47F45 
#>     #CAA462 
#>     #C5AA7C 
#>     #EEDBA9

Also included is a palette that includes one representative color from each album, taylor::album_compare.

album_compare
#> <color_palette[15]>
#>     taylor_swift 
#>     fearless 
#>     fearless_tv 
#>     speak_now 
#>     speak_now_tv 
#>     red 
#>     red_tv 
#>     1989 
#>     1989_tv 
#>     reputation 
#>     lover 
#>     folklore 
#>     evermore 
#>     midnights 
#>     tortured_poets

3 Using color palettes with ggplot2

The taylor package comes with a set of functions built in for plotting in ggplot2 with the album palettes. For example, we can use scale_fill_taylor_c() to create a continuous scale based on one of the album palettes. For more details on how to use the scale functions included in taylor, check out vignette("plotting").

library(ggplot2)

p <- ggplot(faithfuld, aes(waiting, eruptions, fill = density)) +
  geom_tile() +
  theme_minimal()

p + scale_fill_taylor_c(album = "Fearless (Taylor's Version)")

You can also use your custom palettes with ggplot2. For example, we can create a palette of greens, and then use ggplot2::scale_fill_gradientn() or ggplot2::scale_color_gradientn() to use the palette.

green_pal <- color_palette(c("#E5F5E0", "#A1D99B", "#31A354"))
green_pal
#> <color_palette[3]>
#>     #E5F5E0 
#>     #A1D99B 
#>     #31A354

ggplot(faithfuld, aes(waiting, eruptions, fill = density)) +
  geom_tile() +
  scale_fill_gradientn(colors = green_pal) +
  theme_minimal()

Finally, if we have a discrete scale, we can use ggplot2::scale_fill_manual() or ggplot2::scale_color_manual(). Here, we use the palmerpenguins to map our palette to the species of penguin.

library(palmerpenguins)

penguin_pal <- color_palette(c(Adelie = "firebrick",
                               Chinstrap = "goldenrod",
                               Gentoo = "navy"))
penguin_pal
#> <color_palette[3]>
#>     Adelie 
#>     Chinstrap 
#>     Gentoo

ggplot(penguins, aes(x = bill_length_mm, y = bill_depth_mm)) +
  geom_point(aes(shape = species, color = species), size = 3) +
  scale_color_manual(values = penguin_pal) +
  theme_minimal()