ColorBrewer

ColorBrewer is an online tool for selecting map color schemes based on palettes created by Cynthia Brewer. It was launched in 2002 by Brewer, Mark Harrower, and The Pennsylvania State University. Suggested color schemes are based on data type (sequential, diverging, or qualitative). It also provides options for varied display environments, such as laptop, photocopy, and LCD projector, and colorblind safe options.

ColorBrewer is licensed using Apache 2.0 software license, which is similar to CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Brewer palettes
Valid names and a full color representation for each palette are shown below. If this is viewed in a compliant browser, moving the mouse cursor over each box will pop up the corresponding color number as a tooltip. Sequential (1-9)


 * YlGn
 * YlGnBu
 * GnBu
 * BuGn
 * PuBuGn
 * PuBu
 * BuPu
 * RdPu
 * PuRd
 * OrRd
 * YlOrRd
 * YlOrBr
 * Purples
 * Blues
 * Greens
 * Oranges
 * Reds
 * Greys

Divergent (1-11)


 * PuOr
 * BrBG
 * PRGn
 * PiYG
 * RdBu
 * RdGy
 * RdYlBu
 * Spectral
 * RdYlGn

Qualitative (1-8/12)


 * Accent
 * Dark2
 * Paired
 * Pastel1
 * Pastel2
 * Set1
 * Set2
 * Set3

Applications
In 2018, climate scientist Ed Hawkins chose the eight most saturated blues and reds from the ColorBrewer 9-class single-hue palettes in his design of warming stripes graphics, which visually summarize global warming as an ordered sequence of stripes.