Institutional colors

A. University of Freiburg, Germany:

The Albert-Ludwigs Universität Freiburg provides fairly extensive information on its corporate color scheme (available here and here). Colors can be defined in a variety of ways, but R comes with convenient tools (like col2rgb and convertColor in grDevices) to handle most cases. The most straightforward way of creating a new color palette in R is by using its HEX/HTML code (provided in character format). As the University of Freiburg kindly provides their colors in this format, we can easily define the corresponding color palettes as named vectors:

# Basic colors: https://www.zuv.uni-freiburg.de/service/cd/cd-manual/farbwelt

pal_freiburg_bluered <- c("#004a99", "#c1002a")
names(pal_freiburg_bluered) <- c("uni-blau", "uni-rot")

pal_freiburg_basic <- c("#004a99", "white", "#c1002a")  # add "white" for better gradients
names(pal_freiburg_basic) <- c("uni-blau", "weiss", "uni-rot")

# Web colors: https://www.zuv.uni-freiburg.de/service/wsg/webstyleguide/farben

pal_freiburg_blue <- c("#004a99", "#2a6ebb", "#6f9ad3")
names(pal_freiburg_blue) <- c("blue-1", "blue-2", "blue-3")

pal_freiburg_grey <- c("#f2f3f1", "#e0e1dd", "#d5d6d2", "#c9cac8", 
                       "#b2b4b3", "#9a9b9c", "#747678", "#363534")
names(pal_freiburg_grey) <- c("grey-0", "grey-1", "grey-2", "grey-3", 
                              "grey-5", "grey-7", "grey-9", "grey-font")

pal_freiburg_info <- c("#2a6ebb", "#a7c1e3", "#7b2927", "#de3831", "#739600", "#92d400", 
                       "#4d4f53", "#747678", "#b2b4b3", "#d5d6d2", "#e98300", "#efbd47")
names(pal_freiburg_info) <- c("mid-blau", "hell-blau", "dark-red", "hell-red", "mid-green", "hell-green", 
                              "anthrazit", "dark-grey", "mid-grey", "hell-grey", "orange", "gelb")

Alternatively, we can define both (colors and names) in one step by using the newpal() function:

pal_freiburg_info <- newpal(col = c("#2a6ebb", "#a7c1e3", "#7b2927", "#de3831", "#739600", "#92d400", 
                                    "#4d4f53", "#747678", "#b2b4b3", "#d5d6d2", "#e98300", "#efbd47"),
                            names = c("mid-blau", "hell-blau", "dark-red", "hell-red", "mid-green", "hell-green", 
                                      "anthrazit", "dark-grey", "mid-grey", "hell-grey", "orange", "gelb")
                            )

Once a new color palette has been defined (and is available in your current R environment), we can use the seecol() and usecol() functions to view, modify, and use the palette:

seecol(pal_freiburg_info)            # view color palette

# seecol(pal_freiburg_basic, n = 7)  # extend color palette
# seecol(c(pal_freiburg_blue, "white", pal_freiburg_grey))  # mix color palette

B. Princeton University, USA:

The color scheme of Princeton University is easily recognized by its combination of orange with black and white elements. The official guidelines (available here) define “Princeton Orange” as Pantone (PMS) 158 C.

• The PANTONE™ color finder at https://www.pantone.com/color-finder/158-C yields the following color values:

  • RGB: 232 119 34
    
  • HEX/HTML: #E87722
    
  • CMYK: 0 62 95 0

• However, the guide also specifies and distinguishes between 2 additional versions of orange and provides the following HEX/HTML values for them:

  • Orange on white: “#E77500”
    
  • Orange on black: “#F58025”

These definitions suggest defining three separate versions of orange and corresponding color palettes:

# HEX values for 3 shades of orange: 
orange_basic <- "#E87722"  # Pantone 158 C
orange_white <- "#E77500"  # orange on white
orange_black <- "#F58025"  # orange on black

# Defining color palettes:
pal_princeton <- c(orange_basic, "black")
names(pal_princeton) <- c("orange", "black")

# Define color palette and names (in 2 steps):
pal_princeton_1 <- c(orange_white, "white", "black")
names(pal_princeton_1) <- c("orange_w", "white", "black")

# Define both colors and names (in 1 step) by using the `newpal()` function:
pal_princeton_1 <- newpal(col = c("#E77500", "white", "black"),
                          names = c("orange_w", "white", "black"))
                          
# Define 2nd color palette:
pal_princeton_2 <- newpal(col = c(orange_black, "black", "white"), 
                          names = c("orange_b", "black", "white"))

# View color palette (with custom background color and title):
seecol(pal_princeton_1,  # view color palette
       col_bg = "grey90", title = "Color palette of Princeton University")

C. Max Planck Society, Germany:

The CD manual (available here) of the Max Planck Society specifies the use of 2 primary colors:

• Green as Pantone 328: Using the PANTONE™ color finder at https://www.pantone.com/color-finder/328-C yields the following color values:

  • RGB: 0 115 103
    
  • HEX/HTML: #007367
    
  • CMYK: 100 10 61 38

• Grey as Pantone 427: Using the PANTONE™ color finder at https://www.pantone.com/color-finder/427-C yields the following color values:

  • RGB: 208 211 212
    
  • HEX/HTML: #D0D3D4
    
  • CMYK: 7 3 5 8

Again, the easiest way of defining a corresponding color palette is by defining vectors of colors and their names and then use the newpal() function for creating a new color palette. To allow for better color gradients, we insert the color "white" between the two dedicated colors:

# Define vectors:
col_mpg <- c("#007367", "white", "#D0D3D4")     # color definition 
col_lbl <- c("mpg green", "white", "mpg grey")  # color names

# Create new color palette:
pal_mpg <- newpal(col = col_mpg, names = col_lbl)

As before, can now use the seecol() and usecol() functions to view, modify, and use the new pal_mpg color palette:

seecol(pal_mpg,
       col_brd = "black", lwd_brd = 1, 
       title = "Colors of the Max Planck Society")