Polychrom is a Figma plugin with a retro aesthetic that measures color contrast using the innovative APCA algorithm. It operates with zero delays even in large documents, handles multiple selected objects, supports P3 colors, and offers many more features.
Hello hunters and makers!
Before writing the first line of code, we spoke with designers and engineers and scoured forums and blog posts. As a result, we identified the three most important user demands for any contrast checker.
Here they are:
1. Adjusting text color to a background.
2. Adjusting the background color to text.
3. Displaying contrast for multiple objects.
We focused on those, and now Polychrom addresses every possible designer’s need. You can not only check if your colors provide enough contrast but also adjust any color on the fly, using Polychrom to create an accessible palette for your UI.
And that’s not all! Polychrom is packed with useful features:
— Displaying the contrast according to the innovative APCA method.
— Text size recommendations.
— Converter to OKLCH format.
— Full P3 gamut support.
— Handling opacities and blend modes.
— Background search algorithm.
— Highly responsive UI that follows changes on the fly.
— Cool retro aesthetics 😎
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Polychrom was developed by a team of believers at Evil Martians, specializing in product consulting for developer tools.
🙇♂️ Roman Shamin (https://twitter.com/romanshamin_en), the creator of OKLCH Color Picker & Converter, Harmony UI color palette, and Martian Mono font.
🙇♂️ Yuri Mikhin (https://twitter.com/yurimikhin), a frontend engineer at Evil Martians.
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We are truly grateful for your support and feedback 💜
When you're a maker, you know—the journey is the prize! 🏆
This is exactly how I feel every day working on Polychrom.
Non-trivial frontend challenges 🧩, interesting integration mechanics with the Figma Plugin API 🛠️, and the desire to make a useful and comfortable tool for all users—these are my guiding stars of the last months of daily hard work on Polychrom.
It's especially nice that Polychrome is an open source product, which means you can participate in its development. Set stars, start issues, send pull requests, and may the power of a11y be with you—https://github.com/evilmartians/....
I share details about frontend development on the Evil Martians blog 📝👽, for example in an article about advanced techniques for working with tree data structures—https://evilmartians.com/chronic.... So I think if you're a frontend engineer, you'll be interested in following and reading about Polychrom's development.
I would appreciate your feedback, ratings, and any other comments. 💬👍
I'm not event a designer, but I use the Polychrom Figma plugin when creating simple graphics and slides for my presentations to ensure appropriate contrast is set. It works great, and the execution of it is pretty smooth 😍 I can easily imagine this tool becoming a go-to instrument in a product designer's toolboox.
P.S. I watched Roman's talk at Friends of Figma Lisbon about the mere principle behind Polychrom and it was super interesting! Thanks for educating the crowds!
Minimalistic, practical tool to check the readability of text... on advertising and SMM creatives. For me, as a marketer, this is a good tool. Good luck!
As a designer and frontend-developer in one, I’ve been trying different tools for working with colors and palettes for years.
OKLCH was a fresh breath of air when creating and working with color palettes in design systems.
Today, Polychrome has become an awesome addition to my every day toolkit. Thanks for OKLCH support, fast and beautiful interface.
Polychrom—APCA Contrast Checker
Polychrom—APCA Contrast Checker
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