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Friends page colors
When I first discovered that you could associate each of your LiveJournal friends with a foreground color and a background color, I tried to come up with a good way to use that feature. My first decision was to associate the colors with the two main colors on the person's current journal style, though usually varying the foreground color if necessary so no two people have the exact same color pair. Most of my friends are still dictated based on this color scheme.
Also, I never change the colors associated with someone. So a lot of people are locked into a color scheme associated with a style they haven't used in years. And if you make a new journal, I'll give it exactly the same color scheme as your old one, even if your new one has a new style.
After awhile, I decided that I needed more variation. I had a lot of colors used up, and too many people were similar shades of blue. So I still try to pick the foreground color based on the same criteria (a prominent color in your current style, though I'll vary it if necessary to make you unique), but the background colors are different. Sometimes I'll go for a certain theme or grouping, and sometimes I'll just pick a color heretofore underutilized on my Friends page.
Almost every community and synfeed on my Friends page is represented by a white background and a black foreground. One exception is for the handful of (now dead) ujournal feeds that a group of my Penn friends used--those were a unique foreground on a white background. The other exception is Abuse, which I'll get to later.
Not every white-background journal is a synfeed or comm, though. Some are just people whose original style was predominantly white. Also, most of those former ujournal users who are now on LJ have the same color-on-white scheme that I gave them for their ujournal feeds.
One theme I've tried, with varying success, is a light blue background for many of my high-school and college friends who are my year. (Essentially, people who I mentially associate as being friends with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bumonyou, even though that's not an entirely accurate delimiter.) Most of those people have a light blue background, and most of the people with a light blue background are those people.
Another theme I use is red for Abuse. Red was very underutilized in my color scheme when I joined LJ Abuse, so now two shades of red are reserved for Abuse communities (with the usual black foreground), and two others are reserved for people I met through Abuse (with the usual unique or style-based foreground).
There are at least three people on my Friends list who post regularly and who have their own background color associated with them:jox, dishpanwaterr, and (to a slightly lesser extent) gutwoman. I have a very strong mental association between those people and their colors. I didn't necessarily mean to give them their own colors, but now there's no way I could make them share. It would be too confusing.
Also, it's happened to work out that everyone who is a shade of green is a very good writer who I enjoy reading a lot. (To be sure, there are plenty of good writers who aren't green. It's just that there are no green bad writers. "Green" is a proper subset of "good writer", if you will.) Again, this wasn't deliberate, but now that I've noticed it, I could never make someone green without first knowing if they're a good writer.
I am teal. No one else is teal. (In fact, I'm navy on teal, which will come as no surprise to anyone who's ever seen any web page I've ever designed.)
How do you assign colors to your LJ friends?
Also, I never change the colors associated with someone. So a lot of people are locked into a color scheme associated with a style they haven't used in years. And if you make a new journal, I'll give it exactly the same color scheme as your old one, even if your new one has a new style.
After awhile, I decided that I needed more variation. I had a lot of colors used up, and too many people were similar shades of blue. So I still try to pick the foreground color based on the same criteria (a prominent color in your current style, though I'll vary it if necessary to make you unique), but the background colors are different. Sometimes I'll go for a certain theme or grouping, and sometimes I'll just pick a color heretofore underutilized on my Friends page.
Almost every community and synfeed on my Friends page is represented by a white background and a black foreground. One exception is for the handful of (now dead) ujournal feeds that a group of my Penn friends used--those were a unique foreground on a white background. The other exception is Abuse, which I'll get to later.
Not every white-background journal is a synfeed or comm, though. Some are just people whose original style was predominantly white. Also, most of those former ujournal users who are now on LJ have the same color-on-white scheme that I gave them for their ujournal feeds.
One theme I've tried, with varying success, is a light blue background for many of my high-school and college friends who are my year. (Essentially, people who I mentially associate as being friends with
bumonyou, even though that's not an entirely accurate delimiter.) Most of those people have a light blue background, and most of the people with a light blue background are those people.Another theme I use is red for Abuse. Red was very underutilized in my color scheme when I joined LJ Abuse, so now two shades of red are reserved for Abuse communities (with the usual black foreground), and two others are reserved for people I met through Abuse (with the usual unique or style-based foreground).
There are at least three people on my Friends list who post regularly and who have their own background color associated with them:
jox, dishpanwaterr, and (to a slightly lesser extent) gutwoman. I have a very strong mental association between those people and their colors. I didn't necessarily mean to give them their own colors, but now there's no way I could make them share. It would be too confusing.Also, it's happened to work out that everyone who is a shade of green is a very good writer who I enjoy reading a lot. (To be sure, there are plenty of good writers who aren't green. It's just that there are no green bad writers. "Green" is a proper subset of "good writer", if you will.) Again, this wasn't deliberate, but now that I've noticed it, I could never make someone green without first knowing if they're a good writer.
I am teal. No one else is teal. (In fact, I'm navy on teal, which will come as no surprise to anyone who's ever seen any web page I've ever designed.)
How do you assign colors to your LJ friends?
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I took all the colors available from the color-picker on the website and listed their hex codes. :P
Foreground colors don't really work for me, since I read bottom-up, so I see the background before the foreground. So the foreground colors are white or black, whatever looks better on the background.
All communities are white on dark grey, all synfeeds are white on dark brown, all Abuse is white on orange, all userdoc is white on bright green. I still need to come up with a Special Color for Comms/Support. :P
Usually I reserve black-on-white for inactive people, etc, but I recently ran out of colors, so until I rearrange all that, the new people are all black-on-white. I need to expand my list so I have more colors to pick from, but I'm lazy.
I also have a list of commands available so I can clean up people's colors all in one move (I usually defriend everyone, then refriend everyone again.) (Yes, you can use the console to add friends.) (Yes, you can use the console to add friends and friends colors. :)
I figure people out by their color, rather than their username, except for abuse/userdoc/comms/synfeeds in which case, it's a bit more complicated. Once someone is assigned a color, I hate changing it. If I do, I need to stop using it for a week in between so I don't get confused. But mainly, color assignment is 25% "what color do I think they look like?" and 75% "what colors do I still have available?" :P
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You want a blank version of it?
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(My styles never use the friend colors. :)
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--Jeff
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Oh, by the way, I'm still waiting to see the top 151-300 Songs I Don't Give A Crap About ever. When will that be posted?
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--Jeff
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
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Most of my friends colors were pastel in the begining but then I got really bored with that. I started getting bolder. Kevin's is my favorite its something like darkest red and yellow. At the time I think I might have been trying to be respectful but it is definately the most dramatic and it catches my eye when he actually posts (once in a blue moon with something that I invariably already knew..) His best friend also has non pastel colors. He is yellow green and red. It is very distinctive because it is the only yellow on my friends page and I really like it because I am drawn to it. He one of the funniest guys I know. I also know not to read it if I don't have the time to appretiate what he wrote. I use green every once in a while to liven things up. Mostly though when I add new people I stay away from pastel. I play until I find a combination that works for me.
One of my friends has a distinctive style, everything she writes is a particular font, color, size, and in italics. Livejournal or IM or whatever. So I have a less distinctive color scheme for her because she stands out on her own.
The only one that isn't subject to change at anytime is Kevins. Any of the other ones I might change because I got bored and wanted something to do.
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wow. I am a nerd.
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I'd seen the colors option before, but somehow just figured it applied only to the name listing on my userinfo page, and what good would that do me?
Must go experiment now.
(I came here from your comment on
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Friends were always black background w/a color name. The color has something to do with their journal at the time and also something to do with colors I associate with them. Robin will always be purple, Jasper a deep red. New friends I hadn't colorified yet were white on black. I've discovered, however, that too many people have the same color associations for me.
Communities are black on a colored background, usually white, although a few get a distinct color. No further logic than that, except that all the elfwood-related communities had the same shade of green.
I've been thinking I need to reorganize all that lately, but I'm lazy.
believe it or not
it started because i redid my page view and made it personalized (a step that shows i actually am letting go of my UJ because it's never coming back...)
and so i wanted my friends colors to match my color theme incase i ever changed the layout to one where it would make a difference (still liking the color theme i had)
so all the boys have the same background and different foreground and all the girls (except one because LJ auto assigned hers and it looked nice) have the same foreground as the guy's background and different backgrounds.
its silly i know, but it works?
yeah thats about it
Re: believe it or not
Re: believe it or not
but if i did have to figure out a color scheme to keep by what i have right now, i suppose i'd pick one of the foreground/background colors from each sex and mix the two to keep with the matching-my-page color scheme
after all, my aim wasn't so much to separate genders (origionally) but to make everything pretty.
but as it is, it doesn't much matter since in the view i have presently selected those colors don't show up. and yet i played with them any way.
what does that say about me 0.o ?
Re: believe it or not
you should reply to my query on marriage ;) its an interesting question that popped into my head and i am getting equally interesting answers. i'd be glad to have your thoughts too ^^
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I hope to hell you have blue in mine...
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Sidenote
i am curious.
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::shows off how I also made one of how I feel right now - oh, so very sleep deprived::
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only instead of using the thingy you sent (it was fun to play with but i couldn't get it to email me)
i used photoshop to alter the one you had. highlited the hair. changed the eyes, added earings. it was fun times. yay for not studying extra for my midterm and procrastinating with photoshop?
ok so my priorities got a little skewed, well there's always tomorrow ^^
Re: Sidenote
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well that and i'm in the "friends" and not the "friends of" column on his info so i think we're safe because i'm not on his friends page, just an occasional visitor