Accessible Color Pair
A foreground and background color combination that meets WCAG minimum contrast requirements for text readability.
What it means
An accessible color pair is any two colors whose contrast ratio meets the relevant WCAG threshold. For normal-sized body text, that means at least 4.5:1 (AA). For large text (18pt+ or 14pt+ bold), the minimum drops to 3:1. For AAA compliance, the thresholds increase to 7:1 and 4.5:1 respectively.
Palette accessibility isn't about individual colors — it's about pairs. A vivid orange that fails on white might pass on dark navy. The goal is to identify which combinations in your palette work for text and which work only for decorative or non-text elements.
Why it matters in palette design
PerfectPalette evaluates every possible pairing in your palette and reports how many pass at each WCAG level. A palette with many accessible pairs gives designers flexibility; one with few forces workarounds. At minimum, 4 approved pairings are required for a palette to be considered export-ready.
Example
A 5-color palette yields 20 possible foreground/background combinations (5 × 4). PerfectPalette might find that 12 pass AA, 6 pass AAA, and 8 fail entirely. The failing pairs are flagged so designers know which combinations to avoid for text.
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Apply this to your palette
Open PerfectPalette and put these concepts into practice with your own colors.