Something that many people appreciate about ALPS is the variety of color themes available. It connects back to one of our key underlying principals of “Customization”. Each site has the option of using one of seven primary colors, two secondary colors and a light or dark background that allowed for many of color options.
Color is key to any design. We associate it with our brands and our culture. And as we approached ALPS 3.x, we wanted to build on the existing color themes. It was time offer more options. And some of the themes had accessibility issues, with contrast ratios making it difficult to read. Additionally, the use of the secondary colors in the current system didn’t allow for a lot of nuance in Call to Action buttons or links. It was binary, either a strong color or plain text.
Here are a few things we wanted to accomplish with the updated color system:
- Expand color options
- Improve readability
- Better visual hierarchy
Keeping all this in mind, as we approached ALPS 3.x, we wanted to make some adjustments that would benefit anyone, but not negatively affect those who are using the 2.x system.
The New Colors
As we began working on ALPS 3.x, we took a careful review of the existing colors. Several of the combinations did not meet the WCAG AA contrast ratio recommendations. So we decided to take a second look at our color themes.
The new ALPS 3.x color system includes eight families, each family has a bright, muted, and neutral palette. Each of the colors in the family has been tested to ensure good visual contrast, offer guidance in the throughout the page, and create a discoverable interface. Each family has a key color and four supporting colors.
Bright
Muted
Universal Neutrals
Note: The colors highlighted above are palettes that were included in ALPS 2.x.
6 comments
Thanks Brent, that’s a lot of nice colour options!
How is ALPS 3 coming along generally?
Things are coming very well. Over the next couple weeks, we will be releasing more information, demos and previews.
Looking forward to any & all offerings you throw out to us 🙂
The ALPS Theme Settings does not seem to provide the correct colour (or is it “color”, depending on where you are from? 🙂 … Given our church is in the South Pacific Division, with its default colour of “Adventist Fire” {HEX: #FF8200} , being ‘orange’ … I am unable to select the required theme colour for our new church Website I am currently designing and developing.
Are you able to update the ALPS Theme Settings to take into consideration the guidelines provided at ‘https://identity.adventistchurch.com/local-church/’ please?
Alternatively … how can I override the default ALPS Theme colour settings?
Any help you are able to provide would be much appreciated.
Our current (old) church Website (using the “Real Church” theme) is:
http://www.rocsda.org.nz
The new Website which I am currently developing to present to our Board for acceptance to become our new official Website is:
http://www.rosdac.org.nz
(please note … this is still in development but is enough to give our Board {and perhaps you?} an opportunity to provide feedback as to how it could be improved prior to making it official.
Thanks for your consideration of looking into this for me.
{a P.S. for you … I have other queries to come in the near future , such as why the Theme logo in the top left of the Header is always so big when i try to use it, but I will leave these queries for a submission in the near future LOL :-)}
Thanks again
Beautiful colors need some thanks
Greetings Team … am wanting help with the 7th column colour.
We are an Auckland NZ church … ‘Royal Oak Seventh-day Adventist Church’ … and currently in development in changing our theme to implement the seventh-column. Our “in development” Website is … http://www.roscad.org.nz
The issue is the colors in the ALPS theme does not give us the option to select the ‘nice’ orange colour we used to have … which is (to my understanding) the colour of our Division, being the “SPD” which has the colours (according to the “SPD Adventist Indentity” .pdf document), which states that the SPD has chosen as its primary colours “Adventist Fire” (Hex #FF8200) which is “orange” … and “Charcoal” (Hex HEX: #3D3935)
Here is the problem … the ALPS theme does not have this colour selection available … the closest being what they call “Campfire” which to be fair does turn orange when scrolling down, BUT the starting primary colour is an awful “Red” … which almost everyone i’ve canvased agrees is just not good for us.
Consequently … I’m wondering if you could contact the ALPS develors on our behalf to include this as a selection option from within the WordPress ALPS Theme Template … so that we can go from the current “Denim” colour we are using to the ‘true’ orange of “Adventist Fire” – #FF8200.
Alternatively, if someone can give me the .CSS code i can used to override the main.css they keep hidden from us.
Your assistance with this in helping to achieve this would be so very much appreciated.
Thanks Team for your very great work.
God Bless
Stephen Gallagher; +64 022-528-3500; [email protected]