A color collection is a set of coordinating palettes that work well together. Looker contains 15 native color collections, which enable users to create themed visualizations and dashboards.

Each collection contains categorical, sequential, and diverging palette types. When you create a new visualization and select a color collection, Looker defaults to the palette type that works best for that type of visualization. However, you can change to a different palette in the collection or make edits to the palette you’re currently using.

Looker admins can set a default color collection for all visualizations. Admins can also create custom color collections.

Color Collection IDs

Color collection IDs and palette IDs can be used in LookML dashboards to apply colors to various parts of visualizations. Collection IDs and palette IDs for any new custom color collections are based on each collection’s name. This allows LookML dashboards that use those collections to render consistently across instances if both instances have the same custom collections named identically.

For example, a custom color collection with the name Company Custom Colors would have the following IDs:

• collection ID: company-custom-colors
• categorical palette ID: company-custom-colors-categorical-0
• sequential palette ID: company-custom-colors-sequential-0
• diverging palette ID: company-custom-colors-diverging-0

Because IDs are based on collection names, no two collections on a single instance can have the same name. Additionally, the collection ID and palette IDs do not change if a color collection’s name is changed.

Looker’s native color collections receive instance-specific alphanumeric IDs.

Custom color collections created before Looker 6.22 received instance-specific alphanumeric collection IDs and palette IDs that are not portable across instances.

Looker’s Color Collection Palettes

As of Looker 7.18, the Primaries color collection includes more palettes and has been renamed to Shoreline, the Looker color collection has been renamed to Boardwalk, and the Boardshorts color collection has been renamed to Lighthouse.

The palettes for each color collection are shown below. Note that the Dalton color collection accommodates various forms of color vision deficiency.