Create a hexadecimal colour based on a string with JavaScript

Here's an adaptation of CD Sanchez' answer that consistently returns a 6-digit colour code:

const stringToColour = (str: string) => {
  let hash = 0;
  str.split('').forEach(char => {
    hash = char.charCodeAt(0) + ((hash << 5) - hash)
  })
  let colour = '#'
  for (let i = 0; i < 3; i++) {
    const value = (hash >> (i * 8)) & 0xff
    colour += value.toString(16).padStart(2, '0')
  }
  return colour
}

If you are using Eslint, you want to wrap this function in the

/* eslint-disable no-bitwise */
>> stringToColour func. definition here" <<
/* eslint-enable no-bitwise */

Usage:

stringToColour("greenish");
// -> #9bc63b

Example:

http://jsfiddle.net/sUK45/

(An alternative/simpler solution might involve returning an 'rgb(...)'-style colour code.)

I wanted similar richness in colors for HTML elements, I was surprised to find that CSS now supports hsl() colors, so a full solution for me is below:

Also see How to automatically generate N "distinct" colors? for more alternatives more similar to this.

Edit: updating based on @zei's version (with american spelling)

var stringToColor = (string, saturation = 100, lightness = 75) => {
  let hash = 0;
  for (let i = 0; i < string.length; i++) {
hash = string.charCodeAt(i) + ((hash << 5) - hash);
hash = hash & hash;
  }
  return `hsl(${(hash % 360)}, ${saturation}%, ${lightness}%)`;
}


// For the sample on stackoverflow
function colorByHashCode(value) {
return "<span style='color:" + stringToColor(value) + "'>" + value + "</span>";
}

document.body.innerHTML = [
  "javascript",
  "is",
  "nice",
].map(colorByHashCode).join("<br/>");

span {
  font-size: 50px;
  font-weight: 800;
}

In HSL its Hue, Saturation, Lightness. So the hue between 0-359 will get all colors, saturation is how rich you want the color, 100% works for me. And Lightness determines the deepness, 50% is normal, 25% is dark colors, 75% is pastel. I have 30% because it fit with my color scheme best.

Here is my 2021 version with Reduce Function and HSL Color.

function getBackgroundColor(stringInput) {
    let stringUniqueHash = [...stringInput].reduce((acc, char) => {
        return char.charCodeAt(0) + ((acc << 5) - acc);
    }, 0);
    return `hsl(${stringUniqueHash % 360}, 95%, 35%)`;
}

Using the hashCode as in Cristian Sanchez's answer with hsl and modern javascript, you can create a color picker with good contrast like this:

function hashCode(str) {
  let hash = 0;
  for (var i = 0; i < str.length; i++) {
    hash = str.charCodeAt(i) + ((hash << 5) - hash);
  }
  return hash;
}

function pickColor(str) {
  return `hsl(${hashCode(str) % 360}, 100%, 80%)`;
}

one.style.backgroundColor = pickColor(one.innerText)
two.style.backgroundColor = pickColor(two.innerText)

div {
  padding: 10px;
}

<div id="one">One</div>
<div id="two">Two</div>

Since it's hsl, you can scale luminance to get the contrast you're looking for.

function hashCode(str) {
  let hash = 0;
  for (var i = 0; i < str.length; i++) {
    hash = str.charCodeAt(i) + ((hash << 5) - hash);
  }
  return hash;
}

function pickColor(str) {
  // Note the last value here is now 50% instead of 80%
  return `hsl(${hashCode(str) % 360}, 100%, 50%)`;
}

one.style.backgroundColor = pickColor(one.innerText)
two.style.backgroundColor = pickColor(two.innerText)

div {
  color: white;
  padding: 10px;
}

<div id="one">One</div>
<div id="two">Two</div>

I find that generating random colors tends to create colors that do not have enough contrast for my taste. The easiest way I have found to get around that is to pre-populate a list of very different colors. For every new string, assign the next color in the list:

// Takes any string and converts it into a #RRGGBB color.
var StringToColor = (function(){
    var instance = null;

    return {
    next: function stringToColor(str) {
        if(instance === null) {
            instance = {};
            instance.stringToColorHash = {};
            instance.nextVeryDifferntColorIdx = 0;
            instance.veryDifferentColors = ["#000000","#00FF00","#0000FF","#FF0000","#01FFFE","#FFA6FE","#FFDB66","#006401","#010067","#95003A","#007DB5","#FF00F6","#FFEEE8","#774D00","#90FB92","#0076FF","#D5FF00","#FF937E","#6A826C","#FF029D","#FE8900","#7A4782","#7E2DD2","#85A900","#FF0056","#A42400","#00AE7E","#683D3B","#BDC6FF","#263400","#BDD393","#00B917","#9E008E","#001544","#C28C9F","#FF74A3","#01D0FF","#004754","#E56FFE","#788231","#0E4CA1","#91D0CB","#BE9970","#968AE8","#BB8800","#43002C","#DEFF74","#00FFC6","#FFE502","#620E00","#008F9C","#98FF52","#7544B1","#B500FF","#00FF78","#FF6E41","#005F39","#6B6882","#5FAD4E","#A75740","#A5FFD2","#FFB167","#009BFF","#E85EBE"];
        }

        if(!instance.stringToColorHash[str])
            instance.stringToColorHash[str] = instance.veryDifferentColors[instance.nextVeryDifferntColorIdx++];

            return instance.stringToColorHash[str];
        }
    }
})();

// Get a new color for each string
StringToColor.next("get first color");
StringToColor.next("get second color");

// Will return the same color as the first time
StringToColor.next("get first color");

While this has a limit to only 64 colors, I find most humans can't really tell the difference after that anyway. I suppose you could always add more colors.

While this code uses hard-coded colors, you are at least guaranteed to know during development exactly how much contrast you will see between colors in production.

Color list has been lifted from this SO answer, there are other lists with more colors.

I have opened a pull request to Please.js that allows generating a color from a hash.

You can map the string to a color like so:

const color = Please.make_color({
    from_hash: "any string goes here"
});

For example, "any string goes here" will return as "#47291b"
and "another!" returns as "#1f0c3d"

If your inputs are not different enough for a simple hash to use the entire color spectrum, you can use a seeded random number generator instead of a hash function.

I'm using the color coder from Joe Freeman's answer, and David Bau's seeded random number generator.

function stringToColour(str) {
    Math.seedrandom(str);
    var rand = Math.random() * Math.pow(255,3);
    Math.seedrandom(); // don't leave a non-random seed in the generator
    for (var i = 0, colour = "#"; i < 3; colour += ("00" + ((rand >> i++ * 8) & 0xFF).toString(16)).slice(-2));
    return colour;
}

Javascript Solution inspired by Aslam's solution but returns a color in hex color code

/**
 * 
 * @param {String} - stringInput - 'xyz'
 * @returns {String} - color in hex color code - '#ae6204'
 */
function getBackgroundColor(stringInput) {
    const h = [...stringInput].reduce((acc, char) => {
        return char.charCodeAt(0) + ((acc << 5) - acc);
    }, 0);
    const s = 95, l = 35 / 100;
    const a = s * Math.min(l, 1 - l) / 100;
    const f = n => {
        const k = (n + h / 30) % 12;
        const color = l - a * Math.max(Math.min(k - 3, 9 - k, 1), -1);
        return Math.round(255 * color).toString(16).padStart(2, '0');   // convert to Hex and prefix "0" if needed
    };
    return `#${f(0)}${f(8)}${f(4)}`;
}

2025 version - Plain and simple TypeScript arrow function that returns HSL color.

const stringToColor = (value: string) => {
  let hash = 0;
  for (let i = 0; i < value.length; i++) {
    hash = value.charCodeAt(i) + ((hash << 5) - hash);
  }

  return `hsl(${hash % 360}, 85%, 35%)`;
};

Yet another solution for random colors:

function colorize(str) {
    for (var i = 0, hash = 0; i < str.length; hash = str.charCodeAt(i++) + ((hash << 5) - hash));
    color = Math.floor(Math.abs((Math.sin(hash) * 10000) % 1 * 16777216)).toString(16);
    return '#' + Array(6 - color.length + 1).join('0') + color;
}

It's a mixed of things that does the job for me. I used JFreeman Hash function (also an answer in this thread) and Asykäri pseudo random function from here and some padding and math from myself.

I doubt the function produces evenly distributed colors, though it looks nice and does that what it should do.

Here's a solution I came up with to generate aesthetically pleasing pastel colours based on an input string. It uses the first two chars of the string as a random seed, then generates R/G/B based on that seed.

It could be easily extended so that the seed is the XOR of all chars in the string, rather than just the first two.

Inspired by David Crow's answer here: Algorithm to randomly generate an aesthetically-pleasing color palette

//magic to convert strings to a nice pastel colour based on first two chars
//
// every string with the same first two chars will generate the same pastel colour
function pastel_colour(input_str) {

    //TODO: adjust base colour values below based on theme
    var baseRed = 128;
    var baseGreen = 128;
    var baseBlue = 128;

    //lazy seeded random hack to get values from 0 - 256
    //for seed just take bitwise XOR of first two chars
    var seed = input_str.charCodeAt(0) ^ input_str.charCodeAt(1);
    var rand_1 = Math.abs((Math.sin(seed++) * 10000)) % 256;
    var rand_2 = Math.abs((Math.sin(seed++) * 10000)) % 256;
    var rand_3 = Math.abs((Math.sin(seed++) * 10000)) % 256;

    //build colour
    var red = Math.round((rand_1 + baseRed) / 2);
    var green = Math.round((rand_2 + baseGreen) / 2);
    var blue = Math.round((rand_3 + baseBlue) / 2);

    return { red: red, green: green, blue: blue };
}

GIST is here: https://gist.github.com/ro-sharp/49fd46a071a267d9e5dd

Here is another try:

function stringToColor(str){
  var hash = 0;
  for(var i=0; i < str.length; i++) {
    hash = str.charCodeAt(i) + ((hash << 3) - hash);
  }
  var color = Math.abs(hash).toString(16).substring(0, 6);

  return "#" + '000000'.substring(0, 6 - color.length) + color;
}

All you really need is a good hash function. On node, I just use

const crypto = require('crypto');
function strToColor(str) {
    return '#' + crypto.createHash('md5').update(str).digest('hex').substr(0, 6);
}

After having a look at the rather code intensive and rather old answers, I thought I'd review this issue from a 2021 standpoint just for fun, hope it is of use to anyone. Having the HSL color model and the crypto API implemented in pretty much all browsers (except IE of course) today, it could be solved as simple as that:

async function getColor(text, minLightness = 40, maxLightness = 80, minSaturation = 30, maxSaturation = 100) {
  let hash = await window.crypto.subtle.digest("SHA-1", new TextEncoder().encode(text));
  hash = new Uint8Array(hash).join("").slice(16);

  return "hsl(" + (hash % 360) + ", " + (hash % (maxSaturation - minSaturation) + minSaturation) + "%, " + (hash % (maxLightness - minLightness) + minLightness) + "%)";
}

function generateColor() {
  getColor(document.getElementById("text-input").value).then(color => document.querySelector(".swatch").style.backgroundColor = color);
}

input {
  padding: 5px;
}

.swatch {
  margin-left: 10px;
  width: 28px;
  height: 28px;
  background-color: white;
  border: 1px solid gray;
}

.flex {
  display: flex;
}

<html>

<body>
  <div class="flex">
    <form>
      <input id="text-input" type="text" onInput="generateColor()" placeholder="Type here"></input>
    </form>
    <div class="swatch"></div>
  </div>
</body>

</html>

This should be way faster than generating hashes manually, and also offers a way to define saturation and lightness in case you don't want colors that are too flat or too bright or too dark (e.g. if you want to write text on those colors).

I have a situation where i want to display a background based on the username of the user and display the username's first letter on top. i used the belove code for that it worked well for me

var stringToColour = function (str) {
var hash = 0;
for (var i = 0; i < str.length; i++) {
  hash = str.charCodeAt(i) + ((hash << 5) - hash);
}
var colour = '#';
for (var i = 0; i < 3; i++) {
  var value = (hash >> (i * 8)) & 0xff;
  colour += ('00' + value.toString(16)).substr(-2);
}
return colour;}

To find the appropriate colour you can use

function lightOrDark(color) {
// Check the format of the color, HEX or RGB?
if (color.match(/^rgb/)) {
  // If HEX --> store the red, green, blue values in separate variables
  color = color.match(
    /^rgba?\((\d+),\s*(\d+),\s*(\d+)(?:,\s*(\d+(?:\.\d+)?))?\)$/,
  );

  var r = color[1];
  var g = color[2];
  var b = color[3];
} else {
  // If RGB --> Convert it to HEX: http://gist.github.com/983661
  color = +(
    '0x' + color.slice(1).replace(color.length < 5 && /./g, '$&$&')
  );

  r = color >> 16;
  g = (color >> 8) & 255;
  b = color & 255;
}

// HSP equation from http://alienryderflex.com/hsp.html
var hsp = Math.sqrt(0.299 * (r * r) + 0.587 * (g * g) + 0.114 * (b * b));

// Using the HSP value, determine whether the color is light or dark
if (hsp > 127.5) {
  return 'light';
} else {
  return 'dark';
}

}

my code is for Java.

Thanks for all.

public static int getColorFromText(String text)
    {
        if(text == null || text.length() < 1)
            return Color.BLACK;

        int hash = 0;

        for (int i = 0; i < text.length(); i++)
        {
            hash = text.charAt(i) + ((hash << 5) - hash);
        }

        int c = (hash & 0x00FFFFFF);
        c = c - 16777216;

        return c;
    }

This function does the trick. It's an adaptation of this, fairly longer implementation this repo ..

const color = (str) => {
    let rgb = [];
    // Changing non-hexadecimal characters to 0
    str = [...str].map(c => (/[0-9A-Fa-f]/g.test(c)) ? c : 0).join('');
    // Padding string with zeroes until it adds up to 3
    while (str.length % 3) str += '0';

    // Dividing string into 3 equally large arrays
    for (i = 0; i < str.length; i += str.length / 3)
        rgb.push(str.slice(i, i + str.length / 3));

    // Formatting a hex color from the first two letters of each portion
    return `#${rgb.map(string => string.slice(0, 2)).join('')}`;
}