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2017: Electronic Colour Codes

This year the code was based on electronic colour codes, as used originally to indicate the values of resistors and later for other electronic components and now part of IEC 60062:2016. This is the colour code for each digit:

Here each colour or colour pair represents a one- or two-digit number respectively, and this represents the letter at that position in the alphabet. Thus the two colours in “Red‑Yellow”, for example, represent two and four, and thus the twenty-fourth letter of the alphabet, “X”. This is somewhat of a corruption of the original code, since that is used to encode significant digits of a floating-point number, so there is never an empty first position, as here.

Front page

This translates as:

        Gray:  8 H
       Brown:  1 A
  Brown-Blue: 16 P
  Brown-Blue: 16 P
   Red-Green: 25 Y

      Orange:  3 C
        Gray:  8 H
  Brown-Gray: 18 R
       White:  9 I
 Brown-White: 19 S
   Red-Black: 20 T
Brown-Orange: 13 M
       Brown:  1 A
 Brown-White: 19 S

– giving:

Inside page

This translates as:

       Brown:  1 A
Brown-Yellow: 14 N
      Yellow:  4 D

         Red:  2 B
       Green:  5 E
 Brown-White: 19 S
   Red-Black: 20 T

  Red-Orange: 23 W
       White:  9 I
 Brown-White: 19 S
        Gray:  8 H
       Green:  5 E
 Brown-White: 19 S

        Blue:  6 F
 Brown-Green: 15 O
  Brown-Gray: 18 R

Brown-Orange: 13 M
Brown-Orange: 13 M
  Red-Yellow: 24 X
     Red-Red: 22 V
       White:  9 I
       White:  9 I
       White:  9 I

        Blue:  6 F
  Brown-Gray: 18 R
 Brown-Green: 15 O
Brown-Orange: 13 M

         Red:  2 B
  Brown-Gray: 18 R
       White:  9 I
       Brown:  1 A
Brown-Yellow: 14 N

         Red:  2 B
       Brown:  1 A
  Brown-Gray: 18 R
 Brown-Brown: 11 K
       Green:  5 E
  Brown-Gray: 18 R

– giving:

Since I was using the numbers represented by the colours to encode letters, there was no way to encode digits using this code, so I couldn’t encode the new year in arabic numbers and had to use roman numerals instead.

I picked up the list of colours from some web resource for convenience and accuracy, by using a spreadsheet to prepare the text automatically. It was only as I was printing the cards that I noticed that I had retained the US variant spelling “Gray” instead of the UK standard “Grey” – but some of my recipients would more readily recognise that anyway.

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Version 5: Revised 22 December 2017
Brian Barker