Template:Tincture/drawCH

A Palette for Tincturing Swiss Coats of Arms (and Flags)

This palette is an implementation of the Tincture template and specifies a number of colour values for tincturing Swiss coats of arms and heraldic flags.

Canonical tinctures:

argentorazureazuregulessablevert

Extended tinctures:

argenttransparentorazureazuretransparentcarnationtransparenttransparentgulestransparentpurpuresabletennéverttransparent

Characteristics

The drawCH tincture palette, commonly referred to as the ‘CH palette’, is a set of colours – or tinctures, in heraldic language – intended for use in Swiss coats of arms and flags. The palette provides a set of codes that will display the tinctures of any given coat of arms in the item's file description, rendering them as a sequence of coloured boxes as defined in the tincture field of the COAInformation template.

As of August 2023, the CH palette is the only palette on Commons that features a set of two separate but equally valid azure tinctures: light blue (code point l) and darker blue (code point b). This duality reflects the fact that different regions in Switzerland prefer their heraldry to use either a darker or a lighter blue. It also reflects an unwillingness on the part of the palette's framers to go along with the stop-gap measure employed in other palettes, where the non-traditional tincture of bleu céleste is allowed to stand in for a lighter traditional azure. See note on "two azures" (German).

Provenance

The CH palette is a composite of two older Commons palettes that are both based on an official heraldic colour reference backed by a Cantonal Archive: The AG palette based on the Canton of Aargau's heraldic Farbkarte and the GR palette, based on the Canton of Graubünden's digital armorial.

The CH palette originated in 2020, at first as an implementation of the colour values extracted from the set of cantonal coats of arms contained in the flag code [PDF] published by Switzerland's armed forces. However, these colour values failed to catch on among the Wikimedia Commons designers, whereas the AG palette was slowly gaining traction for use in coats of arms other than those of the canton of Aargau's. This nationwide use of the Aargau tinctures had already been pioneered by the (now defunct but highly influential) Stiftung Schweizer Wappen und Fahnen (1985–2022).

Before long, the suggestion was made that the CH palette should adopt the AG palette's tincture values. The appeal of this suggestion was limited by the circumstance that the AG palette contains only one non-traditional tincture, tawny (brown), lacking, especially, a carnation (skin-tone) tincture. The AG palette's adoption as a nationwide palette was also impeded by its fairly light azure, which is not favoured in some of the country's regions.

A solution to this impasse was found in the summer of 2023, when the tincture values of the AG palette were supplemented by tinctures borrowed from the GR palette and folded into the new revised CH palette: purpure (purple), the non-traditional tincture of carnation, and a darker hue of azure.

Recommended Usage

It is recommended that the AG and GR palettes continue to be used for the coats of arms of the cantons of Aargau and Graubünden. Certain legacy bodies of work such as the municipal arms of the canton of Zurich and Graubünden should not be re-tinctured using the CH palette. The palette is suitable for all other Swiss coats of arms and heraldic flags.

The Palette in Use

Instances of the CH palette in use are listed in the Tinctures (Switzerland) Commons category.

Palette File

The FOSS software applications GIMP and Inkscape both support the .gpl file format, which makes sets of colour values available for convenient application to artwork. To use the CH palette, fel free to copy the following code into a file with the .gpl extension and save it to wherever your system keeps its GIMP and Inkscape palettes:

#
  255 255 255 #FFFFFF argent
  252 219   0 #FCDB00 or
   28  99 183 #1C63B7 azure
    0 147 221 #0093DD l-azure
  255 187 153 #FFBB99 carnation
  240   0   0 #F00000 gules
  136   0 128 #880080 purpure
    0   0   0 #000000 sable
  122  63  40 #7A3F28 tenné
    0 153  68 #009944 vert   

Appendix I: How this Palette was Made

This palette is the result of a number of discussions held in various wiki forums from November 2022 to September 2023:

• 18 Nov. 2022–5 Sep. 2023: Schweizer Schildformen und Tinkturen
• 5 May 2023–29 Aug. 2023: Le Conseil d'Etat du Canton du Vaud (2016). Arrêté 175.12.1 sur les armoiries communales (AAC)
• 9 May 2023–18 May 2023: Gemeinden der Westschweiz
• 18 May 2023–2 Jun 2023: Quelle palette de couleurs le canton de Vaud a-t-il utilisé pour les armoiries des communes?

Appendix II: An Overview of the Swiss Heraldic Palettes on Wikimedia Commons

Current Recommendations as of 2024:

Tincture (CH) InfoField	argentorazureazurecarnationtransparentgulestransparentpurpuresabletennévert  Switzerland
Tincture (AG) InfoField	argentorazuretransparenttransparenttransparentgulestransparenttransparentsabletennévert  Canton: Aargau
Tincture (GR) InfoField	argentorazuretransparenttransparenttransparentgulestransparentpurpuresabletennévert  Canton: Graubünden
Tincture (NW) InfoField	argentorazuretransparenttransparenttransparentgulestransparenttransparentsabletennévert  Canton: Nidwalden
Obsolete as of 2024:
Tincture (SF) InfoField	argentorazuretransparenttransparenttransparentgulestransparenttransparentsabletransparentvert  Swiss flag code
Tincture (B2) InfoField	argentorazuretransparentcarnationtransparentgulestransparenttransparentsabletennévert  User Bernina
Tincture (Δ9) InfoField	argentorazurtransparentcarnationfergueulesorangépourpresabletanné sinople  User Delta-9
Tincture (VD) InfoField	argent or azure transparent carnation cendrée gules naranja purpure sable tenné vert  Canton: Vaud (until the cantonal government of Vaud issues an official colour reference)