# The Custom Color Scheme Thread - Share and Discuss Your Schemes Here!



## OreKehStrah (Jun 6, 2020)

Hey everyone!

I thought since I use a non-standard color scheme I would make a thread to share custom color schemes if there's anyone else who also uses a custom scheme. I checked before I started this post and I didn't see any threads of this sort, at least that have been commented in recently.

Also, I'd like to talk about my custom color scheme for anyone who's interested in how I decided on it and the thought behind it.

The start of my custom scheme had two initial ideas behind it.
It actually started on squan. I really liked the high contrast between black and white, so like a lot of other people, I started using black/white on my stickered square-1. So having black opposite white was the first idea.

Now, because I had displaced yellow, it became a color I could use on another side if I wanted. Because of how bright and easily recognizable yellow is, you can see a lot of different safety/caution/street signs in yellow, so I though why not use yellow on a non-UD side for better recognition. I looked at how green/blue and red/orange contrast against each other in a checkerboard and I realized that red opposite yellow has a much higher contrast than red opposite yellow and looks better in my opinion.
This unfortunately means I can't use this scheme on a stickerless squan, but it does lead into the next consideration for the scheme.

I specifically chose these colors to also allow for stickerless construction of most NxN cubes since a lot of puzzles are released in both a black and a stickerless version. As a result, I have the option to use my custom scheme for stickerless cubes more than any other scheme aside from just a pure rearrangement of the colors on a cube. I had considered using pink instead of red, but typically most puzzles won't have that option, especially not in a shade of pink that will contrast/look nicer than red imo.

The next reason behind this scheme is three-fold:

The first was a minor consideration, but because I only removed orange, moved yellow, and added black, the white-green-red orientation is preserved, so if I ever decide to go to a comp it minimizes the headache for a scramble since it preserves the standard scrambling orientation.

The next reason is that if I was going to change to a non-standard scheme, it needs to be for a good reason and not just for change's sake, since deviating from the standard scheme can doom you to only being able to use a stickered cube for some puzzles. I didn't want to make a scheme that would cause problems to switch to. This is designed to be a high-contrast, potentially better recognition scheme that is also easy to transition to. I'll talk more about the transition and observations later, but it's a pretty easy and smooth transition.

Finally, I was focusing on megaminx quite a bit a the time I was planning the scheme. I also specifically placed yellow to the left of blue and op red when doing white cross to align with the standard megaminx F2L scheme as much as possible so that practicing F2L for either puzzle will transfer ever so slightly better.

The final consideration for the scheme is that it's also designed with white cross only and Roux solvers in mind. I'm personally working on CN and am at the stage where I can take advantage of lucky cases on any side but average better on white since I solved only white for about 4 years. However, who knows if it's actually possible to become fully neutral at this point so it also keeps in mind that for me, I will likely end up doing white cross primarily unless I see a lucky case on another side. As a result, this was designed to also have maximum contrast when solving only white like most people do, or for Roux users since recognizing EO is probably faster with white/black top and bottom.

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As you can see, quite a lot of thought and planning went into my custom color scheme. I don't know if this scheme is universally better for everyone, but I would bet it could be for some. It was designed specifically with speedsolving in mind, and I would love it if other people give it a shot!

Like I mentioned before, I figured I would also talk about the transition period and some observations I noticed.

The transition period for me was about a day or two. I started with a few slow solves just to give my brain a bit of an adjustment phase, and then just did a bunch of solves. After roughly two hundred solves my times started to normalize, and by the next day I was averaging my normal time so I don't think the adjustment phase is bad at all.

Now after having switched to the scheme for several months now I figured I would end the post with a few interesting things I've noticed.

1. I almost have 2 systems that work in tandem for recognized OLL when I do a white cross, IE black last layer. Maybe it's just a me think, but I noticed the black pieces are really eye catching, especially when I transitioned, so I'm able to recognize OLL patterns like normal, but also recognize the case by the pattern of color compared to the black pieces. It's a bit difficult to explain through text but if you try it you'll know what I mean.

2. Because it's a high-contrast scheme, cubing in low-light situations is obviously a lot easier. It's a pretty nice side-benefit.

3. I also have a 4x4 and recognition is fine there too. I don't do a ton of big cube solves, but I would guess that this scheme could be more beneficial on bigger cubes.

4. Finally, when doing CN solves, the only thing that is a little bit strange is seeing white adjacent to yellow. I don't think that looks super great but it is by no means a deal breaker for me. It just doesn't look super great yet to my non-adjusted brain. I don't think it's a problem since this also occurs naturally in the BOY color scheme.

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anyway, that it as far as my scheme goes! If anyone has any question about it let me know. I'll probably post some pictures of actual cubes at some point. If you have a spare black stickered cube, you could carefully peel the yellow stickers and replace orange and try it!


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## ProStar (Jun 6, 2020)

I have a really unique color scheme:

U: White
F: Green
R: Red
B: Blue
L: Orange
D: Yellow

I starting using this color scheme because my first cube was some off-brand cube by a company named "Gan". By the time I got a REAL Rubik's cube, I was super used to my color scheme. Because of that and also because I was told Rubik's was bad, I decided to get a speedcube, so I got a Moyu Weilong GTS3M, which was a real cube unlike that stupid off brand cube by "Gan". Luckily I was able to contact Moyu and they made me a custom cube with my color scheme


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## Cuberstache (Jun 7, 2020)

I got 6 stickerless MS cubes and one black for the purpose of trying out black opposite white, for the high contrast reasons you mentioned. I probably won't do that to all of my cubic mains because of the price tag, but we'll see.


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## Sub1Hour (Jun 7, 2020)

I am currently in the process of making all of my side event mains have black on them. My Square-1 scheme is black on top white on bottom RGOB going counterclockwise. My Megaminx has black instead of white with everything the same. I'm thinking about getting a black aoyan and a black bell so I can switch out the yellow for black on those as well since the only reason I compete in skweeb and pyra is to make fun of them and also to keep PR streaks alive. But my nxn cubes are all the standard scheme although I would like to try out purple instead of orange even though all my mains are stickerless.


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## OreKehStrah (Jun 7, 2020)

Sub1Hour said:


> I am currently in the process of making all of my side event mains have black on them. My Square-1 scheme is black on top white on bottom RGOB going counterclockwise. My Megaminx has black instead of white with everything the same. I'm thinking about getting a black aoyan and a black bell so I can switch out the yellow for black on those as well since the only reason I compete in squan and pyra is to make fun of them and also to keep PR streaks alive. But my nxn cubes are all the standard scheme although I would like to try out purple instead of orange even though all my mains are stickerless.


I would recommend not using purple. I tried it and the contrast with red isn't great, and then it can look really bad and have awkward recognition if the shades of purple and blue you use are too close. You might try replacing blue with purple and then swapping orange with yellow.


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## ProStar (Jun 7, 2020)

OreKehStrah said:


> I would recommend not using purple. I tried it and the contrast with red isn't great, and then it can look really bad and have awkward recognition if the shades of purple and blue you use are too close. You might try replacing blue with purple and then swapping orange with yellow.



That's your opinion, but other people like the contrast. Sarah Strong has purple, although that's her LL color so it's different


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## Sub1Hour (Jun 7, 2020)

OreKehStrah said:


> I would recommend not using purple. I tried it and the contrast with red isn't great, and then it can look really bad and have awkward recognition if the shades of purple and blue you use are too close. You might try replacing blue with purple and then swapping orange with yellow.


But purple is the best color and orange is the second-worst color behind olive.


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## ProStar (Jun 7, 2020)

Sub1Hour said:


> But purple is the best color and orange is the second-worst color behind olive.



Avocado green?


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## Spacey10 (Jun 7, 2020)

ProStar said:


> I have a really unique color scheme:
> 
> U: White
> F: Green
> ...


I actually had to bring over my 3x3 just to see what it looked like, until I realized...

i am the master at cubes and no one can beat me


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## Owen Morrison (Jun 7, 2020)

Sub1Hour said:


> the only reason I compete in squan and pyra is to make fun of them


I thought you were a big fan of squan.


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## OreKehStrah (Jun 7, 2020)

CuberStache said:


> I got 6 stickerless MS cubes and one black for the purpose of trying out black opposite white, for the high contrast reasons you mentioned. I probably won't do that to all of my cubic mains because of the price tag, but we'll see.


Nice. I keep meaning to email theCubicle and ask if they would make stickerless big cubes for me but I keep forgetting lol. I personally wouldn't be interested in anything bigger than a 5x5 though.


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## Sub1Hour (Jun 7, 2020)

Owen Morrison said:


> I thought you were a big fan of squan.


My apologies, I meant skweeb. Squan is my main event and favorite event and you can't really make fun of it aside from making a fool of yourself by saying its "purely alg based" and "reqires no skill". Both of those are incorrect statements and if you would like to debate that I will gladly write at least 4 paragraphs telling you why you are wrong. Sorry, the debater inside me escapes all the time and goes into my posts.


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## Cubingcubecuber (Jun 7, 2020)

Sub1Hour said:


> I am currently in the process of making all of my side event mains have black on them. My Square-1 scheme is black on top white on bottom RGOB going counterclockwise. My Megaminx has black instead of white with everything the same. I'm thinking about getting a black aoyan and a black bell so I can switch out the yellow for black on those as well since the only reason I compete in skweeb and pyra is to make fun of them and also to keep PR streaks alive. But my nxn cubes are all the standard scheme although I would like to try out purple instead of orange even though all my mains are stickerless.


I think you should do purple instead of orange, because that's Michael Humuhumunukunukuapua'a's color scheme


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## PetrusQuber (Jun 7, 2020)

I have a normal scheme, but my centre internals are all opposite of what they should be, so the white centre is yellow on the inside, the red centre is orange on the inside, etc.


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## Sub1Hour (Jun 7, 2020)

PetrusQuber said:


> I have a normal scheme, but my centre internals are all opposite of what they should be, so the white centre is yellow on the inside, the red centre is orange on the inside, etc.


_*bruh that kinda wack tho*_


Cubingcubecuber said:


> I think you should do purple instead of orange, because that's Michael Humuhumunukunukuapua'a's color scheme





Sub1Hour said:


> I would like to try out purple instead of orange even though all my mains are stickerless.


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## Cubingcubecuber (Jun 7, 2020)

@Sub1Hour I know that you said that, that’s why I quoted you


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## Sub1Hour (Jun 7, 2020)

Cubingcubecuber said:


> @Sub1Hour I know that you said that, that’s why I quoted you


I will ascend to fish man's pride of Hawaii scheme, just you wait.


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## brododragon (Jun 7, 2020)

@OreKehStrah don't green and blue still look super similar?


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## OreKehStrah (Jun 7, 2020)

brododragon said:


> @OreKehStrah don't green and blue still look super similar?


In low light, yeah. In any decently lit circumstances it looks fine though. Because the other four colors are high contrast anyway you can also use deduction to help compensate for the slightly worse contrast between blue and green.
Also like I said, I wanted it to be an improved color scheme that doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice the ability to have stickerless cubes. Red op yellow has higher contrast, so it’s technically an improvement while blue op green is simply no change.


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## brododragon (Jun 7, 2020)

OreKehStrah said:


> Also like I said, I wanted it to be an improved color scheme that doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice the ability to have stickerless cubes.


Wait since when can you get a B/W R/Y B/G stickerless cube?

Also, if I get a custom color scheme, I'd probably do yours except blue/orange.


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## OreKehStrah (Jun 7, 2020)

brododragon said:


> Wait since when can you get a B/W R/Y B/G stickerless cube?
> 
> Also, if I get a custom color scheme, I'd probably do yours except blue/orange.


You can’t directly. And not all cubes are built where it’s possible but a lot cubes make the black cubes with stickerless construction so I buy a black and stickerless and use parts of both.


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## alexiscubing (Jun 7, 2020)

Sub1Hour said:


> I am currently in the process of making all of my side event mains have black on them. My Square-1 scheme is black on top white on bottom RGOB going counterclockwise. My Megaminx has black instead of white with everything the same. I'm thinking about getting a black aoyan and a black bell so I can switch out the yellow for black on those as well since the only reason I compete in skweeb and pyra is to make fun of them and also to keep PR streaks alive. But my nxn cubes are all the standard scheme although I would like to try out purple instead of orange even though all my mains are stickerless.


I did that with the bell and it looks awesome
My mega also has a black side, and if i get enough money (very unlikely) i may consider getting a black wingy to switch out (idrc tho)


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## brododragon (Jun 7, 2020)

OreKehStrah said:


> You can’t directly. And not all cubes are built where it’s possible but a lot cubes make the black cubes with stickerless construction so I buy a black and stickerless and use parts of both.


Oh, makes sense. I feel that that's more work than it's worth.


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## OreKehStrah (Jun 8, 2020)

brododragon said:


> Oh, makes sense. I feel that that's more work than it's worth.


For a lot of people it probably is. The cost alone is quite prohibitive for most people. Making my Weilong WRM was not cheap lol. I mainly do 3x3 so it's worth it to me. j


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## brododragon (Jun 8, 2020)

OreKehStrah said:


> j


Thanks, I was wondering about that.


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## OreKehStrah (Jun 8, 2020)

brododragon said:


> Thanks, I was wondering about that.


Lmao oops. I was using a normal keyboard when I typed that.


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## brododragon (Jun 8, 2020)

OreKehStrah said:


> Lmao oops. I was using a normal keyboard when I typed that.


Wait you have a custom color scheme for your keyboard too?


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## OreKehStrah (Jun 8, 2020)

brododragon said:


> Wait you have a custom color scheme for your keyboard too?


I use an ortholinear grid layout for normal typing. But when I play games or cube I use a normal keyboard for the full size spacebar


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## brododragon (Jun 8, 2020)

OreKehStrah said:


> I use an ortholinear grid layout for normal typing. But when I play games or cube I use a normal keyboard for the full size spacebar


*c⠀u⠀s⠀t⠀u⠀m⠀i⠀z⠀e ⠀ e⠀v⠀e⠀r⠀y⠀t⠀h⠀i⠀n⠀g*


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## Sub1Hour (Jun 8, 2020)

OreKehStrah said:


> I use an ortholinear grid layout for normal typing. But when I play games or cube I use a normal keyboard for the full size spacebar



Do you also customize your car's interior to be backward?


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## OreKehStrah (Jun 8, 2020)

Sub1Hour said:


> Do you also customize your car's interior to be backward?


Let's keep posts in this thread relevant to the topic and not be juvenile.


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## Sub1Hour (Jun 8, 2020)

OreKehStrah said:


> Let's keep posts in this thread relevant to the topic and not be juvenile.


Sorry, bro,



it was just a prank



On a serious note, do you prefer a different scheme from normal on side events, specifically for square-1 are you white on top, black on top, or yellow on top?


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## ProStar (Jun 8, 2020)

Sub1Hour said:


> Do you also customize your car's interior to be backward?



Backseat driving is a reality with OreKehStrah's design


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## OreKehStrah (Jun 8, 2020)

Sub1Hour said:


> Sorry, bro,
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It's cool, I just get tired of making posts or entering discussions with the intent of keeping it at a high level and have meaningful discussions only for it to get derailed.

For Squan, I use a really weird scheme. White top, black bottom, red front, yellow back, green left, blue right.


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## brododragon (Jun 8, 2020)

OreKehStrah said:


> For Squan, I use a really weird scheme. White top, black bottom, red front, yellow back, green left, blue right.


Isn't that identical to your 3x3 color scheme?


Spoiler: Off Topic






Sub1Hour said:


> Do you also customize your car's interior to be backward?


There's an old car that has a front/back symmetrical design and the entire front and back open like a door.


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## OreKehStrah (Jun 8, 2020)

brododragon said:


> Isn't that identical to your 3x3 color scheme?
> 
> 
> Spoiler: Off Topic
> ...


Yes it's the same colors, but the placement of them is kinda weird when you compare the placement of colors on a normal squan.


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## TheRouxGuy (Jun 8, 2020)

My Megaminx color scheme has yellow opposite white, tan in place of yellow and grey in the place of tan. I did it coz white is opposite to yellow on 3x3 and it was my last layer color (before I became CN though).


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## Q-- (Jun 8, 2020)

This is really interesting, I had this exact idea for a color scheme independently a few days ago, and even contacted The Cubicle about getting a single side of black pieces for a few different cubes. I'd add that if you do white or black cross on that color scheme then pll recognition looks really cool too. Personally, I also love the white and yellow edge.


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## Cuberstache (Jun 9, 2020)

CuberStache said:


> I got 6 stickerless MS cubes and one black for the purpose of trying out black opposite white, for the high contrast reasons you mentioned. I probably won't do that to all of my cubic mains because of the price tag, but we'll see.


Before:

After:

My journey to the dark side is now complete. I even made a force cube from the yellow pieces so that nothing was wasted!


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## Q-- (Jun 9, 2020)

That looks like the squan scheme. How do you like having black opposite white?


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## I'm A Cuber (Jun 9, 2020)

CuberStache said:


> Before:
> View attachment 12491
> After:
> View attachment 12492
> My journey to the dark side is now complete. I even made a force cube from the yellow pieces so that nothing was wasted!


Those are beautiful. Although you wouldn’t need to buy seven cubes each time, you would only need two, one stickered and one stickerless


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## Q-- (Jun 9, 2020)

It could be for multiBLD, that way you get the most out of the black cube


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## 2018AMSB02 (Jun 9, 2020)

I remember @Kit Clement had an interesting color scheme, or at least he did when I judged him at a comp.


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## Cuberstache (Jun 9, 2020)

Q-- said:


> That looks like the squan scheme. How do you like having black opposite white?


It is the squan scheme, so far I'm not used to it yet. I'm color neutral so it'll be harder than normal. I think it'll be good though.


I'm A Cuber said:


> Those are beautiful. Although you wouldn’t need to buy seven cubes each time, you would only need two, one stickered and one stickerless





Q-- said:


> It could be for multiBLD, that way you get the most out of the black cube


^^This^^
I've done MBLD up to 19 cubes so I don't mind buying several good 3x3s.


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## ProStar (Jun 9, 2020)

PingPongCuber said:


> I remember @Kit Clement had an interesting color scheme, or at least he did when I judged him at a comp.



mirrored Japanese color scheme with black I think


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## EngiNerdBrian (Jun 9, 2020)

Anybody use black INSTEAD of white and keep yellow? Years ago I used this scheme. In retrospect black/white contrast makes more visual sense but I liked the black/yellow look, haven’t done it to any of my modern cubes though since stickers aren’t as easy to mix and match as they used to be due to the shapes of edges nowadays.


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## OreKehStrah (Jun 9, 2020)

EngineeringBrian said:


> Anybody use black INSTEAD of white and keep yellow? Years ago I used this scheme. In retrospect black/white contrast makes more visual sense but I liked the black/yellow look, haven’t done it to any of my modern cubes though since stickers aren’t as easy to mix and match as they used to be due to the shapes of edges nowadays.


I used it for a little bit. I liked how obvious it made cross pieces. I eventually just switched back to the normal scheme at some point when I started using stickerless cubes a few years ago to be more cost effective.


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## Sub1Hour (Jun 9, 2020)

EngineeringBrian said:


> Anybody use black INSTEAD of white and keep yellow? Years ago I used this scheme. In retrospect black/white contrast makes more visual sense but I liked the black/yellow look, haven’t done it to any of my modern cubes though since stickers aren’t as easy to mix and match as they used to be due to the shapes of edges nowadays.


It was popular for square-1 back in the day when the first magnetic volts were rolling out but then people started to prefer black on white compared to yellow on black since the purpose of having black on any puzzle is for maximum contrast, which is also why I have black as my first layer color on mega, so why pair it with something that won't contrast as well as white?


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## EngiNerdBrian (Jun 9, 2020)

OreKehStrah said:


> I used it for a little bit. I liked how obvious it made cross pieces.


Exactly. I originally did it for the purposes of cross...or maybe to match my V-Cubes since they were all the rage at the time.



Sub1Hour said:


> why pair it with something that won't contrast as well as white?


Yeah i think i'll give a white/black scheme a try this week, just makes more logical sense from the point of maximizing contrast. 

I made this cube with a bunch of extra cubesmith shades a while back...pink instead of orange, purple instead of yellow and just an odd palette of shades. I didn't like it.


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## Sub1Hour (Jun 9, 2020)

EngineeringBrian said:


> I made this cube with a bunch of extra cubesmith shades a while back...pink instead of orange, purple instead of yellow and just an odd palette of shades. I didn't like it.
> View attachment 12493


Well, it sure looks pleasing on the eyes though! Contrast is not good but the aesthetic is great


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## Q-- (Jun 9, 2020)

EngineeringBrian said:


> Anybody use black INSTEAD of white and keep yellow? Years ago I used this scheme. In retrospect black/white contrast makes more visual sense but I liked the black/yellow look, haven’t done it to any of my modern cubes though since stickers aren’t as easy to mix and match as they used to be due to the shapes of edges nowadays.


That is Kit's scheme, I judged him a couple of times.


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## xyzzy (Jun 9, 2020)

When I was restickering my Spark, I tried doing a solve with what was meant to be the blue (iirc) side unstickered, effectively replacing blue with black, and my recognition was just garbage. Then again, my recog is also pretty bad even in its fully stickered state, which is partly why I'm still maining my (stickerless) Wuji. I'm _sort of, maybe_ thinking of getting a stickerless Spark to make a stickerless-black cube, just to mess with the idea.


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## Cuberstache (Jun 9, 2020)

I was going to let Kit explain his own scheme, but since others have tried (and failed) to describe it already, here it is: _mirrored_ Japanese with black instead of white (so black/blue, red/orange, yellow/green)


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## ProStar (Jun 10, 2020)

CuberStache said:


> I was going to let Kit explain his own scheme, but since others have tried (and failed) to describe it already, here it is: _mirrored_ Japanese with black instead of white (so black/blue, red/orange, yellow/green)





ProStar said:


> mirrored Japanese color scheme with black I think


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## EngiNerdBrian (Aug 8, 2020)

Sub1Hour said:


> It was popular for square-1 back in the day when the first magnetic volts were rolling out but then people started to prefer black on white compared to yellow on black since the purpose of having black on any puzzle is for maximum contrast, which is also why I have black as my first layer color on mega, so why pair it with something that won't contrast as well as white?


I finally made a black instead of yellow cube today and am trying to collect my thoughts on black+yellow vs black+white. If the purpose of black is to have maximum contrast i am still not seeing the point of having the contrast of black against green, red, blue, and orange since black on white is not really useful; when are we searching for and eliminating yellow vs white layer pieces? What gain does black against white contrast provide? This seems to benefit only the last layer where recognition is the easiest. 

Alternatively with black instead of white i find the cross and F2L recognition much more obvious because black sticks out like a sore thumb. This seems more beneficial since you get 2 layers of enhanced recognition instead of just 1.

Perhaps for the color neutral folks in the crowd bl;ack+white makes more sense because they are not always using the same cross color (white) so the recognition of black/white is more important. I'll give black against white some more time...maybe its my old habits of black against yellow are just dying hard.

Thoughts?


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## Sub1Hour (Aug 8, 2020)

EngineeringBrian said:


> I finally made a black instead of yellow cube today and am trying to collect my thoughts on black+yellow vs black+white. If the purpose of black is to have maximum contrast i am still not seeing the point of having the contrast of black against green, red, blue, and orange since black on white is not really useful; when are we searching for and eliminating yellow vs white layer pieces? What gain does black against white contrast provide? This seems to benefit only the last layer where recognition is the easiest.
> 
> Alternatively with black instead of white i find the cross and F2L recognition much more obvious because black sticks out like a sore thumb. This seems more beneficial since you get 2 layers of enhanced recognition instead of just 1.
> 
> ...


I think that in general, if you are going to make your color scheme different for recognition reasons you might as well replace the least contrasting color with the most contrasting color. In bad lighting or when I'm turning fast, yellow can blend in with green and/or white. Having black and white makes more sense to me on nxn puzzles since they contrast with any other color extremely well, but on megaminx I replaced white with black since having that tan color looks way too similar to white. Now if that tan was closer to yellow, then I would switch black with white, and then black with yellow. Square-1 is different from other nxns since the U and D faces are the only ones that share colors, so having more contrast with that just helps a little bit with "tuning out" the D layer pieces. With nxn puzzles, its a good choice to use black since it has by far the most contrast out of any other color you could pick, maybe aside from white.

Overall, if you are going to change colors, make the most out of it.


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## EngiNerdBrian (Aug 8, 2020)

Sub1Hour said:


> I think that in general, if you are going to make your color scheme different for recognition reasons you might as well replace the least contrasting color with the most contrasting color. In bad lighting or when I'm turning fast, yellow can blend in with green and/or white. Having black and white makes more sense to me on nxn puzzles since they contrast with any other color extremely well, but on megaminx I replaced white with black since having that tan color looks way too similar to white. Now if that tan was closer to yellow, then I would switch black with white, and then black with yellow. Square-1 is different from other nxns since the U and D faces are the only ones that share colors, so having more contrast with that just helps a little bit with "tuning out" the D layer pieces. With nxn puzzles, its a good choice to use black since it has by far the most contrast out of any other color you could pick, maybe aside from white.
> 
> Overall, if you are going to change colors, make the most out of it.


Well said, I suppose outside my internal black+white or black+yellow battle I’m a bit obsessed with how opposite face colors look with each other; those preferences are all about contrast in retrospect. 

I can see now how black and white is very beneficial for square-1 now. I still kinda prefer black cross with yellow top but that might just be because I did it for a few years back around 2008-2009 when V-cubes had the black instead of white as the standard option.

Regardless, having a black face on stickerless cubes sure looks good though!


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## OreKehStrah (Aug 8, 2020)

EngineeringBrian said:


> I finally made a black instead of yellow cube today and am trying to collect my thoughts on black+yellow vs black+white. If the purpose of black is to have maximum contrast i am still not seeing the point of having the contrast of black against green, red, blue, and orange since black on white is not really useful; when are we searching for and eliminating yellow vs white layer pieces? What gain does black against white contrast provide? This seems to benefit only the last layer where recognition is the easiest.
> 
> Alternatively with black instead of white i find the cross and F2L recognition much more obvious because black sticks out like a sore thumb. This seems more beneficial since you get 2 layers of enhanced recognition instead of just 1.
> 
> ...


Part of the main appeal of using black opposite white for me is that it frees up yellow. I had a thought that yellow is such a striking and obvious color that we use it for important traffic signs and caution tapes, so why not use the super easy to spot color for F2L since I usually solve white or op crosses.
I found the contrast between red and yellow to be way higher than again orange, and after seeing red op yellow side by side with red op orange, it really makes you go, “ wow, how did nobody say that is terrible for contrast.” 
Another reason I like black on the last layer is it makes it easier to focus on F2L. Because F2L is only colored pieces, you can immediately ignore any piece with black on it. I k ow that sounds rediculous as far as making a difference goes, but I really do think it helps recognition at a subconscious level because your brain can focus on only the colored F2L pieces instead of seeing a mess of white corners and a mess of 5 other colors. This idea is further supported by the fact that a lot of blind solvers users have cubes with black instead of yellow just because it is more striking and quicker to recognize against the sea of color on a scrambled cube. 
Black last layer also makes recognizing some advanced last layer or last slot cases quicker to recognize with confidence at a glance. It is very hard to mistake black for any other color when you catch it from a weird side view or are turning very quickly. I find it can help mentally track pieces while solving.
Finally, I have a sneaking suspicion that it might help me learn ZBLL down the line. That probably sounds strange at face value so let me explain. I personally believe that what will become the best way to recognize ZBLL is to treat it like recognizing a 3D PLL instead doing stuff like recognizing CP case, looking for unique patterns, and going through a kind of checklist of things to check like to recognize the case. What I mean by recognize 3D PLL is that we are so used to tunneling into the sides of the cube and ignoring the top during PLL since it’s all one color, so for ZBLL I think it would be better to be able to retrain the brain to recognize from maybe a three sided recognition system using the front, the side, and the top layers. Because this has to retrain your brain, switching to black helps add an unmistakable color that could help speed up recognition. I haven’t tested this idea too much since I don’t know just a lot of ZBLL currently but I’m convinced there’s probably a better way to handle it than what we do now.


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## PizzaCuber (Aug 8, 2020)

Has anyone thought of doing inverted colors of every normal shade? Like the white would be black, blue would be orange, green would be red, and so on?

now that I think about it that’s stupid because your just swapping colors lol.


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## EngiNerdBrian (Aug 8, 2020)

OreKehStrah said:


> Another reason I like black on the last layer is it makes it easier to focus on F2L. Because F2L is only colored pieces, you can immediately ignore any piece with black on it. I k ow that sounds rediculous as far as making a difference goes, but I really do think it helps recognition at a subconscious level because your brain can focus on only the colored F2L pieces instead of seeing a mess of white corners and a mess of 5 other colors.


not ridiculous at all. This concept is the exact reason why I thought black last layer would be useful. Oddly enough my brain seems to be FOCUSING on the black instead of ignoring it. That may change with time though since I may just be focusing on something NEW (black) and am not able to reap the benefits yet.


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## Cuberstache (Aug 8, 2020)

EngineeringBrian said:


> Oddly enough my brain seems to be FOCUSING on the black instead of ignoring it. That may change with time though since I may just be focusing on something NEW (black)


This was exactly my experience when I switched from gray to black on megaminx. The new color stuck out because it was different. If you stick with it for long enough, it'll go away.


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## OreKehStrah (Aug 8, 2020)

PizzaCuber said:


> Has anyone thought of doing inverted colors of every normal shade? Like the white would be black, blue would be orange, green would be red, and so on?
> 
> now that I think about it that’s stupid because your just swapping colors lol.


I tried red op green, yellow op purple, and blue op orange and... it was pretty atrocious lol


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## OreKehStrah (Aug 8, 2020)

EngineeringBrian said:


> not ridiculous at all. This concept is the exact reason why I thought black last layer would be useful. Oddly enough my brain seems to be FOCUSING on the black instead of ignoring it. That may change with time though since I may just be focusing on something NEW (black) and am not able to reap the benefits yet.


I would suggest you power through for a couple days. At first my brain really focused on black because it's so striking and it messed with my OLL recog for a day or so. After a small adjustment period though it fell into the background and I really do feel like I recognize OLL faster now!


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## Ordway Persyn (Aug 10, 2020)

My megaminx color scheme has brown, yellow, aqua, and mint in place of yellow, cream, light blue and light green respectively. Its different but also similar enough that i can use a normal MF8 color scheme without problem. Also, my pyraminx scheme has orange in place of yellow and pink in place of red.


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## Jupiter (Aug 10, 2020)

I prefer black over yellow. the only problem is other then id say square one and maybe megaminx black isnt used very often


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## Q-- (Sep 2, 2020)

Finally got my gts3 with this scheme (@OreKehStrah ’s)! It fits so well, I might just switch all my NxNs to this scheme. For some reason I can’t get a picture to upload, but I’ll update once it works.


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## OreKehStrah (Sep 2, 2020)

Q-- said:


> Finally got my gts3 with this scheme (@OreKehStrah ’s)! It fits so well, I might just switch all my NxNs to this scheme. For some reason I can’t get a picture to upload, but I’ll update once it works.


Nice! Glad to see someone else start to use a color scheme for the modern times!


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## BradyLawrence (Sep 2, 2020)

Not sure if this is unique/different, but for mega I have something quite interesting. Start with the standard megaminx scheme, then replace the normal yellow spot with black, move yellow to the gray location across from white, then replace tan/beige with gray.

Reason for this scheme: I have an insanely difficult time telling gray/tan/white, especially because I practice in lower light levels. So, I decided to maximize the contrast, especially by removing the tan color.


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## SpeedyCube (Sep 2, 2020)

My unbranded 2x2 has purple replace orange. I don’t really care for it, but it works.

My brother is partially color blind. I can see how having a non-standard colored cube would be helpful for him. He’d probably opt to replace red and / or green with something, though I don't know what...

I think also part of it depends on the cubes you have. My Rubik’s cube has the orange side faded to the point that it’s hard to tell the difference between orange and yellow, especially in poor lighting. One of my other cubes, the SpeedRipper, it’s difficult to tell the difference between red and orange in poor lighting. But on my Gan 254, even in poor lighting I can tell the various colors well enough to be able to solve the cube without issues.

All that to say, I think various color schemes are great, but in the end it’s all about personal taste. Choose something that’s right for you!


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## OreKehStrah (Oct 26, 2020)

So I changed how I solve megaminx recently, and I adjusted my color scheme a bit to work better for it so I figured I'd make an update here. 
I now start my solve on red then finish white and continue into S2L as if I had started on white, which has a few benefits, with the main two being better F2L to S2L transition after you finish the white side, and being able to do a star on either red or white.

The issue with this is that cream/tan/beige is really similar on a lot of stickerless megaminxes so I replaced that color with the grey, since I have black op white. This has definitely helped with piece differentiation. I highly recommend this, even if you are just solving on white star.

anyway, it's not a huge difference or anything crazy, but it's non-standard nonetheless.


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## Cuberstache (Oct 26, 2020)

OreKehStrah said:


> being able to do a star on either red or white.


I do the same thing with white and yellow, but it's for color neutrality benefits rather than because of colors.


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## OreKehStrah (Oct 26, 2020)

CuberStache said:


> I do the same thing with white and yellow, but it's for color neutrality benefits rather than because of colors.


That’s why I do too. Maybe I didn’t word it right. I do two stars for the CN benefit. I am preferring starting on red since the transition from F2L to S2L seems to be better.


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## abunickabhi (Oct 26, 2020)

Nowadays, there are some weird FTO color schemes. But super cool to watch the FTO styles.


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## DuckubingCuber347 (Apr 15, 2022)

Megaminx: Black replaces Gray, Gray replaces Tan, Purple and Orange swapped.

The Orange and Purple swap is so F2L is more similar to 3x3. Getting rid of Tan makes it easier to find White and it looks cool with Gray. Black is for better LL recognition.


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## OreKehStrah (Apr 15, 2022)

TheCubingCuber347 said:


> Megaminx: Black replaces Gray, Gray replaces Tan, Purple and Orange swapped.
> 
> The Orange and Purple swap is so F2L is more similar to 3x3. Getting rid of Tan makes it easier to find White and it looks cool with Gray. Black is for better LL recognition.


I use the same color scheme, except instead of swapping orange and purple I swap orange and yellow. That way you have yellow in S2L which will contrast against pink better than orange does and F2L closer to 3x3 as well.


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## xyzzy (Aug 23, 2022)

xyzzy said:


> I'm _sort of, maybe_ thinking of getting a stickerless Spark to make a stickerless-black cube, just to mess with the idea.



I _sort of, maybe_ might have done this.


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