ColorSplash

ColorSplash is a lightweight REST API that generates solid-color images on demand, built with Python and Flask. Pass a hex color code in the query string, get back a PNG — no sign-up, no configuration, just a URL.

What It Does

The API accepts a color value (including optional alpha for transparency) and returns a rendered image at the requested dimensions. It is designed to be embedded directly in <img> tags, markdown files, or README badges — anywhere a URL to an image is accepted.

Key Features

• Single-endpoint design: GET /api?color=RRGGBB[AA] returns an image immediately
• Alpha channel support — append two hex digits for transparency, e.g. EE007750 for a semi-transparent red
• Powered by Pillow (PIL) for pixel-perfect image generation with minimal overhead
• Stateless and cacheable — every unique color+size combination always produces the same output, making CDN caching trivial
• Deployable to serverless platforms; the live demo runs on Vercel

Technical Highlights

• Flask keeps the server surface area tiny: one route, one handler, zero database
• Pillow handles image creation in memory and streams the result directly in the HTTP response, avoiding any disk I/O
• Because the output is fully deterministic from the query parameters, responses carry long-lived Cache-Control headers, keeping repeated requests nearly free
• The project doubles as a handy placeholder-image service — swap out a real image URL for a ColorSplash URL during development to get a visually distinct stand-in for every asset