So I need some custom colors on a layout, but I’m looking for a better way of doing it other than just slapping a giant picture with (background: url(something.jpg)) in the layout.
Mostly I’m thinking of getting a color palette (i.e. from Adobe Kuler, colourlovers, etc.), getting a 5×5 sample of each color and sticking them in an array for CSS sprites or just as separate files and accessing them through: .color-one {transparent url(./one.gif) repeat} and just reusing that whenever I’d like to use the color.
Are there any drawbacks to doing it this way? And if there are should I just stick with web-safe colors or is there a better way of doing this?
You don’t need graphics to represent background colors. You are going the long way around if you use images for that. Just use colors, as graphicsdivine suggests.
Only use background images if you need to do gradients and the like. That’s really where they shine.
As to your second question, no, you don’t need to stick with “web-safe” colors anymore. If someone in 2010 still only can display 256 colors, well, your site won’t be their biggest problem.