ArtsInterstices is made by a small studio of illustrators, painters and designers who also write code. We spend most of our days doing the same things you do: mixing paint, setting up canvases for print, quoting commissions, squinting at reference photos and wondering whether a caption will be readable on a phone.
Most artists we know keep a folder of bookmarks for this kind of work — a contrast checker here, a print-size calculator there, a palette generator buried under pop-ups and a mandatory account. We wanted those helpers in one place, built carefully, explained properly and free to use. That is what this site is. There are 100 tools so far, and the list grows as we build and check new ones.
What we hold ourselves to
Free, with no sign-up. Every tool works the moment the page loads. There is no account, no trial and no export locked behind a paid plan.
Your files stay on your device. Tools that open images or documents do all the work inside your browser. Nothing you load is uploaded to us or to anyone else. When a tool remembers your settings or history, it keeps them in your own browser’s storage, and you can clear them at any time. The details are in our privacy policy.
Fast and focused. Each page does one job. The tool comes first; the explanation follows for when you want it.
Written from practice. The guide under each tool and the articles on our blog explain the reasoning behind the numbers — why 300 DPI, why a shadow goes muddy, why a 50% gallery split rarely leaves you half — so the tool is something you understand rather than a black box.
How the tools are built and checked
Each tool starts as a short written brief: who it’s for, what question it answers and where its numbers come from. Wherever a published standard exists, we build on it — the WCAG formula for contrast, ISO 216 for A-series paper sizes, the CIE formulas for lightness and color difference — and we check the tool’s results against values calculated separately before it goes live.
Every tool is tested in a real browser at desktop and phone widths, watching for script errors and for layouts that break on small screens. Tools that open files are checked to make sure the processing happens locally. Worked examples in our articles are calculated, not estimated, and when we can’t confirm a fact we leave it out rather than guess.
Calculators give estimates, and some situations — a printer with unusual requirements, a paint brand with an unexpected tinting strength, a contract under your local law — deserve a second check. Our terms of use say this more formally; the practical version is to treat the numbers as a well-informed starting point and verify anything with real money attached.
Found a mistake? Have an idea?
We want to hear both. If a number looks wrong, a tool misbehaves in your browser, or an article says something you know from experience to be off, please tell us. Corrections are the most useful messages we get, and when we fix something we update the page and its date.
Tool ideas are just as welcome. If there’s a fiddly task you keep doing by hand or in a spreadsheet, describe it in a sentence or two through the contact page. That is usually all we need to judge whether it would make a good tool.
How the site is paid for
Hosting costs money, and building and maintaining the tools takes time. We cover that by showing advertising on some pages, served by Google AdSense. Ads never sit inside a tool or block it, and every tool works the same whether or not ads are shown.
We don’t sell your data, and we don’t collect accounts, names or uploaded files in the first place. Advertising partners do use cookies; where the law requires it, you are asked for consent before personalized ads are shown, and the privacy policy explains what they collect and how to opt out.