Rebecca Alison Meyer
June 7, 2008 – June 7, 2014
Eric Meyer is an expert in what we call Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), which are used to control how things “look” in your web browser. Truth be told, he’s a bit of a legend who has spearheaded the development of making it easier for us to build beautiful things. At Rare Bird, we’re all familiar with his work and some of us have either heard him speak or read his books (or, in a few cases, both.)
A couple of weeks ago, on June 7, his daughter Rebecca passed away. She was six.
Eric and his wife, Kathryn, requested that “those who attend the services and are comfortable wearing purple do so in honor of Rebecca and her favorite color.“ Upon hearing this, a member of the WC3 staff, Dom Hazaël-Massieux, requested that a purple in the CSS color list be named “Becca Purple” in her memory. Eric suggested that it be named “rebeccapurple” instead, because his daughter wanted everyone to call her Rebecca after she turned six, and – after all – she was six for almost 12 hours.
On Saturday, June 21, Rebecca Purple (#663399) was officially added as the 141st color to be recognized by name by all web browsers.
And so, from this tremendous heartbreak, a color is born.