A utility method to create a UIColor from an arbitrary string. Inspired by http://stackoverflow.com/a/16348977/2138077

ColorFromString.swift

func fromString(string: String) -> UIColor {
    var hash = 0
    let utf16array = Array(string.utf16)
    for i in 0..<utf16array.count {
        hash = Int(utf16array[i]) + ((hash << 5) - hash)
    }
    var colorValues = [CGFloat]()
    for i in 0..<3 {
        let value = (hash >> (i * 8)) & 0xFF
        colorValues.append((CGFloat(value)/255.0))
    }
    return UIColor(red: colorValues[0], green: colorValues[1], blue: colorValues[2], alpha: 1)
}

fromString("greenish")