Color Palette Generator
Generate harmonious color schemes. Monochromatic, analogous, complementary, and more.
Create beautiful color palettes from a base color using color theory. Supports monochromatic, analogous, complementary, triadic, and tetradic color schemes. Copy individual colors or entire palettes.
Picking a color palette by eye usually lands somewhere between bland and chaotic. Color theory gives you a shortcut: pick one anchor color, then use fixed hue relationships to generate the rest. Monochromatic (same hue, different lightness) stays calm and cohesive. Analogous (neighbors on the wheel) feels harmonious and natural. Complementary (opposites) produces high contrast for CTAs and accents. Triadic and tetradic schemes spread across the wheel for more varied palettes that still hold together.
This generator builds all of these from a single base color. You pick an anchor, choose a scheme type, and get a palette with hex, RGB, and HSL values for each swatch. Palettes are generated in HSL space so lightness and saturation stay consistent across the set, which is why they don't feel muddy the way hand-picked ones often do.
Designers use this to bootstrap a brand palette, developers to derive semantic colors (success/warning/info) from a primary, and illustrators to find supporting tones. You can copy individual swatches or the full palette as CSS custom properties, Tailwind config, or JSON for a design token pipeline.
- 1
Pick a base color
Enter a hex value, paste from your brand guide, or use the color picker. This becomes the anchor the whole palette is built from.
- 2
Choose a harmony type
Select monochromatic, analogous, complementary, triadic, split-complementary, or tetradic. The palette regenerates with the relationships calculated on the color wheel.
- 3
Copy the palette
Copy a single swatch as hex or the full palette as a list of values. Use it to seed CSS variables, a Tailwind theme, or a Figma style library.
Brand palette bootstrap
Start from a logo color and generate a full secondary palette that shares the same hue logic — faster than picking every shade by eye.
Dashboard chart colors
Generate a triadic or tetradic palette so chart series are visually distinct but feel like they belong to the same product.
Design system tokens
Derive consistent success/warning/info accent colors from a primary brand color to keep the system cohesive across states.
Marketing site sections
Build section-by-section color themes using analogous palettes that shift hue gradually as users scroll, without jarring contrast.
Which scheme should I use for a brand?
Most successful brand palettes are either monochromatic or analogous — they feel calm and on-brand. Complementary schemes work better for call-to-action accents than as the full identity. Triadic and tetradic suit editorial or playful brands with more personality.
What's the difference between analogous and split-complementary?
Analogous picks two colors immediately adjacent to your anchor on the wheel (low contrast, harmonious). Split-complementary picks the two colors adjacent to the anchor's direct opposite (high contrast but softer than pure complementary). Split-complementary is often more usable in UI.
Why do my generated colors look dull?
If the base color has low saturation, the derived colors inherit it. Bump saturation on the anchor, or lower lightness slightly — both make derived swatches feel more vibrant. HSL values over 60% saturation usually read as punchy.
Can I use these palettes for accessibility?
Color harmony doesn't guarantee contrast. After generating, check text/background pairs against WCAG AA (4.5:1 for body, 3:1 for large text) using a contrast checker. Harmonious palettes often need a darker text color than the generated tones to pass.
How do I export for Tailwind or CSS variables?
Copy each hex value into a Tailwind theme.extend.colors object keyed by semantic name (primary, accent, etc.), or paste them as --color-* custom properties on :root. Both approaches let you switch palettes later without touching components.