Color Palette Generator
Color is one of the most powerful tools in any designer’s toolkit. Whether you are building a brand identity from scratch, redesigning a website, or putting together a pitch deck, the colors you choose shape how people feel about your work before they read a single word. A well-constructed color palette brings visual consistency to your project and communicates mood, energy, and professionalism at a glance.
This free color palette generator helps you build harmonious color schemes in seconds. Select a base color, choose a harmony model, and the tool instantly produces a set of colors that work together according to established color theory principles. No guesswork, no trial and error — just reliable palettes you can drop straight into your CSS, design files, or brand guidelines.
Generate harmonious color palettes from any base color. Pick a starting color and choose a harmony type to create a balanced palette you can use in your designs.
How to Use the Color Palette Generator
Getting started takes just a few steps. First, click the color picker labeled Base Color and select any color you want to build your palette around. This might be a primary brand color you have already decided on, or it could be a shade that caught your eye in a photograph or illustration. Next, open the Harmony Type dropdown and choose the color relationship you want to explore:
Complementary — pairs your base color with the color directly opposite it on the color wheel. This creates high contrast and is ideal for call-to-action elements, buttons, and anywhere you want a strong visual pop.
Analogous — selects colors that sit next to each other on the wheel. The result is a smooth, low-contrast palette that feels cohesive and calm, commonly used in nature-inspired designs and editorial layouts.
Triadic — picks three colors evenly spaced around the wheel, forming a triangle. Triadic palettes offer a vibrant, balanced look and are a popular choice for illustrations, dashboards, and data visualizations.
Split-Complementary — a variation on the complementary scheme that uses the two colors adjacent to the complement instead. You still get contrast, but the combination is more forgiving and less jarring than a pure complementary pair.
After you select a harmony type, click Generate Palette. The tool will display a set of color swatches along with their hex values, ready for you to copy into your project. If the result is not quite right, adjust the base color or switch to a different harmony mode and generate again. There is no limit to how many palettes you can create.
Key Features
Visual Base Color Picker — use the native color input to select any color from the full spectrum, or type in a specific hex value if you already have one in mind.
Four Harmony Modes — choose from complementary, analogous, triadic, and split-complementary schemes, covering the most widely used models in color theory.
Instant Palette Output — generated palettes appear immediately with rendered swatches so you can evaluate the colors visually, not just as abstract codes.
Hex Values Ready to Copy — every color in the palette includes its hex code, making it straightforward to paste values into CSS, Figma, Sketch, or any tool that accepts hex notation.
No Account Required — the generator runs entirely in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, stored, or tracked. Just open the page and start creating palettes.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many colors should a palette have?
Most design systems work well with three to five core colors. A common approach is to define a primary color, a secondary color, and an accent color, then add one or two neutral tones for backgrounds and text. Going beyond five or six distinct hues can make a design feel chaotic unless you are working with a deliberately maximalist aesthetic. Start small, and expand the palette only when you have a clear purpose for each additional color.
What is a complementary color scheme?
A complementary color scheme pairs two colors that sit directly opposite each other on the color wheel — for example, blue and orange, or red and green. Because these colors have maximum contrast, they make each other appear more vivid when placed side by side. Complementary schemes are effective for drawing attention to specific elements like buttons or headings, but they can feel harsh if overused. Balancing them with plenty of neutral space usually produces the best results.
How do I choose the right colors for my brand?
Start by considering the emotions and values you want your brand to communicate. Warm colors like red and orange tend to convey energy and urgency, while cool tones like blue and green suggest trust, calm, and stability. Look at competitors in your industry to understand audience expectations, then differentiate where it matters. Once you settle on a base color that feels right, use a harmony model — such as the ones in this tool — to build out the rest of the palette so everything works together naturally.
What is color accessibility and why does it matter?
Color accessibility means ensuring that the colors in your design are perceivable by people with visual impairments, including color vision deficiency (commonly called color blindness). The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) recommend a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 between text and its background for normal-sized text. When building a palette, always test your color combinations with a contrast checker to make sure your content remains readable for everyone. Relying on color alone to convey meaning — for example, using only red and green to indicate errors and success — should be avoided; always pair color with text labels or icons.
A good color palette is a starting point — turning it into a cohesive brand system takes design expertise. If you are building a brand identity from scratch or refreshing an existing one, Toimi’s branding team develops complete visual systems including color palettes, typography, and brand guidelines. They also handle UX/UI design for digital products where those colors actually live.