Color Palette Generator

Generate harmonious color schemes from any base color

About the Colour Palette Generator

This color palette generator builds a scheme from a single base colour using established harmony rules — analogous, monochromatic, triadic and complementary — and gives every resulting colour as a hex code you can copy.

A color palette generator turns one colour you have already chosen into a set that works together. Harmony rules are geometry on the colour wheel rather than taste, which is why they reliably produce palettes that look deliberate.

Each rule has a different character. Analogous uses neighbouring hues and feels calm and cohesive. Monochromatic varies only lightness and saturation, which is the safest route for interfaces. Triadic takes three evenly spaced hues for something vivid and balanced. Complementary takes opposites for maximum contrast — strong for calls to action, exhausting across a whole page.

Change the base colour and every palette updates, so you can compare rules against your brand colour in seconds. Hex codes are shown for each swatch and copy with a click.

How to use the Colour Palette Generator

  1. Pick a base colour. Enter a hex value or choose one with the picker.
  2. Choose a harmony rule. Switch between analogous, monochromatic, triadic and complementary.
  3. Compare the schemes. See how each rule reads against your base colour.
  4. Copy the hex codes. Take the swatch values into your design or stylesheet.

Colour Palette Generator features

  • Seven schemes: complementary, triadic, analogous, split-complementary, tetradic, monochromatic and shades
  • Lock the colours you want to keep and randomise the rest
  • Output as hex, RGB or HSL
  • Copy the whole palette at once
  • Updates immediately when the base colour changes
  • Runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded

Frequently asked questions

Which scheme works best for an interface?

Monochromatic or analogous. Both stay within a narrow band of hue, which reads as deliberate and leaves your accent colour free to mean something. Triadic and tetradic are livelier but need discipline, because an interface with three equally strong colours has nowhere left to put emphasis.

What is the lock for?

It fixes the colours you have already committed to — usually your brand colour — while randomising the rest. That way you can explore alternatives for the supporting colours without losing the one that is not negotiable.

Should I copy hex, RGB or HSL?

HSL if you plan to derive more colours from these, because adjusting lightness and saturation by hand is straightforward in HSL and opaque in hex. Hex otherwise, since it is what most stylesheets and design tools expect.

What is a harmony rule actually doing?

Geometry on the colour wheel rather than taste. Complementary takes the opposite hue, triadic three points evenly spaced, analogous immediate neighbours. That is why the results look intentional: the relationships are fixed, so nothing lands slightly off.

How is this different from the colour scheme generator?

This page has more schemes, locking, randomising and hex, RGB or HSL output, so it is the fuller tool. The colour scheme generator is a simpler five-rule version if that is all you need.