Color Palette Generator
Generate beautiful color palettes
Click any color to copy its hex code.
About Color Palette Generator
Generates a color palette using real color theory (complementary, analogous, triadic, and monochromatic relationships), from a base color you choose or a random starting point.
Pick a base color, choose a harmony mode, and set how many colors you want in the palette. Click any swatch to copy its hex code, or copy the whole palette at once.
Complementary and triadic palettes tend to look best when one color dominates and the others are used as accents — using all of them in equal proportion often looks more chaotic than intentional. Analogous and monochromatic palettes are naturally more subtle and forgiving to use in equal amounts.
Watch: Color Palette Generator in Action
- Can I generate a palette from an existing color I already have?
- Yes — start from a specific color and generate a full, coordinated palette built around it, rather than starting from a completely random set.
- How does each harmony mode build its colors?
- Complementary alternates the base hue with its opposite, 180 degrees away, stepping lightness between them. Analogous spreads hues across 60 degrees centered on the base. Triadic cycles three hues 120 degrees apart. Monochromatic keeps one hue and steps lightness evenly from dark to light.
- Why does Generate New give me the same palette again?
- Only Random mode uses chance. The other modes are calculated from the base color, mode and count, so the same inputs always return the same swatches. Change the base color, press Random Base, or pick a different count to see something new.
- Does Random mode use my base color?
- No. Random fills the strip with independent random hex colors and ignores the Base Color swatch. If you want results related to your color, choose one of the four other harmonies.
- What happens if two swatches would come out identical?
- A palette never shows the same hex twice. When clamping or a grey base would create a repeat, the tool shifts that swatch's lightness in small steps until it becomes distinct from the others.
- What exactly gets copied?
- Clicking one swatch copies that color as a lowercase hex code like #3366cc. Copy All copies every hex in the current strip, in order, separated by a comma and a space, ready to paste into a note or a CSS variable list.
How to use Color Palette Generator
Set the Base Color with the color swatch, then choose a Harmony and a Colors count. Harmony offers Random, Complementary, Analogous, Triadic and Monochromatic. Colors offers 4, 5, 6, 8 or 10. The strip of swatches updates as soon as you change any of the three, starting from a default of #3366cc, complementary, six colors.
Click a swatch to copy its hex code, or press Copy All to copy every hex in the strip as one comma-separated line. Random Base picks a new base color and rebuilds the strip.
Generate New rebuilds from the current settings. In Random mode that gives different colors each time, but the other four harmonies are calculated from the base, so pressing it again returns the same strip until you change the base, mode or count.
When to use it
Reach for it when you are starting a site, slide deck or app screen from one brand color and need supporting colors that already relate to it. It suits quick exploration, such as seeing how a client's blue looks as a complementary pair versus an analogous run, or getting ten tints of one hue for charts and backgrounds.
When not to use it
It is not a substitute for checking accessibility. It does not test contrast between swatches, so text on a generated color still needs a separate contrast check. It also builds palettes from fixed hue rules only, so if you want colors sampled from a photograph, use an image color picker, and for tuning individual swatches use a full design app.
Tips for best results
Use one swatch as the dominant color and the rest as accents in the complementary and triadic modes, since those place strongly different hues side by side. Monochromatic runs from dark to light in even steps, which makes a ready-made scale for backgrounds, borders and text. Random mode ignores the base color completely, so switch modes if your brand color seems to be missing.
Limitations
Output is hex text only, with no export file, no saved palettes and no locking of individual swatches. All math happens in HSL, which means two hues with the same lightness number can still look different in brightness. Complementary and triadic lightness steps are clamped, so a very light or very dark base is nudged to keep every swatch distinct.
Privacy
Palettes are computed by arithmetic on your base color inside the page, using hue, saturation and lightness values. The random mode uses your browser's own random number generator. No color you choose is transmitted. The page does contact the site's usage counter once you interact with it, which carries only the tool name and an anonymous browser id.
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