Turn One Color Into a Complete Palette
You’ve got your brand’s primary blue (#2563EB). Now you need a secondary color. And an accent. And something for backgrounds. Picking them randomly guarantees a palette that feels disjointed. Picking them based on color theory geometry guarantees they’ll work together.
Select a base color, choose a harmony type, and the tool calculates the mathematically related colors. Six harmony types, each producing a different mood and a different number of colors. Click any swatch to copy its HEX code, or grab the whole palette at once.
The Six Harmony Types
Analogous (5 colors), neighbors on the color wheel. Calm, unified, professional. Think sunrise color schemes.
Complementary (2 colors), direct opposites. Bold, energetic, high contrast. Orange and blue. Red and green. Great for CTAs against muted backgrounds.
Triadic (3 colors), three colors equally spaced at 120°. Vibrant and balanced. Think primary colors, but shifted to your starting hue.
Split-Complementary (3 colors), your color plus the two neighbors of its complement. Contrast without the full intensity of a complementary pair.
Tetradic (4 colors), four colors evenly spaced around the wheel. Lots of variety. Works best when you let one color dominate and use the others as accents.
Monochromatic (5 colors), same hue, different lightness levels. The safest option. It basically can’t look bad.
Picking the Right Harmony
Start with what you want the palette to feel like, not what looks trendy. Need something corporate and trustworthy? Analogous or Monochromatic. Need something that grabs attention? Complementary or Triadic. Building a design system with lots of color tokens? Tetradic gives you the most to work with.
Colors generated this way are mathematically harmonious, they’re not arbitrary. That’s why they tend to look “right” even if the specific combination seems unexpected.
Building From Here
The palette gives you the base colors. For a full design system, you’ll want lighter and darker variations of each. The Tint & Shade Generator creates 10 tints and 10 shades per color. The Contrast Checker verifies accessibility between any two palette colors. The Color Harmony Finder shows the same harmonies on an interactive color wheel for visual exploration.
Colors aren’t copyrightable, so use these palettes in any project, commercial or personal. Everything processes in your browser.