This creates five colors that share a hue family, giving you a starting point for a design without spending an hour on color theory. Every click makes a fresh, randomly rotated palette, which is a fast way to explore options when you need colors that look intentional rather than random.
How to use it
- Click generate palette to get five related colors.
- Click any swatch to copy its value.
- Click generate again if the first result isn't right for your project.
- Paste the colors you like into your design tool or CSS file.
- Keep going until you land on a set of five you actually want.
When it helps
- Starting a new website or app design with a color scheme instead of a blank page.
- Finding accent colors for tags or categories that feel like they belong together.
- Getting quick color ideas for a slide deck or a social graphic.
- Showing a client a few different color directions for a brand.
- Getting unstuck when you have one color and need supporting shades but aren't sure where to start.
Good to know
- Generate a handful of options and save whichever feels closest to what you're going for before refining by hand.
- Run any pair you plan to use for text through the contrast checker to make sure it's actually readable.
- Treat a generated palette as a starting point. Most real color systems need some manual adjustment to feel like a brand.
- Save a handful of generated palettes as you browse so you can compare several side by side later, instead of judging each one in isolation.
- If you need a palette that includes a very specific brand color, generate several sets and pick whichever one's overall mood fits best, then swap in your brand color manually.
Questions
Are these colors guaranteed to look good together?
The generator rotates hue and lightness in a structured way so they relate to each other, but whether they look good is subjective. Generate a few and pick the one that fits your project.
Can I build a palette around a color I already have?
This version generates from a random base each time. To build around a specific color, generate a few palettes and look for one whose hue family is close to what you already have.
Is this good for print as well as web?
The hex values translate to RGB easily for screens. For print using CMYK, run the colors through your design software's color management rather than assuming a direct match.
Can I lock one color and regenerate the rest around it?
This version generates all five together from a random base each time. To build around one fixed color, look for a generated palette whose hue family is close to what you want to keep.
Are these suitable for print as well as web?
The hex values translate to RGB easily for screens. For print using CMYK, run the colors through your design software's color management rather than assuming a direct match.
Does the generator ever produce colors that are too close to each other to tell apart?
It's possible with certain random combinations, especially at lower lightness values. If two swatches look too similar, generating again usually gives more visibly distinct results.