Palette generator

Colour harmonies come from geometry on the hue wheel. Pick a base hue, rotate by a fixed angle, and the resulting colours relate to each other in a way the eye reads as deliberate.

Complementary — 180° apart

Maximum contrast and vibrancy. Excellent for a single accent against a dominant colour; exhausting if used in equal amounts.

Analogous — ±30°

Neighbours on the wheel. Calm and cohesive, which is why it dominates nature photography and most brand palettes.

Triadic — 120° apart

Vivid and balanced. Works best with one colour dominant and the other two as accents.

Split complementary

The two colours either side of the complement. Nearly the contrast of complementary, considerably easier to balance.

Tetradic — a rectangle on the wheel

Four colours, two complementary pairs. The most flexible and the hardest to keep from looking chaotic.

Monochromatic

One hue at several lightness levels. Guaranteed to cohere; relies on contrast rather than hue to create hierarchy.

The 60-30-10 rule

A reliable starting distribution: 60% dominant colour, 30% secondary, 10% accent. Harmony gives you which colours; proportion gives you whether the result works.

Check the contrast

Harmonious does not mean readable. Two colours 120° apart can be perfectly balanced and still fail a contrast check when one is text on the other. Run any text-and-background pair through the contrast checker before committing to it.