What is color harmony?

Color harmony refers to colors that are pleasing to the eye because of their relationship on the color wheel. Complementary colors are opposite each other, analogous colors are adjacent, and triadic colors are evenly spaced.

How do I use these colors in CSS?

Click "Copy CSS Variables" to get all colors as CSS custom properties (--color-1, --color-2, etc.) that you can paste directly into your stylesheet.

What do the 50–900 shade numbers mean?

They are a lightness scale popularized by Tailwind and Material: 50 is near-white, 500 is the base brand color, and 900 is near-black. The numbering lets you reference consistent steps like bg-brand-100 or text-brand-700 across a design system.

Which shade should I use for text versus backgrounds?

Use dark shades (700–900) for text and light shades (50–200) for backgrounds so the pair clears WCAG AA contrast. 500 is the brand anchor for buttons, with 600 for hover and 700 for active or focus rings.

How do I add the palette to Tailwind?

Copy the Tailwind config export into theme.extend.colors, e.g. brand: { 50: ..., 500: ..., 900: ... }. Every utility (bg-brand-500, text-brand-700, border-brand-300) becomes available immediately.

Will the generated shades pass accessibility contrast?

The generator validates each shade against WCAG AA on white and dark backgrounds and flags the results, but always confirm the specific text and background pairs you actually use — passing in isolation does not guarantee every combination passes.

Why use HSL lightness curves instead of even RGB steps?

Stepping lightness evenly in RGB produces shades that look lopsided because human brightness perception is non-linear. HSL-based curves (with slight saturation adjustment) yield shades that look natural and evenly spaced to the eye.

Color Palette Generator — Create Harmonious Color

How to use Color Palette Generator

Generate a complete UI color palette from a single seed color — automatically creating 10 shades (50–900) similar to Tailwind CSS or Material Design. Export as CSS custom properties, Tailwind config, JSON, or SCSS variables. Use as the foundation for an entire design system or component library.

Enter your brand color as HEX or pick it with the color picker.
The tool generates 10 shades from near-white (50) to near-black (900) based on the seed.
Preview the shades against white and dark backgrounds to validate contrast.
Toggle the export format: CSS variables, Tailwind config, JSON, or SCSS.
Copy or download the output and paste it into your design system.

Your data never leaves your device — 100% private processing.

Shade generation methodology

The generator uses the seed color as the 500 anchor and derives lighter shades (50–400) by increasing lightness and decreasing saturation in HSL, and darker shades (600–900) by decreasing lightness with a slight saturation adjustment to maintain vibrancy. The approach mirrors the methodology used by Tailwind CSS (via the Culori library) and ensures shades look natural together rather than mechanically equidistant. Each shade is validated to meet WCAG AA contrast requirements against white (for dark shades) or dark-800 (for light shades) in the output.

Integrating with Tailwind CSS

Paste the exported Tailwind config into your tailwind.config.js under theme.extend.colors: { brand: { 50: "#f0fdfa", 100: "#ccfbf1", ... } }. All shade utilities (bg-brand-500, text-brand-700, border-brand-300) become available immediately. For consistency with Tailwind's built-in palettes, use the 500 shade as primary, 600 as hover, 700 as active/focus-ring, and 100/200 as subtle backgrounds in light mode. Swap to 400/300/900 for dark mode using the dark: variant.

Worked examples

Shades from a seed

Inputs: seed #3498db

Result: 10 shades 50→900; the 500 step equals the seed #3498db

Tailwind config export

Inputs: seed #3498db · Tailwind format

Result: brand: { 50: …, 500: "#3498db", 900: … }

Glossary

Shade: A darker variation of a color, produced by adding black or decreasing lightness.
Tint: A lighter variation of a color, produced by adding white or increasing lightness.
SCSS: Syntactically Awesome Style Sheets — a CSS preprocessor supporting variables, nesting, and functions.
Tailwind config: The tailwind.config.js file where custom colors, spacing, and other design tokens extend or override defaults.

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Color Palette Generator

How to use Color Palette Generator

Shade generation methodology

Integrating with Tailwind CSS

Worked examples

Glossary

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Frequently Asked Questions

Why use Color Palette Generator?

Common use cases

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